Talk:Tanka

Tanka/Waka move

I moved Tanka to Waka since there is no waka article then and it seems appreciate to discuss choka and takan at once in waka article. They may deserve to their own article, but tanka article is still very short, so I think it's fine for now. --Taku 02:41, 12 Sep 2003 (UTC)

We also need an article on English-language tanka poetry. Right now somebody has included way too much of Jane and Werner Reichhold without balancing it with important works by others authors and editors. Further, tanka in English has certain issues that deserve discussion, such as the various theories on how to adapt the tanka form to the English-language. Sadly, I do not understand how to start a new page, or I would. Kujakupoet (talk) 05:17, 17 August 2008 (UTC)

Hey Kujakupoet! I have gone ahead and created the article at Tanka in English. If you have time, please add to it and help build it up to the standard of Haiku in English. elvenscout742 (talk) 16:27, 16 September 2012 (UTC)

Choka translation request

Would it be possible please to translate the choka cited for those of us less able to read kanji? --Andycjp12th July 2004

Modern Japanese tanka revival and Tawara Machi?

I will admit that I don't know that much about modern Japanese tanka, but I wonder about this statement in the text: "The modern revival of tanka took place under the wing of contemporary poet Tawara Machi." Isn't Tawara Machi really just a continuation of the revival of the tanka form started at the beginning of the 20th century by Yosano Akiko and her husband-editor Yosano Tekkan, and others including Masaoka Shiki?

For a poetry form that has such a very long history, it looks like it is going to take lots of work to do it justice. ;-) --gK 09 October 2004

Article editing discusion #1

Agreed; I added some names. As for this section I think now it became a bit redundant. How about moving the description of its historical development away and merge Historical development in the below, and keeping this section only with the form and naming convention information? Reference to renga should be kept and perhaps reference to kyoka will be useful. --Aphaea 08:38, 1 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Yes, the Tanka section probably has too much history right now and should be just a description of the form, and then the tanka history moved down to the Historical Development section.

On tanka history: The modern-era revival of tanka probably started with Yosano Tekkan and the poets that were associated with his Myōjō magazine, but that magazine was fairly short-lived, and Masaoka Shiki's poems and writing (as well as the work of his friends and disciples) have had a more lasting influence.

The Historical Development section really needs some subsections. I don't know how the Japanese divide things. In Donald Keene's books, He uses four large categories: 1) Early and Heian Literature (Kojiki to past 'The Tale of Genji' to 1185) 2) The Middle Ages ('chūsei' from 1185, including the Kamakura and Muromachi Periods) 3) Pre-Modern Era (1600-1867, then subdivided into 1600-1770 and 1770-1867) 4) Modern Era (post 1867, divided into Meiji (1868-1912), Taishô (1912-1926) and Shôwa (from 1927)).

As for Kyōka, it would be nice if it and Chōka could both also have their own articles eventually (and also one specifically for Tanka, so that the Waka article becomes an overview article for all japanese poetry not written in Chinese). I just checked -- there isn't an article yet on Kanshi. There is one for Renga.

I'm still searching for them, but other tanka/waka/renga poets (not including haiku poets) that already have wikipedia articles or stubs include, Hagiwara Sakutaro, Ishikawa Takuboku, Ito Sachio, Kakinomoto Hitomaro, Kamo no Chomei, Kitahara Hakushu, Kukai, Kenji Miyazawa, Mori Ogai, Motoori Norinaga, Murasaki Shikibu, Nagatsuka Takashi, Okamoto Kanoko, Otomo no Yakamochi, Ryōkan, Takeshi Kitano, Tsuji Jun, Ueda Akinari, Wakayama Bokusui, plus an article on Death poems. --gK 10:36, 1 Nov 2004 (UTC)

