{{Short description|Japanese poetic diary by Ki no Tsurayuki}} {{italic title}} [[Image:Tosa nikki copied by Teika.JPG|thumb|''Tosa Nikki'' faithfully copied by Fujiwara no Teika (1162–1241) (Museum of the Imperial Collections)]] The {{Nihongo3|''Tosa Diary''|土佐日記|'''Tosa Nikki'''}} is a poetic diary written anonymously by the tenth-century Japanese poet Ki no Tsurayuki.<ref>Keene, Donald 1999. ''Seeds in the Heart: A History of Japanese Literature'', Volume 1. New York: Columbia University Press, p.361-366</ref> The text details a 55-day journey in 935 returning to Kyoto from Tosa province, where Tsurayuki had been the provincial governor. The prose account of the journey is punctuated by Japanese poems, purported to have been composed on the spot by the characters.
== Diary prose == The ''Tosa Nikki'' is the first notable example of the Japanese diary as literature. Until its time, the word "diary" ({{Transliteration|ja|nikki}}) denoted dry official records of government or family affairs, written by men in Sino-Japanese. By contrast, the ''Tosa Diary'' is written in the Japanese language, using phonetic ''kana'' characters. Literate men of the period wrote in both ''kana'' and ''kanji'', but women typically were not taught the latter, being restricted to ''kana'' literature. By framing the diary in the point of view of a fictitious female narrator, Tsurayuki could avoid employing Chinese characters or citing Chinese poems, focusing instead on the aesthetics of the Japanese language and its poetry.<ref>Matsumura, Seiichi et al, 1973. <cite>Nihon Koten Bungaku Zenshū v. 9</cite>. Tokyo: Shogakukan, introductory essay.</ref>
== Travel poetry == The ''Tosa Nikki'' is associated with travel poems (''kiryoka'') (such as those compiled in the ''Man'yōshū'') as well as the ''utamakura'' and ''utanikki''.<ref name=":0">{{Cite book|title=Matsuo Bash?'s Poetic Spaces: Exploring Haikai Intersections|last=Kerkham|first=Eleanor|date=2006|publisher=Palgrave Macmillan|isbn=9781349533886|location=New York|pages=62}}</ref> These texts constitute the Japanese travel journal, which—as a literary genre—is considered inseparable from poetry.<ref name=":0" /> These follow the tradition of weaving of poems and the use of introductory narratives written in a logical structure.<ref name=":1">{{Cite book|title=Basho and the Dao: The Zhuangzi and the Transformation of Haikai|url=https://archive.org/details/bashodaozhuangzi00qiup|url-access=limited|last=Qiu|first=Peipei|date=2005|publisher=University of Hawai'i Press|isbn=0824828453|location=Honolulu|pages=[https://archive.org/details/bashodaozhuangzi00qiup/page/n89 75]-76}}</ref> Like other poems in the genre, the Tosa Nikki also explored the significance of landscape as well poems written about it.<ref name=":1" /> Even the ''Tosa Nikki'' was also alluded to by other poems such as the ''maeku''.<ref>{{Cite book|title=Reading Japanese Haikai, Poetry: A Study in the Polyphony of Yosa Buson's Linked Poems|last=Jonsson|first=Herbert H.|date=2016|publisher=BRILL|isbn=9789004311183|location=Leiden|pages=35}}</ref>
The ''Tosa Nikki'' also implements fictional names of places to call on earlier and traditional Japanese texts. The usage of fictional names also allows a merge between fictional and autobiographical genres. By incorporating fictional elements with real scenery in both narration and poems, ''Tosa Nikki'' allows allusions to previous works and conveys different images and significance to those already popular locations.<ref name="Heldt 2019 17–44">{{Cite journal| last=Heldt| first=Gustav| date=2019| title=Liquid Landscapes: Tosa Nikki's Pioneering Poetic Contribution to the Travelogue Prose | journal=Japan Review| issue=32|url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/26652948| pages=17–44| jstor=26652948}}</ref>
==Locations in ''Tosa Nikki''== Below are the dates and locations the narrator travelled to. The dates are written according to the lunar calendar.<ref>:ja:%E5%9C%9F%E4%BD%90%E6%97%A5%E8%A8%98</ref>{{Circular reference|date=April 2022}}
