Buke hyakunin isshu

This 1703 woodblock-printed book in the Art Institute of Chicago, identified as a reprint of an earlier edition, is Buke hyakunin isshu, the warrior version of the celebrated Hyakunin Isshu, the one hundred poems by one hundred poets anthology that has been central to Japanese literary culture since the thirteenth century. Where the classical Hyakunin Isshu, compiled by Fujiwara no Teika, comprises one hundred waka poems by one hundred different poets across the centuries, the Buke hyakunin isshu adapts the format to celebrate poems by warrior-class authors, a deliberate intervention in the aristocratic dominance of the original anthology. Moronobu's illustrations for the book pair portraits of the hundred warrior-poets with their poems, in the kind of paired-text-and-image format that became standard for Hyakunin Isshu publications. The 1703 dating places the book just after Moronobu's death, suggesting it is a posthumous reprint of an earlier edition produced during his lifetime, or alternatively that the blocks were carved from drawings he had completed before his death and issued under his name by his publishers. The book demonstrates Moronobu's deep engagement with the classical poetic tradition and his role in adapting it for the warrior-class readership of the Edo period.