East Asian Languages and Societies Commons^™

Ono No Komachi: Love And Desire, Michele Gibney

Michele Gibney

The poetry of Ono no Komachi can be read in many lights. The two ways in which I feel its message and context can be best appreciated are through feminine independence and masculine subjection. Ono no Komachi wrote poetry that was evocative of the feminine ideal of longing for a male, but she also wrote poetry which denigrated the need for a woman to rely on a male. Through a self-critical reader analysis of some of her poems, I will show that Komachi’s poetry can be read as comprising a longing for the world of men, and men in particular, …