"Aisyouka" laments the inevitable parting at death that everyone who is born will face. In this paper, I analyze the wakas Fujiwarano Kanesuke and Kino Tsurayuki exchanged during their long-standing relationship, as they mourned Kanesuke's wife's death. I explore how people in ancient times perceived separation from their loved ones through wakas, how they recognized it over the passage of time, and how they interpreted the relationship between the living and the dead.BR First, by estimating the approximate years spanning the two poets' exchange of wakas and speculating about Kanesuke's deceased wife's lineage, I elucidate the circumstances surrounding the wakas. I also examine the feelings and emotions these songs evoked, particularly given that they were exchanged at the end of the year. I sought to reveal the underlying cause of the sorrow the two poets must have felt.BR Next, by comparing the sense of time in Kanesuke's waka, which reads "ともにしかへる," with that in Tsurayuki's waka, which reads "年のくれなば," I show that the primal cyclical sense of time associated with the changing seasons coexisted with a linear perception of time that did not regress due to the introduction of the calendar. In Tsurayuki's waka, the living transition towards a future that continually advances with the flow of time, while the dead remain as entities standing on an extended timeline. I find that although Tsurayuki's "Aisyouka" resonates with survivors' grief, it also appeals to the unalterable logic of time that everyone must face, with the aim of rescuing the bereaved from the sorrow of separation.
상민 이 (Fri,) studied this question.