Discover Tanka Poetry For The CSET

You need to know about Tanka poetry if you are studying for the CSET English or CSET Multiple Subjects exams. Specifically, this will count towards your knowledge of World Literature.

Tanka is the modern name of a form of Japanese verse or poetry that dates back over twelve centuries. Older than haiku, tanka differs from haiku in both its form (31 syllables) and its style of expression. In Japan, tanka has long been considered the most important form of Japanese poetry.

From tanka’s long history - over 1300 years recorded in Japan- the most famous use of the poetry form of tanka was as secret messages between lovers. Arriving home in the morning, after having dallied with a lover all night, it became the custom of well-mannered persons to write an immediate thank-you note for the pleasures of the hospitality. Stylized into a convenient five lines of 5-7-5-7-7 onji, the little poem expressing one’s feelings were sent in special paper containers, written on a fan, or knotted on a branch or stem of a single blossom. These were delivered to the lover by personal messenger who then was given something to drink along with his chance to flirt with the household staff. During this interval a responding tanka was to be written in reply to the first note which the messenger would return to his master.

During Japan’s Heian period (794-1185 A.D.) it was considered essential for a woman or man of culture to be able to both compose beautiful poetry and to choose the most aesthetically pleasing and appropriate paper, ink, and symbolic attachment—such as a branch, a flower—to go with it.

Most tanka poetry deals with gentle, passionate, wistful, new or lost love, and intense pain or sadness.

Tanka have changed and evolved over the centuries, but the form of five syllabic units containing 31 syllables has remained the same.Topics have expanded from the traditional expressions of passion and heartache, and styles have changed to include modern language and even colloquialisms.

In Japanese, tanka is often written in one straight line, but in English and other languages, we usually divide the lines into the five syllabic units: 5-7-5-7-7. There should be two separate divisions, the dominant pattern being 5-7-5 / 7-7, as if the last two lines acted as commentary on a haiku.

The fine point of a Japanese poem in almost any form is the point where the poem “pivots.” In