Shōtetsu

Shōtetsu ( Japanese 正徹 , real name: Komatsu Masakiyo 松月招月 , priest name: Seigan ( 清巌 ); * 1381 in Oda ; † June 9, 1459 in Kyoto ) was a Japanese tanka poet and Buddhist monk.

Shōtetsu was born into a samurai family and came to Kyōto as a child. At the age of thirteen he met the poets Imawaga Ryōshun and Reizei Tametada and became Imawaga's pupil. At the age of seventeen he entered the Kofuku-ji temple in Nara.

From 1417 he stayed in the Zen Buddhist temple Tōfuku-ji in Kyoto. As a poet in the Fujiwara no Teika tradition , he is considered the last important medieval representative of the Tanka poetry. He was a prolific writer. Although 20,000 of his poems were lost in a fire, more than 11,000 poems have survived in the Sōkonshū ( 草根集 ) collection . His literary theoretical treatise Shōtetsu monogatari ( 正徹物語 ) appeared around 1450 .

Individual evidence

↑ Shōtetsu. In: Encyclopedia Britannica. Retrieved January 30, 2012 (English).
↑ murmured conversations: a treatise on poetry and Buddhism . Stanford University Press, Stanford 2008, ISBN 978-0-8047-4863-6 ( limited preview in Google Book Search).
↑ 正徹 . In: デジタル版日本人名大辞典 + Plus at kotobank.jp. Kodansha, 2009, accessed January 30, 2012 (Japanese).

personal data
SURNAME	Shōtetsu
ALTERNATIVE NAMES	正徹 (Japanese); Komatsu Masakiyo (real name); Seigan (name of the priest); 清巌 (priest name, Japanese)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION	Japanese poet
DATE OF BIRTH	1381
PLACE OF BIRTH	Oda (Okayama)
DATE OF DEATH	June 9, 1459
Place of death	Kyoto

[1] Shōtetsu. In: Encyclopedia Britannica. Retrieved January 30, 2012 (English).

[2] urmured conversations: a treatise on poetry and Buddhism . Stanford University Press, Stanford 2008, ISBN 978-0-8047-4863-6 ( limited preview in Google Book Search).

[3] 正徹 . In: デジタル版日本人名大辞典 + Plus at kotobank.jp. Kodansha, 2009, accessed January 30, 2012 (Japanese).