I did some fixup on the Waka article, correcting some typos and changing some of the wording. There is still more to do, because every time that I look at it I find more. Unfortunately I am not a natural editor. The next time I work on a long article I will: 1) print it out 2) run the text through a spell checker. Both of those steps should make editing a little easier.  ;-) --gK 12:40, 1 Nov 2004 (UTC)

I agree with your descrption on modern revival ; Keen's categories seems to me to have a sense and he is not so far from Japanese scholars. I'll move your listed poets to famous waka poets and try to merge your draft. But I'm not a native English speaker, please don't feel ill if I harmed your cool draft. Cheers. --Aphaea 14:22, 1 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Article editing discusion #2

As for the list of famous waka poets, we probably don't want that to get too long, and some of the ones that I listed are not necessarily that famous or important,but just ones that already had Wikipedia articles or stubs. What might be a good idea is create two columns, one of pre-Meiji waka poets, and another of modern tanka poets. The other choice might be to create an annotated list to explain why a person is on the list. (Here is an example for someone who currently doesn't even have a stub and certainly deserves a full article: Fujiwara Teika (1162 - 1241) Compiler of the 8th and 9th Imperial anthologies, as well as Hyakunin Isshu. Should the list be chronological, or alphabetical?

Agreed. The list should be downsized particularly for readability. We will make a category of waka poets or two lists List of waka poets and List of tanka poets. IMHO it would be friendly for newbies our list on this article provide readers with from five to seven poets per an epoch; so we have from 20 to 28 names at last. --Aphaea.

Schnolle: Maybe it's me, but I don't think that the poems need to be set off with the double lines. I really liked the look after the poems were set up in the three columns, but adding the double lines for me makes it look like a break in the text for a new section or something.

You're right, I'll remove them. I put them there because I felt it would look nice to have it stand out more clearly; using vertical space probably will do just fine. Haven't seen many other examples of poems in WP... --Schnolle 12:06, 2 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Aphaea: Don't worry about your English -- I am mostly only making minor corrections such as missing articles ("the" and "a"), for example. I only know English and Spanglish (a mangled amalgam of English and Spanish sometimes spoken here in Southern California). --gK 03:41, 2 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Thanks for your encouragement. Your corrections are always appliciated by me. --Aphaea 12:43, 2 Nov 2004 (UTC)

I just noticed that the historical divisions for the Waka article pretty much match those used in the Japanese literature article, except that they have "Ancient Literature (pre-8th Century)" and "Classical Literature (8th Century - 12th Century)", where the Waka "Ancient" section covers both periods. --gK 09:33, 2 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Translation copyrighted?

Hmmm... I just consciously saw the copyright mark on the Choka for the first time... Doesn't this mean that this particular translation is ineligble to be included in Wikipedia? i.e., isn't it a Copyvio? --Schnolle 18:11, 1 Nov 2004 (UTC)

I think those quotations are allowed as fair use (enough short, necessary to be quoted). But if not, we should make it original translations. --Aphaea 23:00, 1 Nov 2004 (UTC)

It's one small poem out of just under 1,000 pages. It's part of a critical discussion. It is for educational purposes. It might induce some Wikipedia users to consider purchasing the book since the full book description and ISBN is included in the Resources section. For all of those reasons I think that the use of the translation of the poem qualifies as "fair use" according to US copyright law. [Unfortunately, everything that I looked up on Wikipedia "fair use" policy was only for images, so I'm not sure how to handle the "fair use" of text on the Wikipedia.]

If the copyright notice is the problem, I don't think that it is necessary since anything that isn't explicitely released into the public domain is copyrighted. I was mostly concerned that the translator gets proper credit. I've seen several translations on the wikipedia without credit, and I don't think that is right. (e.g. haiku)

Generally, the max is 50 words, or less than a 1/3 of the article/work-it-is-being-used-in. Or so I am assured by those more knowledgeable in copyright. --Maru (talk) Contribs 01:49, 8 November 2005 (UTC)

Spell-check

I just ran this article through a spell-checker (I recently installed the SpellBound extension for the Firefox browser--it's slow, but it works). --[[User:GK|gK ¿?]] 03:13, 25 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Page move request

When this page was first moved to Waka, there were no other articles with this name. Unfortunately, "waka" is also the name of a type of canoe - the primary means of transport among many Pacific Island peoples - and is the principle form of tribal grouping among Maori (who trace their ancestry back to whichever waka first brought them to New Zealand). As such, I repeatedly have to replace links from articles relating to Maori history which erroneously lead to this article on Japanese poetry rather than to waka (canoe).

