Il Kindai shūka e lo Eiga taigai di Fujiwara no Teika. Un’analisi contrastiva

Fujiwara no Teika was a pivotal figure in classical Japanese poetry not only
because of the many high-level poems he wrote or of the imperial anthologies he edited,
but also because of his poetic treatises. In this paper, I will examine two of them: Kindai
shūka (Superior Poems of Recent Times, 1209) and Eiga taigai (Fundamentals of Poetic
Composition, after 1221). They both present a theoretical introduction followed by a selection
of outstanding poems to be taken as examples by those who want to learn how to
compose waka. The key feature of the anthology parts is to be found in the organisation
of the poems, since they follow an order that respects the principles of association and
of progression typical of the anthologies and of the sequences of the time. In this paper,
I will compare these two treatises, with a focus on their similarities and differences. I will
also try to understand, in the absence of explanatory notes by the author himself, what
motivations might have induced the poet to modify what was stated in the introductory
part and to reorganise the selection of the poems.