Utsunomiya Yoritsuna (宇都宮頼綱) was a Japanese samurai and waka poet of the early Kamakura period.[1][2]

Utsunomiya Yoritsuna by Utagawa Sadahide

Family

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His father was Utsunomiya Naritsuna (宇都宮成綱).[1] He married a daughter of Hōjō Tokimasa.[1][2]

After entering Buddhist orders, he took the name Renshō (蓮生),[1][2] and was also known as Ogura Nyūdō (小倉入道, "the monk of Ogura").[1]

Poetry

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He was a close friend of Fujiwara no Teika[1][2] and his daughter married Teika's son Tameie.[3][4] He is also said to have commissioned Teika's compilation of the Ogura Hyakunin Isshu.[4][5] The collection was originally prepared (in a slightly different form to the present Ogura Hyakunin Isshu) to decorate screens (屏風歌, byōbu-uta, "screen-poems") in Yoritsuna's Mt. Ogura residence in the Saga district of Kyoto.[4][6]

He was the head of one of the chief poetic houses of the Kamakura period.[4]

References

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  1. ^ a b c d e f Britannica Kokusai Dai-hyakkajiten article "Utsunomiya Yoritsuna". 2007. Britannica Japan Co.
  2. ^ a b c d Digital Daijisen entry "Utsunomiya Yoritsuna". Shogakukan.
  3. ^ Keene 1999 : 738 (note 28).
  4. ^ a b c d McMillan 2010 : xxv.
  5. ^ Shinshu University Faculty of Arts Japanese Literature Course Outline. December 2009.
  6. ^ Suzuki et al. 2009 : 2.

Bibliography

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  • Keene, Donald (1999). A History of Japanese Literature, Vol. 1: Seeds in the Heart — Japanese Literature from Earliest Times to the Late Sixteenth Century. New York: Columbia University Press. ISBN 978-0-231-11441-7.
  • McMillan, Peter (2010). One Hundred Poets, One Poem Each. New York: Columbia University Press. ISBN 978-0-231-14399-8.
  • Suzuki, Hideo; Yamaguchi, Shin'ichi; Yoda, Yasushi (2009). Genshoku: Ogura Hyakunin Isshu. Tokyo: Bun'eidō. ISBN 978-4-578-10082-9.