I realise that the number of correct links to the page on Japanese poetry outnumber those to Maori waka by a large factor (122 to 38, to be precise), but the numbers for the two subjects are both high enough that it seems to me it would make more sense to have the disambiguation page at Waka and the poetry page at Waka (poetry). I'm considering formally requesting this at Requested Moves, but thought it would be more diplomatic to suggest it here first, to see if there's support for this without having to go through the rigmarole of official channels. Grutness...wha? 07:58, 15 May 2006 (UTC)

Since there's been no objection in nearly a month, I'm moving the pages. Grutness...wha? 09:38, 8 June 2006 (UTC)

Sijo as ancestor ?

The sijo article seems to imply that waka is derived from sijo. Is this true, arguable, false, misleading or what? Kdammers 07:00, 27 August 2007 (UTC)

I don't think so, and never heard, but I am not surprised either. Korean nationalists nowadays claim anything created from Japan rooted in Korea. In my opinion such unsourced claim are better to remove or at least "it is claimed that .... by [source]", since it should be a minority opinion, not a significant minority. --Aphaia 10:51, 29 August 2007 (UTC)

No. The sijo is not the ancestor of the Japanese waka/tanka. While there are various theories of its origin, it is accepted as an indigenous Japanese form. It most likely derives from the song contests of the pre-literate period, perhaps via the sedoka (six line poem), or perhaps via the choka (where the hanka or envoi evolved to become an independent entity). Cranston is a good source to consult and quote for the earliest tanka. Kujakupoet (talk) 05:21, 17 August 2008 (UTC)

Recent edits ('genre' and 'originally encompassed' vs. 'encompasses')

"Genre" does not necessarily imply thematic cohesion, as editor Shooklyn claims in his edit summary, after twice changing the opening sentence from
"Waka (和歌) or Yamato uta is a genre of Japanese poetry" to
"Waka (和歌) or Yamato uta is a generic name for Japanese poetry". The latter version cannot be true, since 'waka' as a genre is distinguished from kanshi and renga, two other Japanese poetic genres. 'Genre' implies that there is some sort of unity, be it formal, technical, thematic or other.

The second paragraph sketches the history of the use of the term, beginning with its original comprehensive inclusion of most courtly Japanese-language forms, and concluding with the current situation whereby 'waka' is practically synonymous with 'tanka'. Thus it makes no sense to change
"the term waka originally encompassed a number of differing styles" to "the word waka encompasses a number of differing styles".

Given that the above-mentioned edits have been made twice, I would hope the editor in question will engage in this discussion, before attempting any further reversion. Any other editors have positions on these questions? Thanks. --Yumegusa (talk) 12:45, 24 November 2008 (UTC)

Two things to note about this page:

1. The formulation of waka as a "genre" of Japanese poetry.

a. The word genre, when taken into the field of literary studies, refers not just to form (tanka, sedoka...) but also implies thematic cohesion of pieces (e.g. warrior ballads, love songs, etc.).

b. Since "waka" literally means "Japanese poetry" it cannot by default just be a genre.

2. You site many valuable sources such as Brower&Miner, Cranston and McCullough, but where did you get that:

a. waka is a "genre"?

b. it only refers to tanka now? (E.g. Choka was still written in late Heian, cf. Nun Abutsu for instance.)

