One Hundred Humorous Poems by One Hundred Poets (Kyôka hyakunin isshu)

This woodblock-printed book, the Kyoka hyakunin isshu, adapts the classical Hyakunin Isshu anthology of one hundred poems by one hundred poets into a kyoka, or comic-verse, format, a project that was central to the literary culture sustaining Gakutei's [surimono](/glossary/surimono) practice. Held by the Art Institute of Chicago and dated to around 1820, the volume gathers parodic responses to the canonical Heian and medieval poems familiar to every educated reader of the Edo period, illustrated by Gakutei with the same refined draftsmanship he applied to his single-sheet surimono. The kyoka movement turned classical verse into a vehicle for wit, social commentary, and shared literary play, and an illustrated anthology of this scope demonstrates how thoroughly Gakutei worked inside the kyoka world rather than as an outside illustrator. The book also documents the close collaboration between designers, poets, and publishers that made late-Edo Edo's privately-circulated literary culture possible, with the Art Institute's impression preserving a rare complete example of the volume in its original printing.