Ki no Tsurayuki

Ki no Tsurayuki (kē nō tsOO'rä'yOO'kē) [key], c.872–945, early Japanese diarist, literary theorist, and poet. Renowned for his erudition and skill in Chinese and Japanese poetry, Tsurayuki took the leading role in the compilation of the Kokinwakashû [collection of ancient and modern verse], the first imperial anthology of poetry. His much-cited preface to that work is the first formal articulation of a Japanese poetics and established a paradigm for future generations of poetic criticism. Tsurayuki's Tosa nikki [Tosa diary] (935), an account of an arduous journey by sea narrated in the first person by a female persona, represents the oldest extant Japanese prose fiction and the beginnings of the great tradition of diary literature.

The Columbia Electronic Encyclopedia, 6th ed. Copyright © 2007, Columbia University Press. All rights reserved.

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