Fujiwara no Shunzei

was a Japanese poet, courtier, and Buddhist monk of the late Heian period. He was also known as Fujiwara no Toshinari or Shakua (釈阿) and when younger (1123–67) as Akihiro (顕広). He was noted for his innovations in the waka poetic form and compiling the Senzai Wakashū ("Collection of a Thousand Years"), the seventh imperial anthology of waka poetry. Fujiwara no Shunzei was born in 1114. He was a descendant of the statesman Fujiwara no Michinaga and son of Fujiwara no Toshitada of the Mikohidari branch of the influential aristocratic and poetic Fujiwara clan. His father died when he was ten years old and he was adopted by Hamuro Akiyori. As Akiyori's adopted son, he took the name Akihiro (顕広), but in 1167, when he was 53, he returned to the house he had been born into and took the name Toshinari. (Shunzei is the Sino-Japanese reading for the same characters used to write Toshinari.) Shunzei attained at the imperial court the post of Kōtai Gōgū-daibu (皇太后宮大夫) and held the Senior Third Rank (non-counsellor 非参議). He was commissioned in 1183 to compile the Senzai Wakashū ("Collection of a Thousand Years"), the seventh imperial anthology of waka poetry, by the Retired Emperor Go-Shirakawa, who despite Shunzei's low rank (he was "Chamberlain to the Empress Dowager", a nominal rank Earl Miner describes as "pitiably low"), admired him. Go-Shirakawa's trust in Shunzei is significant, as imperial anthologies were landmarks in the poetic circles of the court, second to no other events in significance; poets were willing to risk their lives just for the chance to have a poem included. The Tale of the Heike relates that Shunzei was compiling the Senzai Wakashū during the Genpei War, and that Taira no Tadanori (1144–1184), who was on the opposing side (the one which did not hold the capital where Shunzei lived), ventured into enemy territory to Shunzei's residence, asking him to include a particular poem of his. Tadanori then managed to successfully escape back to his own forces without being apprehended.