Know Your Picture Characters Entry #47B

March 28th, 2011 by Wordsman

Not only did we have a late entry this week, there were also some contestants who seem to have not quite understood the challenge, which suggests that I did not explain it well enough.  So I’m going to give you folks a second chance at this second chance.  First, let’s review:

A. 奥の細道 B. 古今集 C. 徒然草 D. 問わず語り E. 平家物語

F. 方丈記

These are the six works from two weeks ago.  They are: A. Oku no hosomichi, the poetic travel log, B. Kokinshu, the imperial poetry anthology, C. Tsurezuregusa, the collection of random ramblings, D. Towazugatari, the autobiographical tale of the imperial concubine, E. Heike monogatari, the war epic, and F. Hojoki, the story of a man and his hut.

A. 明石覚一 B. 鴨長明 C. 紀貫之 D. 二条 E. 松尾芭蕉

F. 吉田兼好

These, then, are the six authors of the six works listed at the top.  My intent was for this to be a matching game, not for people to attempt to pull names of classical Japanese authors out of their hats.  In the case of Heike monogatari, of which more than 100 versions are known to exist, I have listed the person associated with the most well-known version.  In the case of Kokinshu–which, being a poetry collection, has many authors–I have listed the most famous of the compilers.

And just to mix things up, I will provide some hints which may not be at all helpful.

A. This name contains a character that is a homophone for the Japanese verb meaning “write.”

B. This name contains a kind of bird and the name of a river.

C. This name starts and ends with the same syllable.

D. This name can be found on a map.

E. This name contains two different kinds of plants.

F. The second half of this author’s name is a homophone for “health,” “high spirits,” and “balance.”

So go ahead and guess again, if you’re not sick of this stuff by now.  Those who correctly interpreted the puzzle the first time may feel free to make additional guesses.  All answers will be judged next week.

Posted in Know Your Picture Characters | 2 Comments »

2 Responses

  1. TheomanZero Says:

    Well, seeing as I have the chance I might as well make an additional guess. Or two, in fact. I’m gonna say that B is the Imperial Poetry Anthology (because birds and rivers are things you write poems about) and D is the poetic travel log (because they might have named a place he wrote about after him).

  2. Shirley Says:

    I’m beginning to wonder if W.W.has any sadism in his nature or does he just like to make fools of us all?—Forget that about the fools. He would probably say something implying we do a good enough job of that without his help.

    More Hail Marys.

    D. has a map name that could be incorporated into the name of a traveler. Like Leonardo De Vinci means Leonardo from Vinci, or so I was told by an art historian. D. is the travelogue writer, A.(I know, I know. Leonardo was Italian, but I’m grabbing at straws here.)

    Either B. or E. is the name of the monk in the hut because what else except a bird and a river would you write about if you lived in a hut unless it was plants? Assuming the hut was in a woods or something, of course. So either B. or E. is F., the monk.

    F. Someone with health, high spirits and balance seems likely to be the random rambler just rambling along.

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