16 Facts About Nobutsuna Sasaki

Nobutsuna Sasaki was a tanka poet and scholar of the Nara and Heian periods of Japanese literature.

Nobutsuna Sasaki was active during the Showa period of Japan.

Nobutsuna Sasaki was considered a child prodigy, and his father, Sasaki Hirotsuna, taught him the basics of poetry composition and encouraged him to memorize classical tanka verses.

In 1894 Nobutsuna Sasaki published a lengthy patriotic poem Shina seibatsu no Uta, on the occasion of the start of the First Sino-Japanese War.

Nobutsuna Sasaki founded a literary society called the Chikuhakukai, which published a literary journal, Kokoro no Hana from 1898.

In 1902, Nobutsuna Sasaki made a visit to China, travelling up the Yangtze River and visiting Hangzhou and Suzhou.

Nobutsuna Sasaki eventually published an additional eleven collections of tanka, which included Shingetsu, Toyohata gumo, and Yama to mizu to.

In recognition of these efforts, Nobutsuna Sasaki was offered the post of lecturer at Tokyo Imperial University in 1905, and was officially commissioned by the Ministry of Education to work on a modern commentary to the Man'yoshu.

Nobutsuna Sasaki worked together with his father on these efforts, and published a comprehensive survey of medieval waka.

Nobutsuna Sasaki later led a team of scholars which published a concordance of the Man'yoshu, which is the accepted basis for modern Man'yoshu studies.

In 1934, Nobutsuna Sasaki was made a member of the prestigious Imperial Academy.

Nobutsuna Sasaki was the first person to be awarded the Order of Culture by the Japanese government in 1937 and became a member of the Japan Art Academy that year.

Nobutsuna Sasaki was appointed purveyor of poetry to the Imperial Family, and a judge at the annual Utakai Hajime poetry reading contests.

Nobutsuna Sasaki was a tutor to Empress Teimei and other members of the imperial household on the composition of poetry.

Nobutsuna Sasaki relocated from Tokyo to Kamakura, Kanagawa prefecture in 1921, where he lived to his death in 1963.

Nobutsuna Sasaki maintained a residence at Atami, Shizuoka, a hot spring resort further down the coast.