In class we talked about two collections of poems: Man'yōshū and Kokinshū, both significant in pre-modern literature. Completed within 150 years of each other, it could be said that the purpose and presentation of both anthologies differ as the country of Japan has become more and more consolidated with the passage of time. The two collections are very different from each other in many aspects, such as organization, presentation and purpose; thus, both contribute to Japanese literature in different ways. First, there are technical differences between the two works relating to their authorship and date of completion. Man'yōshū was compiled by a few poets, but the main compiler was Ōtomo no Yakamochi. Man'yōshū's last poem is dated around New Year's Day AD 759, and although the collection is attributed to a period two centuries earlier, it cannot be said to be true. The Kokinshū was also compiled by some poets, namely Ki no Tsurayuki, Ki no Tomonori, Ōshikochi no Mitsune, and Mibu no Tadamine. Ki no Tsurayuki is considered the main compiler and editor, who helped complete the work around 905 AD. Related to the technical differences, the organization of the poetry within each collection appears to be where the division of two anthologies. The Man'yōshū contains over 4500 poems: approximately 4200 tanka, 265 chōka and 60 sedōka. The poems are divided into twenty volumes, but with apparently little organization; the first two books are considered halves of each other, while the last four are all works of Ōtomo no Yakamochi, but the organization in the middle seems lacking in terms of the thematics of the poem. The poem might be called one of three types in the Man'yōshū: banka (an elegy based on the death of a roya...... middle of the paper...... I find the selection in Keene's anthology to be more attractive than the Man'yōshū collection: The Man'yōshū collection also has its strengths. I liked the “completion” of the poems since they are chōka and can tell a story within a poem. However, with metaphors , you can have a little more space in the interpretation of a poem, which was more evident in the Kokinshū.Works CitedCitko, Malgorzata 2 and 4.Katō, S., & Sanderson, D. (1997) 'yōshū back in the day Modern Psychology Press. (Accessed on Google Books) Keene, Donald (Ed.), Anthology of Japanese Literature from the Early to the Mid-Nineteenth Century. : a collection of ancient and modern poems (accessible on Google Books)