Based on the above-listed premises I suggest changing the formulation a bit:

Waka (lit. "Japanese poetry"和歌) is a generic term that comprises several forms of traditional Japanese poetry.... The name presupposes its distinct identity from kanshi漢詩, i.e. "poetry in classical Chinese". In modernity, it is also contrasted with poems in Japanese written according to the Western poetic forms.

[or something like that.]

Hope this helps, Shooklyn —Preceding unsigned comment added by Shooklyn (talk • contribs) 09:07, 25 November 2008 (UTC)

Thanks for the response. I'm travelling all week, so will not be in a position to respond in detail till the weekend. However, for the interim, please note

• 1a On what do you base your contention that 'genre' must imply thematic cohesion? Cohesion can be based on many things; in this case it is based on poetic forms all being courtly poetry penned in Japanese.
• 1b The literal meaning of the term has no necessary relevance to the actual meaning.
• 2 My statements are based on text in the sources (that's what citations are for). Do you dispute that the sources support the statements, or have you not bothered to check? The late Heian is not 'now'.

I've no doubt we can arrive at a consensual text, but let's not rush at it. In reaching consensus, it would be helpful if other interested editors expressed their views on these matters.--Yumegusa (talk) 21:27, 25 November 2008 (UTC)

---

Thank you for your response, Yumegusa.

If you note, I do not question your sources, but I just would like you to refer me to any source among those listed (or elsewhere) that describes "waka" as a "genre". I agree that the term "genre" may refer to many groupings, but in case of poetry, genre refers to thematic variations PRIMARILY. One way of thinking about it is take Japanese poetry in general as a unified entity (if such is indeed the case, and not just a modern construct... a whole different story, I don't want to go into just now). Then, what follows is, Japanese poetry is divided into different forms: some modern, some archaic, some major, some minor, etc. Then, the next sublevel is genre, that is thematically arranged groupings of poems. For instance, in any chokusenshu　勅撰集, we have many such genres as seasons, love, religious poetry, etc. Without a clear division into Form/genre/subgenre the word "genre" becomes a "dummy category" devoid of meaning. Is waka a genre? A genre of what? Please get back to this discussion with source citations such as where and when is "waka" presented as a genre. Shooklyn

---

—Preceding unsigned comment added by Shooklyn (talk • contribs) 23:12, 25 November 2008 (UTC)

Please read the article text, where you will see a footnote linked to the statement, "Waka... is a genre of Japanese poetry" providing the source where waka is described as a 'genre': Kawashima, Terry. Writing Margins: The Textual Construction of Gender in Heian and Kamakura Japan, Harvard University Press, ISBN 9780674005167, p.198. Is there some way I can make this clearer?

I don't agree with your stratification of genre at a lower level than form. For example, isn't it the case that haikai is a genre which contains multiple forms? Seasons, Love, Lamentations, etc. are themes, which may be included within a form, e.g. tanka or renku, so by your logic one could state that the tanka form includes many genres. Is all of this WP:OR? If not, then please provide citations.--Yumegusa (talk) 23:37, 25 November 2008 (UTC)

---

Thank you for the link, Yumegusa. As for haikai, wouldn't you agree that haikai is "a combination of comic playfulness and spiritual depth" (cf. wiki), which precisely characterizes it as a distinct genre with several forms. The relationship of form and genre is tricky, I admit. But why make it ambiguous in case of waka, which as the wiki has it, is associated with a form: tanka. Since the Kokinshu preface, written by Ki no Tsurayuki, waka seems to clearly imply 31-syllable form written in Classical Japanese, as opposed to kanshi. Tsurayuki tries to tweak 6 genres into waka based on the Chinese models (with an arguable success). I am not convinced about the usefulness of the word "genre" in our case. However, I shall look up Kawashima to see how he presents it. As for my approach, I follow the line of Hirsch, E.D. (1967) Validity in Interpretation. New Haven: Yale U Press. Cf. Chapter 3, "Concept of Genre". Excerpt: "Every shared type of meaning [genre] can be defined as a system of conventions." (p. 92) summarizes my point well, I think, i.e., form is one thing, genre is another. Shooklyn

