Utamakura, allusion, and intertextuality in traditional Japanese poetry /

In its strictest sense, utamakura refers to early handbooks containing helpful lists of specific lexical terms suitable for use in waka (Japanese poems). More commonly, the word indicates the stuff of those lists, especially the names and physical locations of places considered most appropriate as settings for poems. In this impressive study, Kamens (Yale) examines the use of utamakura over a vast span of waka history and in a wide variety of sites within the poetic corpus. He has chosen his topic well, for through it he is able to carry the reader to the heart of what is most salient about Japanese verse, specifically its espousal of a deliberately limited lexicon and its heavy use of allusion and intertextuality. Frequently experienced as repetitive and unoriginal by Westerners, these features are, as Kamens demonstrates, the means by which waka afforded its practitioners a sense of participating in an ongoing, seemingly timeless continuum of meaning. The study takes on an additional vitality in its second half when Kamens moves from a focused involvement with the poetic texts to consider intriguing social practices related to utamakura. Upper-division undergraduates through faculty. S. M. Strong; Bates College