Gosenshu

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The Gosenshū ("Later Collection") was an imperial anthology of Japanese waka, compiled in 951 CE at the behest of Emperor Murakami, by the "Five Poets of the Pear-Jar Room": Onakatomi No Yoshinobu Ason (922-991, Kiyowara no Motosuke (908-990), Minamoto Shitago (911-983), Ki no Tokibumi (flourished ~950), and Sakanoe Mochiki (flourished ~950). It consists of twenty volumes containing 1,426 poems.

Its name "Later Collection" comes from the fact that the anthology is made up of primarily poems which were considered for inclusion in the Kokin-wakashu but which were ultimately rejected. Most of those poems were sub-par, and so this anthology is not regarded as being of especial merit, but is interesting because of the lengthy prose fictional settings (as narrated in head and foot-notes) for the poems.

[edit] Reference

• pg. 482-483 of Japanese Court Poetry, Earl Miner, Robert H. Brower. 1961, Stanford University Press, LCCN 61-10925