Kenichi Suzuki

<p>In constructing a history of Edo poetry, it seems appropriate to cover the period from the early sixteenth century to the late nineteenth century with the mid- to the late eighteenth century as a critical phase. Indeed, in the early Edo Period most poems were still under the influence of the genteel literature of earlier times, but they began to become vernacular and popularized between the mid- and the late eighteenth century. The progress of such popularization brought about a mixture of the genres so radically that since then it had been more difficult to distinguish between genteel and vernacular styles or even between Japanese and Chinese styles. Eventually in modern times all the genres came to be generalized as "Japanese poetry" in distinction to Western one. The articulation of such new opposition marks the end of the history of Edo poetry.</p>