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—Preceding unsigned comment added by Shooklyn (talk • contribs) 05:54, 26 November 2008 (UTC)

No-one is claiming that form and genre are the same thing. The statement "Every shared type of meaning can be defined as a system of conventions" merely states the obvious. What is its relevance to your point? Indeed, what is your point? Please say on-topic. --Yumegusa (talk) 22:21, 26 November 2008 (UTC)

---

Well, then. I am relieved. For some time I have naively assumed that your "'Genre' implies that there is some sort of unity, be it formal, technical, thematic or other." sought to equate form and genre. In other words, my point is very simple: Explain what you mean by genre in your formulation to the reader, NOT to me for I am getting weary of your "stating the obvious" thing and alike. If it is indeed so obvious, then why do you not include who and when coined the term "waka". Did it even apply to the Man'yoshu and its various forms? If so, SOURCE, SVP.

Next, I have checked your source, and it can hardly be called the one that focuses on "waka" per se. Cheers.

---

—Preceding unsigned comment added by Shooklyn (talk • contribs) 06:17, 27 November 2008 (UTC)

This talk page is not a chat forum, and the conversation above appears to have lost direction and become a waste of resources. If you have not done so, please read WP's editing guidelines, and feel free to edit accordingly.--Yumegusa (talk) 21:58, 27 November 2008 (UTC)

Genre again

Nice editing of the opening, Shooklyn. While I doubt anyone is likely to challenge your statement that waka is "one of the major genres of Japanese literature", using the back cover of Ueda's book is less than ideal. I don't have access to the book here, but it's unclear from your wording "(back cover excerpt)" whether you are (1) referring to an excerpt from the text of the book, which appears on the back cover, or you are (2) referring to an excerpt from the back cover. If the former, then wouldn't it be preferable to refer the reader to the page that the excerpt is taken from? If the latter, then it's arguable how useful the reference is, since a cover blurb is very unlikely to have been written by the author.--Yumegusa (talk) 18:11, 28 November 2008 (UTC)

Nomination of Quintain (poetry) for deletion

A discussion is taking place as to whether the article Quintain (poetry) is suitable for inclusion in Wikipedia according to Wikipedia's policies and guidelines or whether it should be deleted.

The article will be discussed at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Quintain (poetry) until a consensus is reached, and anyone is welcome to contribute to the discussion. The nomination will explain the policies and guidelines which are of concern. The discussion focuses on good quality evidence, and our policies and guidelines.

Users may edit the article during the discussion, including to improve the article to address concerns raised in the discussion. However, do not remove the article-for-deletion template from the top of the article.

I've posted this notice here as it may be of interest to editors of this article because, according to Quintain (poetry), waka is a type of quintain. --gråb whåt you cån (talk) 17:02, 8 June 2011 (UTC)

Manyogana, kana, romaji

I was wondering what sources were used for the example poems. For instance in the chouka: 子ども思ほゆKwodomo omopoyu... As far as I understand, there was no kana in the Man'yōshū. As for the romaji/pronounciation, it seems non-standard from a modern perspective. Is it meant to represent the pronounciation of Nara period Japanese? bamse (talk) 09:55, 14 June 2011 (UTC)

Don't worry bamse. It is apparently incorrect edits by User:DTOx in April. I reverted the edits. ―― Phoenix7777 (talk) 10:13, 14 June 2011 (UTC)

Thanks. I was not worrying, rather confused. I still wonder whether it is worth having the mixed Kanji/Kana Japanese there (romaji is fine with me) since this is en-wikipedia and those are not the way the poems were written originally, which AFAIK was in Chinese characters only. bamse (talk) 21:22, 14 June 2011 (UTC)

Proposal to split article

Back in 2003, this article was moved from Tanka to its present location (see first post at top of page). That seems anomalous, now that the great majority of the article is about tanka, rather than the old non-tanka forms of waka (choka, sedoka, etc.). The 31-mora form has been known as tanka for well over a century now, and not having a separate article for it is analogous to having no article haiku but including all of that article's content in the hokku article. (Masaoka Shiki renamed waka and hokku to tanka and haiku respectively, in the late 19th century, the term waka having long become synonymous with the 31-mora form, since choka, sedoka etc. had fallen into disuse.)

