Householders: The Reizei Family in Japanese History

Housholders presents the history of the Reizei House—a noble lineage descended from Fujiwara no Teika—as a house, rather than as a genealogy of individual poets. This study goes against the grain of much traditional scholarship in that it places emphasis less on individuals than on the various roles of those individuals in a larger collective effort. In Householders, Prof. Steven Carter contends that a close reading of the various texts and artifacts of the Reizei, which we are fortunate to have in abundance, reveals that by their nature those materials virtually demand such an approach. In that sense, the approach of traditional scholarship on Japanese court poetry of the late medieval and early modern eras is in need of re-examination.

This talk will begin with a brief statement by Prof. Carter about how he became interested in the Reizei House, and then will focus on passages from the book that deal with the house as an enterprise dedicated to a particular kind of professional practice that involved not just composing poems but also politics, teaching, critique, textual services, and ritual activities.