During Japan’s Ancient Period, culture and arts began to flourish. Poets were among the first important literary figures in Japan. Among them, Yamanoue no Okura stands out as a poet and once Governor of Chikuzen, a province located in Kyushu (Brittanica). Okura’s most notable poem is “Dialogue with the Impoverished” which was included in the Man’yoshu. In “Dialogue with the Impoverished”, Okura utilizes imagery and other rhetorical devices to describe the hardships of poverty in Japan’s early ages. “Dialogue with the Impoverished” focuses on poverty. The poem is presented as a conversation between two men- one being poor, and the other man being poorer. In its context, the poem is a somen, or a dialogue, with a slight tone of a lament. This is due to its imagery of dreary and grief-stricken phrases used in the poem. In addition, the addressee is possibly regarded as those who served for the emperor’s court. “Dialogue with the Impoverished” consists of two chokas, or long poems with syllabic patterns of 5-7-7 or 5-7-5-7, as a dialogue. It is then followed by one hanka, or a response or summary to a long poem. Okura employs a major rhetorical technique: imagery. The imagery illustrates to the
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Parallelism can be distinguished in the beginning of the poor man’s choka. For instance, “On nights the wind / mingles with the falling rain, / nights the rain / mingles with the falling snow,” illustrates parallelism by containing words in a comparable arrangement. The phrase “like tattered strands of seaweed” in the poorer man’s choka is one instance of a simile because it compares one idea to another using “like or “as”. Finally, “Lucky to be born / in the world of man, and yet… / I work and toil / as all men do, and yet…” is an example of amplification in the poorer man’s choka. How so is because “and yet…” is the phrase reoccurring for emphasis to dramatize the poorer man’s
Parallelism can be distinguished in the beginning of the poor man’s choka. For instance, “On nights the wind / mingles with the falling rain, / nights the rain / mingles with the falling snow,” illustrates parallelism by containing words in a comparable arrangement. The phrase “like tattered strands of seaweed” in the poorer man’s choka is one instance of a simile because it compares one idea to another using “like or “as”. Finally, “Lucky to be born / in the world of man, and yet… / I work and toil / as all men do, and yet…” is an example of amplification in the poorer man’s choka. How so is because “and yet…” is the phrase reoccurring for emphasis to dramatize the poorer man’s