tanka【短歌】

A 31-syllable poem consisting of five lines in the pattern 5−7−5−7−7; the dominant form in classical Japanese poetry (waka) from the 7th century to the present. In the oldest anthology of native poetry, the 8th-century Man'yōshū, the term tanka is used to distinguish the short 31-syllable poem from the “long poem” (chōka or nagauta), a form consisting of an indefinite number of pairs of 5- and 7-syllable lines, with an extra line of 7 syllables at the end. Following the virtual disappearance of the chōka and other less important genres by the end of the 8th century, the tanka became essentially the only form of sophisticated Japanese vernacular poetry and retained its dominance for 1,200 years. For this reason, tanka came to be synonymous with waka (“Japanese poetry” as distinguished from kanshi, “Chinese verse”). Since about 1900, tanka has replaced waka as the preferred generic term for poetry in the 31-syllable form. Poets of the 31-syllable form active prior to the Meiji period (1868−1912) are, in this encyclopedia, called “waka poets,” whereas those active since then are called “tanka poets.”