There is an interesting passage in the preface to Kaifūsō, the poetical anthology of the Nara Period, in which the Emperor of Japan is highly praised as a greater ruler than Yao, the legendary Chinese emperor. Although such a patriotic discourse can be rarely seen in the poetical literature of the age, both Japanese and Chinese, it is not only political but also poetical. The denial of Chinese imperial authority implicitly refers to the denial of Chinese literary authority which is represented by “tenko,” a traditional literary practice of citations from classical works. Thus Kaifūsō marked a moment when poetics served politics and vice versa.

The aim of this article is to consider literacy in ancient Japan in terms of a dialectical interaction between the Japanese and the Chinese language. Both languages are most dramatically interrelated in diaries written in Chinese, especially in Midou-kanpaku-ki. By analyzing the textual composition of the diary, here I will show how the mixture of the two different languages resulted in a complicated system of literacy.

In medieval times there was a literary meeting called “renga-kai” in which each participant read a poem on a common theme. Some members showed good skills in making poems, but others did not with little knowledge of classical literature. Sōyō, one of the greatest masters of linked verse, both educated and entertained such lay poets by demonstrating how to make poems in various styles — simple, unexpected, and humorous — so that they could know the pleasure of poetry. When he wanted to teach them the art of classical citations, he usually used the wellknown instances of Genji-monogatari, Ise-monogatari, and other major works for teaching material. His plain method of poetical education had a great influence on early modern poetics.

A certain skill or “literacy” is required to read old Japanese books called wabon because they are written in cursive or variant form. In this article, from my own teaching experiences at the university, I will suggest what is necessary to teach how to read wabon books. I will also point out both the difficulty and the possibility of acquiring the ability to read them. Indeed the literacy of wabon books presupposes the highly developed technique to read a text not word for word but contextually.

In the prewar period many Japanese bookstores went into the markets of the colonized countries. They combined into a trade union and played a vital part in language policy exerted by Imperial Japan on its overseas territories. The aim of this article is to historically analyze the ideological function of the bookstores abroad as a cultural “contact zone.”

Literacy is impersonal and exclusive because it is made possible by the complicated contexts made of space, time, and inter-subjectivity. Then can we create our own “literacy” out of culturally determined literacy? I think we can, but before that we must go through the following two procedures. First we must strategically assimilate ourselves to the social system of language to gain a self-critical view in relation to others. Then by critically reviewing our own literacy through such assimilation, we can appropriate the very system for our individual use.