SOURCE: Carter, Steven D. “Rules, Rules, and More Rules: Shōhaku's Renga Rulebook of 1501.” Harvard Journal of Asiatic Studies 43, no. 2 (December 1983): 581-642.

In the following excerpt, Carter analyzes the evolution of rules for linked verse.

Every literary work is composed according to genre conventions of one sort or another. Usually these conventions operate at the unconscious level of artistic creation, guiding the writer in the choices he must make. But occasionally the “rules” of literary art achieve a more explicit formulation in the literary record, as in the Italian sonnet, or even in the modern gothic romance. Such is also the case with the rules (shikimoku) of Japanese linked verse (renga), which comprise what is perhaps the most detailed set of genre conventions in world literature.

The first important statement of principles for linked-verse composition is contained in Yakumo mishō (1221), a poetic treatise written by Emperor Juntoku (r...