Exploring the World of Waka Expression
through Japanese-Chinese Comparison

Excellent literary works hold rich meaning and depth within a limited number of words. Waka, although composed of only thirty-one syllables, has formed a refined world of expression that gives delicate shape to nature, emotion, memory, history, and the accumulation of culture. My research begins with a careful reading of how such language works and how literary expression is created.
My main research interest is the way Heian-period waka, especially poems in the Kokin Wakashū, encountered Chinese classical literature, received it, and reshaped it into new forms of expression. The language of waka does not simply borrow from earlier Chinese poetry and prose. Rather, it brings together multiple textual sources and cultural backgrounds, and through this process, it develops its own distinctive beauty.
A close reading of waka shows that even a very short poem can contain far more than themes of love or the seasons. It can also reflect ritual, politics, faith, and contact with other cultures. To examine this layered quality and to explain the appeal of these works in words is both challenging and rewarding. Through this work, I hope to deepen our understanding of waka and to consider Japanese literature within the broader context of cultural exchange in East Asia.