| Summary: | This thesis aims to offer a scholarly approach to the poetics of Princess Shokushi,
one of Japan’s most celebrated and influential female poets of the pre-modem era.
Princess Shokushi is generally regarded as a poet of imagination, mainly because she
wrote a number of passionate love poems despite her lifelong celibacy, imposed on her
by her position as imperial princess. While some scholars conclude that Shokushi’s
poetry came from her mastery of the traditional craft and a vigorous poetic imagination,
others see her poetry as the personal expression of her innermost feelings and life
experiences. Focusing on this controversy over whether or not her poetry is, in fact,
based on real life experiences or merely invented—which some claim she did by
exploiting the poetic conventions of the Japanese male poets of the day—this paper
explores Shokushi’s distinctive poetic expression through her use of the literary
technique called honka-dori, allusive variation. This research pays special attention to
the poems that allude to The Tale ofGenii and reveals how Shokushi’s frequent allusions
to this tale and its characters signal her profound interest in the story beyond the
conventional literary trends of her time. Shokushi often refers to the specific female
characters in her poems—Oigimi, Ukifune, and Lady Murasaki—, abandoned imperial
princesses, whose lack of strong family support leaves them in close confinement deep in
the mountains. By examining Shokushi’s poetry in the contexts of this narrative,
ultimately, this paper will show how, in alluding to these female characters, Shokushi not
only furthers her own image as an isolated imperial princess, but also throws light on
these female characters’ inner sufferings, which are unknown to the male characters with
whom they associate.
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