{| class="wikitable" |- ! Date !! Areas Visited !! Current Day Location |- | 21st day of the 12th month || Kokufu (Depart)|| Around Nankoku city, Kochi prefecture |- | 21st-26th day of the 12th month || Otsu || Otsu, Kochi city, Kochi prefecture |- | 27th day of the 12th month || Urado || Urado, Kochi city, Kochi prefecture |- | 29th day of the 12th month || Ominato || Maehama, Shikoku city, Kochi prefecture |- | 9th day of the 1st month || Uta no Matsubura || Around Kishimoto, Konan city, Kochi prefecture |- | 10th day of the 1st month || Naha no tomari ||Nahari town, Aki district, Kochi prefecture |- | 11th day of the 1st month || Hane || Hane town, Muroto city, Kochi prefecture |- | 12th day of the 1st month || Murotsu|| Murotsu, Muroto city, Kochi prefecture |- | 29th day of the 1st month || Tosa no Tomari|| Narutochotosadomariura, Naruto city, Tokushima prefecture |- | 30th day of the 1st month || Awa no Mito || Narutokaikyo |- | " || Nushima || Nushima, Minamiawaji city, Hyogo prefecture |- | " || Izumo no Nada || (Southwestern Osaka) |- | 1st day of the 2nd month|| Kurosaki no Matsubara || Tannowa, Sennangun Misaki town, Osaka prefecture |- | " || Hako no Ura || Hakonoura, Hannan city, Osaka prefecture |- | 5th day of the 2nd month || Ishizu || Hanadera, Sakai city, Osaka prefecture |- | " || Sumiyoshi || Hanadera, Sakai city, Osaka prefecture |- | 6th day of the 2nd month || Naniwa || Osaka city, Osaka prefecture |- | 8th day of the 2nd month || Torigahi no mimaki || Torikai, Settsu city, Osaka prefecture |- | 9th day of the 2nd month || Nagisa no In || Nagisamoto town, Hirakata city, Osaka prefecture |- | " || Udono || Udono, Takatsuki city, Osaka prefecture |- | 11th day of the 2nd month || Hachiman no miya || Iwashimizuhachimanngu |- | " || Yamazaki || Otokunigun oyamazaki town, Kyoto Prefecture |- | 16th day of the 2nd month || Shimazaki || Otou street, Kamiueno town, Mukou city, Kyoto prefecture |- | " || Kyo (Arrival to the Capital) || Kyoto City, Kyoto Prefecture |}
==Themes== === Grief === The loss of a child and a grieving parent are frequently mentioned by the narrator and the many that accompany the journey. For example, on the 27th of the 12th month, it referenced "a parent [who] was lost in grief for an absent child" with the poem accompanying the day also written about "one among us who will not be going home".<ref>{{Cite book|title=Classical Japanese Prose: An Anthology|last=McCullough|first=Helen Craig|date=1991|publisher=Stanford University Press|isbn=9780804719605|location=California|pages=71–103}}</ref> This suggests that the child had passed recently or during the journey. Another example can be found on the 5th day of the 2nd month, as the grieving mother composes her own poem and expresses her pain and unwillingness to forget about her child.<ref>----, pp. 95-96.</ref> An interpretation can be that the child is still among the group spiritually, and the mother's grief is the emotional attachment keeping the child from moving on.<ref name="Heldt 2019 17–44"/>
It is speculated that Ki no Tsurayuki has lost a child during this time, and alluded to his and his family's grief through various characters the narrator encounters.<ref name="Heldt 2019 17–44"/><ref>{{cite journal |last=Heldt |first=Gustav |date=2005 |title= Writing Like a Man: Poetic Literacy, Textual Property, and Gender in the Tosa Diary|url=https://www.proquest.com/docview/230387967|volume= 64| issue=1 |pages= 7–34|id={{ProQuest|230387967}} }}</ref>
==References== {{Ibid|date=April 2024}}{{Wikisource|Tosa Nikki}}{{Reflist}}
==External links== * {{librivox book | title=The Tosa Diary | author=no Tsurayuki KI}} Heldt, Gustav. Navigating Narratives: Tsurayuki's Tosa Diary as History and Fiction. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Asia Center, 2024. https://www.hup.harvard.edu/catalog.php?isbn=9780674295827
{{Japanese poetry}} {{Authority control}}
Category:Works set in the 10th century Category:10th-century Japanese books Category:10th-century poems Category:Diaries Category:Heian period in literature Category:Japanese poems Category:Late Old Japanese texts Category:Travel books Category:935 Category:930s in Japan Category:Ki no Tsurayuki Category:Diaries of the Heian period
{{poem-stub}}