Yamato Monogatari

Yamato Monogatari (大和物語^?, "Tales of Yamato") is a collection of 173 short stories which give details about life in the Imperial court in the 9th and 10th centuries.

It is an uta monogatari (a work combining narrative fiction with waka poetry) from the 10th-century Japan. The exact date of the completion of the text is unknown, but the majority of the text was completed in the year 951 by an unknown author.

The Ise Monogatari had a strong influence on the composition of Yamato Monogatari, one that can be seen in the fact that some of the same tales appear in both works. The appearance of many historical figures and the absence of a single main character are characteristics of this text.

The poems in Yamato Monogatari were written in a time when Japanese literature and art was flourishing, after having stopped communications with China. Deciding that the declining Tang Dynasty was no longer worth communicating with, Japan became increasingly more conscious of its own culture through literary and artistic works such as poetry. During the early ninth century, nearly all literary works were Chinese, but by the end of the 10th century, nearly all the best literary works were done purely in Japanese. In addition, waka poetry was becoming more popular as opposed to classical Chinese poetry, even though at first it was as if Japanese styled poetry had never existed.

At the beginning of the Heian period, waka poetry was almost never practiced due to the popularity of Chinese poetry. It was at its lowest point in history some time between 800 – 850. Waka poetry did not begin to rise in popularity until 850 – 890, where it was revived by a group of six poets who would be later known as the Six Poetic Geniuses. At the same time, waka poetry was also being used in many court activities such as poetry contests. In 951, the establishment of the wakadokoro, or Poetry Bureau, and the compilation of the Gosen Wakashū helped to promote the creation of poems and poem anthologies such as Yamato Monogatari. At the same time, the development of the kana system of writing also helped to further Japanese literature by presenting a way through which Japanese phonetics may be written and read. It was with this writing system that the many tales and poems of Yamato Monogatari were written.

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