There is already a page Tanka (poetry) which currently redirects to this article. My proposal is to populate it by moving the majority of the content of this article there. There are numerous poetry-related articles wikilinking the word tanka to this article, which would be better directed to an article specifically about that topic. There are 22 articles on the topic of Tanka (poetry) in other-language WPs - see the language-list on the left of the Dutch article.

Is there any down-side to my proposal? I can't think of any negatives, but I'd be pleased to hear other editors' views. Thanks for all input. --gråb whåt you cån (talk) 11:02, 14 June 2011 (UTC)

Support a dedicated article on tanka. This article should still briefly mention what tankaa are. bamse (talk) 21:26, 14 June 2011 (UTC)

Nine months later and I'm getting back to this now. It's a bigger job than I anticipated, and the preparatory work I did last year has now been superseded so I'd have to restart from scratch. I'm now thinking it might be better and simpler just to move this article to Tanka (poetry), then tidy a little to move the non-tanka waka details to ==History==. Thoughts? --gråb whåt you cån (talk) 14:22, 1 March 2012 (UTC)

In the absence of dissent I've gone ahead with that move, and reordered sections accordingly. Nothing of substance has been removed. --gråb whåt you cån (talk) 00:07, 8 March 2012 (UTC)

No "medieval" period in Japanese history?

In this edit an IP editor changed a subsection title from "Medieval" to "Kamakura to Muromachi Periods" with the edit summary, "There is no such thing as a "medieval" period in Japanese history. That term is used to refer to European history". While I've no objection tot he edit, since it results in greater precision, the argument is false. Such eminent scholars as Haruo Shirane and Steven D. Carter make use of the term in reference to waka. --gråb whåt you cån (talk) 12:33, 24 September 2011 (UTC)

Related requested move

See Talk:tanka where a related requested move is occurring -- 76.65.131.248 (talk) 22:42, 13 September 2012 (UTC)

Move discussion in progress

There is a move discussion in progress on Talk:Tanka which affects this page. Please participate on that page and not in this talk page section. Thank you. —RMCD bot 08:46, 14 September 2012 (UTC)

Small edits to "History" section

It would depend on what is meant by "form", but the 5-7-5-7-7 tanka and 5-7-5-7-...-5-7-7 chouka (and others) were both well established long before the Kojiki and Man'youshuu were compiled, and Empress Saimei reigned long before both of them anyway. Additionally, the Kojiki contains what are usually considered to be the oldest waka. Even if one considers the mythological explanations for the origins of these poems to be unlikely, there are many waka in the Kojiki that have attributed dates going back as far as anything in the Man'youshuu. elvenscout742 (talk) 16:17, 16 September 2012 (UTC)

Any problems with making a new article at Waka?

I'm not entirely sure of the history behind this article getting moved back and forth, and why the current article here is basically just a waka article under the wrong name. But to avoid historical anachronism, most of the "history" content here should be moved into a new article under the name Waka. The other forms of waka also deserve either their own articles, or to be categorized under waka, but not under "tanka". It is historically inaccurate, but at least there is a logical precedent for discussing pre-modern 5-7-5-7-7 poems under the title Tanka; there is no justification for chōka and so on to be listed here, however. My most recent edit to the article made the wording better, but they really don't belong here at all.

I noticed this problem at just the right time, honestly. I'm going on holiday from today for about a week, and probably won't be coming near Wikipedia. I'm going to leave this notice here now, and if no one has any problems I will start work on fixing it after I get back.

