Isonokami Sasamegoto
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{{nihongo||石上私淑言|Isonokami Sasamegoto|{{lit|Personal Views on Poems}}|lead=yes}}, is an extended essay on Tanka poetry written in 1763 by the eighteenth century Japanese scholar Motoori Norinaga. Norinaga was one of the leading scholars in the {{nihongo||国学|Kokugaku|{{lit|National learning}}}} literary movement.Bushelle, Emi Foulk (2019). "The Poetics of Nativism: Motoori Norinaga and the Sacralization of Japanese Literature". Monumenta Nipponica. 74 (1): 59–60.{{Cite web |title=国学の四大人（こくがくのしたいじん）とは？ 意味・読み方・使い方をわかりやすく解説 - goo国語辞書 |url=https://dictionary.goo.ne.jp/word/%E5%9B%BD%E5%AD%A6%E3%81%AE%E5%9B%9B%E5%A4%A7%E4%BA%BA/ |access-date=2024-09-27 |website=goo辞書 |language=ja}}
Background
Isonokami Sasamegoto was written several years after Norinaga’s early work on poetics, {{nihongo||排蘆小船|Ashiwake Obune}}, expanding the poetic and literary ideas Norinaga introduced in that work. Isonokami Sasamegoto was where Norinaga introduced his theory that mono no aware is the foundation of all the best poetry in the Japanese tradition,John R. Bentley, Isonokami Sasamegoto, Anthology of Kokugaku Scholars: 1690-1898, Cornell University Press, 2017. p.180.https://muse.jhu.edu/pub/255/edited_volume/chapter/2056770 going back to ancient times. He argued that mono no aware depicts the true Japanese heart as shown through poetry, as opposed to the “artificially clever hearts” of Chinese poets.
The draft of Isonokami Sasamegoto was finished around 1763, but remained in unpublished manuscript form until it was published in 1816, some fifteen years after Norinaga’s death in 1801.{{Cite web |title=本居宣長墓（山室山） - 文化情報 - お肉のまち 松阪市公式ホームページ |url=https://www.city.matsusaka.mie.jp/site/culture-info/motoorinorinagahaka-yamamuroyama.html |access-date=2024-09-27 |website=www.city.matsusaka.mie.jp}}