Tanka in English

The composition and translation of tanka in English begins at the end of the nineteenth century in England and the United States. Translations into English of classic Japanese tanka (traditionally known as waka) date back at least to the 1865 translation of the classic Ogura Hyakunin Isshu (c. early 13th century); an early publication of originally English tanka dates to 1899. In the United States, the publication of tanka in Japanese and in English translation acquired extra impetus after World War II and was followed by a rise of the genre's popularity among native speakers of English.

Etymology and form

In the time of the Man'yōshū (compiled after 759 AD), the term "tanka" was used to distinguish "short poems" from the longer chōka (長歌; "long poems"). In the ninth and tenth centuries, however, notably with the compilation of the Kokin Wakashū, the short poem became the dominant form of poetry in Japan, and the originally general word waka (和歌, "Japanese poem") became the standard name for this form. The Japanese poet and critic Masaoka Shiki revived the term tanka in the early 20th century as part of his tanka modernization project, similar to his revision of the term haiku.

Tanka consist of five units (often treated as separate lines when romanized or translated) usually with a pattern of 5-7-5-7-7 sounds (onji is an inaccurate term for this). The group of the first three, 5-7-5, is called the kami-no-ku ("upper phrase"), and the second, 7-7, is called the shimo-no-ku ("lower phrase"). In English, the units are often rendered as lines and indeed some modern Japanese poets have printed them as such; Hiroaki Sato notes that such lineation is not representative of the Japanese, where mono-linear units are the norm, and Mark Morris comments that tanka and other forms are "packed" by "Anglophone scholars...into a limited repertoire of rectilinear containers".