ABSTRACT
The Man'yoshil is the fIrst, and in the opinion of most scholars of Japanese literature, the greatest collection of Japanese poetIy. The exact period of the compilation is unknown, but the last dated poem was composed in 759, and the final selection of poems probably took place soon afterwards. The name of the compiler is not given, but there is strong reason to believe that Otomo no Yakamochi (718?- 85), an important poet and sometime governor, edited the bulk of the Man'yoshil and possibly the entire work. The last four of the twenty books of the collection are given over so largely to his poetIy that they have even been called his "poem diaIy."
