IZUMI Shikibu, who devoted herself to produce traditional Japanese 31-syllable, or waka poems in the mid - Heian period, left not only a series of waka poem collections but also a book titled "Diary of Izumi Shikibu".
In this book. she looked back ...
IZUMI Shikibu, who devoted herself to produce traditional Japanese 31-syllable, or waka poems in the mid - Heian period, left not only a series of waka poem collections but also a book titled "Diary of Izumi Shikibu".
In this book. she looked back on the process of love with noble Sochino-miya and described how they ultimately gave themselves to each other. Before the diary, she was unidentified woman and just referred as a "woman"(April 4.1003 AD. to December 18 in the same year.)
However, some scholars insist that the book is not a diary but a piece of fictious. Still others hold that she did not write the diary. These and many other related questions are still unsolved.
I studied the corelation between the "Diary" and her collections of waka cycles. She was unusual woman poet who tried to produce various forms of waka cycles. Therefore, I supposed that the diary was also of that ilki. In order to prove the question, I payed special attention to the "Daily Poems (Hinami Kagun)". The following is my analyses.
1) Not all poems. only some her favorites, are adopted in the diary.
2) The dates of the poems are in disorder and seem fictious in many aspects.
3) The structure of the book is similar to that of her waka poem collections.
4) All waka poems in the book are adopted from ones originally written to be sent to another persons and seem artificial.
I concluded that "Diary of Izumi Shikibu" was written by herself as another form of poem cycle.