Miyuki Kondo, A Method for Studying Waka from the Dynastic Period (Preface)
This book is an empirical study of waka from the dynastic period. That being said, the method demonstrated here is not meant to be merely a framework for the traditional study of expressions, biographies, and bibliographies. It is meant to link scientific data processing and research as well as expand the study of related fields of humanities, namely Linguistics, History, and Sociology.
There are several methods of research, but the one tested here is based mainly on the following four principles:
1) Linguistics proposes an analysis of word forms, such as compound words in classical languages and extracting aspectual word forms, and as a theory for linguistic resources.
2) History and Cultural History are concerned with a concrete examination of poets and authors that lived within the history and culture of the Heian Period, and the nature of the derived literature that shapes a new culture.
3) Sociology mainly studies waka from the perspective of constructionism and gender analysis.
4) The approach of information processing science analyzes strings of characters using an N-gram analysis of character strings to clarify the words of a poem.
Through this discussion, I aim to gain new knowledge pertaining to the Dynastic period, mainly of the literature and waka of the early and middle period of Heian. I will refer to the above correlatively and comprehensively, rather than tackling the views and techniques of each field individually. Additionally, I will include recommendations for each of these fields based on the results of this study.
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