Research source

In many ways the tanka shows far more limitation than an English sonnet, and our verbose poets would do well to…

Date of account: Traditional material presented in a work published 1913
Source: Myths & Legends of Japan
Reference: Myths & Legends of Japan · selected passage 181
Rights: public_domain
Language: English retelling of Japanese traditions
Translation: F. Hadland Davis
Record updated: 2026-08-24

Record summary

In many ways the tanka shows far more limitation than an English sonnet, and our verbose poets would do well to practise a form that engenders suppression and delicately gives suggestion the supreme place

Published source text

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Source passage

Source text · mention only

In many ways the _tanka_ shows far more limitation than an English sonnet, and our verbose poets would do well to practise a form that engenders suppression and delicately gives suggestion the supreme place. It is surprising what music and sentiment are expressed within these limits. The _tanka_ is certainly brief in form, but it frequently suggests, with haunting insistency, that the fragment really has no end, when imagination seizes it and turns it into a thousand thousand lines. The _tanka_ belongs as much to Japan as Mount Fuji itself. One cannot regard it without thinking that a Japanese poet must essentially have all the finer instincts of an artist. In him the two arts seem inseparable. He must convey in five lines, in the most felicitous language at his disposal, the idea he wishes to express. That he does so with extraordinary success is beyond dispute. These brief poems are wonderfully characteristic of the Japanese people, for they have such a love for little things.

Historical context

Contextual commentary · mention only

This is a passage from a historical religious or interpretive text. Its genre, manuscript history, translation and place within its own tradition are part of the evidence and must remain visible.

Modern context

Contextual commentary · mention only

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