I know there is a history here, and I don't want to step on any toes in this regard, so if there is a problem with making the proposed changes can someone clarify it for me? Otherwise, I will be bold. :D

elvenscout742 (talk) 05:04, 21 September 2012 (UTC)

No problem with that proposal. However, Waka already exists as a dab page (with a lot more content than at Tanka), so it'll be Waka (poetry). --gråb whåt you cån (talk) 09:14, 21 September 2012 (UTC)

Removal of external links

I am going to remove both of the external links from this page. My reasoning is as follows:

(1) Neither of them meet WP:ELYES, since they are directly linked not to the topic of this article but to the Hyakunin Isshu and to waka, which is theoretically different from tanka.

(2) Neither of them provide any significant, relevant information that could not be incorporated into the body of the article with the ELs cited as sources.

(3) While the Hyakunin Isshu is essentially a textbook of waka composition for the late-classical/early-medieval period, it is only relevant to the content of this article because this article still erroneously lumps classical waka (of all shapes and sizes) under the term "tanka". (I haven't abandoned my prior commitment to one day make a separate article at Waka (poetry).)

(4) The only potentially copyrighted material in the Hyakunin Isshu link is the English translations, which can easily be substituted with, say, one of the public-domain English translations, a simple, non-poetic gloss, or an original translation. (I know the latter might violate WP:NOR, but honestly the text is so widely known and studied, and the individual poems are so short, and they have all been translated into English so many times, that any "original" translation can be easily verified in reliable English-language sources, let alone Japanese ones.)

Since it may be appropriate to reincorporate the links as sources here or elsewhere, I am posting them here for future reference.

• Ogura Hyakunin Isshu – 100 Poems by 100 Poets at University of Virginia Library Japanese Text Initiative
• 2001 Waka for Japan 2001 translated by T. E. McAuley of the School of East Asian Studies at the University of Sheffield.

elvenscout742 (talk) 03:47, 15 November 2012 (UTC)

I was going to add the Hyakunin Isshu EL to a more relevant page, but it was already there. elvenscout742 (talk) 03:50, 15 November 2012 (UTC)

Dubious

I have added a dubious tag to the two Simply Haiku sources cited for the statement that the term waka is used to distinguish from kanshi. Both of these sources are by apparently reliable academic authors who specialize in the field, but the publication itself is clearly not specialist in tanka. The Rimer source is an interview, which seems a bit inappropriate for a simple definition/etymology of a word, and having two sources for this is excessive. Additionally, the only reference to kanshi in the Wright source seems to actually contradict this sentence as it appears in the article, since it states quite specifically that "waka" covers "all kinds of Japanese poems in contrast to the kanshi" -- this includes renga. I think that the only reason we need a source for this simple definition/etymology at all is if we are going to include a citation on every single line of the article (not a bad idea, really); two sources from a non-specialist poetic publication seems dubious.

I'm at work now and can't check volume 1 of Keene, but a simple dictionary definition really only needs a simple dictionary reference, am I right? [1] says for waka: "Poetry exclusive to Japan, produced since ancient times, contrasted with kanshi." (漢詩に対して、上代から行われた日本固有の詩歌。, Kanshi ni tai shite, Jōdai kara okonawareta Nihon koyū no shika.) I'll check Kōjien at lunch.

elvenscout742 (talk) 02:11, 3 December 2012 (UTC)

Tanka Teacher's Guide (External link)

I believe that site is fake either because it was hacked or because it was never safe in the first place. I suggest deleting it immediately.

Fdezcaminero (talk) 03:53, 27 February 2017 (UTC)

Sorry, couldn't help myself. I just deleted it. The website asked me for my credit card passing as my cable company. I called the cable and they told me it was a fraud.

Fdezcaminero (talk) 03:57, 27 February 2017 (UTC)