How to Establish a Poetic School in Early Medieval Japan: Fujiwara no Shunzei's Man'yōshū Jidaikō

Fujiwara no Shunzei introduced his poetic school, the Mikohidari, to the waka world with the composition of his first poetic commentary, Man'yōshū jidaikō. Shunzei intended the text to demonstrate his expertise on Man'yōshū, the earliest extant collection of Japanese poetry, which had started to attract greater attention in early medieval Japan. The text fit into Shunzei's larger agenda of taking over power in the poetic world from the Man'yōshū specialists of the Rokujo school, with which he had already been in open conflict. It helped him to promote his new school, which would later become the driving force behind waka development.