SOURCE: Konishi, Jin'ichi. “The Maturation of Renga.” In A History of Japanese Literature, Volume Three: The High Middle Ages, translated by Aileen Gatten and Mark Harbison, edited by Earl Miner, pp. 425-70. Princeton, N. J.: Princeton University Press, 1991.

In the following excerpt, Konishi explains that Yoshimoto's style was influenced by two opposing groups—the Reizei and Nijo factions.

Yoshimoto and Kyūsei

Codified renga (hereafter simply renga) flourished from the middle of the thirteenth century. The creation of numerous canons and rules for composition must have been a major impetus to its development. According to Nijō Yoshimoto, during the reign of Gosaga (1242-1246), there were many skillful renga poets among the high nobility, and renga masters called Hananomoto (“Under the Cherry Blossoms”) among commoners, but there were no really outstanding poets (Tsukuba Mondō, 78). Yoshimoto's reference to the Hananomoto poets provides evidence concerning two important aspects of the period...