The Manyooshuu or "Collection of Ten Thousand Sheets" is the first major anthology of Japanese poetry. It collects about 4,500 poems written between the seventh and eighth centuries. In it, the poems of five verses known as tankas predominate. Among the themes that inspire them, love, in its multiple variants and circumstances, is one of the main ones. The erotic customs of the time were very open, love life took place at nightfall and often furtively, hence the large number of poems that revolve around it. The anthology includes both highly erotic poems and others that celebrate conjugal love. Many of them were written by women, who had remarkable training and independence. In summary, in the Manyooshuu emotions are exposed from very different perspectives, showing us that love is a feeling that we all recognize equally and that despite the 1,300 years that separate us from it, this ...read more
