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The Hundred Poems represents the golden age of Japanese poetry as cultivated by the aristocracy of the imperial court in Kyoto during the Heian period. At its core is a complete translation of the collection One Hundred Poems by One Hundred Poets (Hyakunin isshu), which was selected and arranged by the famous poet and literary theorist Fujiwara no Teika around 1236 from thousands of poems included in the so-called Imperial Anthologies. This collection of classical poetry, the most famous to this day, is a pearl in the string of magnificent literary works of ancient Japan.

A comprehensive introduction introduces the reader to the historical, literary, and artistic context of the Hundred Poems collection, while the afterword focuses on ancient Japanese poetics and explains the poetic diction, figures, and aesthetics of the waka (also called tanka) quatrains. The next one hundred and ten translated poems illustrate the stylistic development of this form, its thematic and metaphorical richness, and the linguistic peculiarities of ancient Japanese poetry.

Czech edition