Man'yōshū is also known as the gathering of ten thousand leaves but in a more literary and poetic sense it could be represented as ten thousand generations. It is also seen as the first and largest official anthology of Japanese poetry. Regardless of its name (it could be seen as ten thousand poems), it is actually only made up of about 4,500 waka or 20 books of poetry. One distinction that could be made despite its popularity is that it has no preface. Man'yōshū stands out for its passion, sincerity (or Makoto 真), pleasantness and, above all, for being really simple and straight to the point. It is estimated that there are more than 400 poets featured in most of the poems, but half are anonymous. It is also known for its wide range of social statuses among authors, which is a very rare case. Some authors come from the imperial family while others are simply farmers or peasants. In fact, the majority of the authors are not courtiers or high-ranking officials. Or they could be courtiers writing as common people in disguise. There are many authors involved in the compilation of Man'yōshū such as Lady Kasa, Lady Ōtome, Emperor Yūryaku, Yamanoue no Okura, Yamabe no Akihito and Princess Nukata, Kasa no Kanamura, Takahashi no Mushimaro but the main contributor would be Ōtomo no Yakamochi while the most important poet goes to Kakinomoto no Hitomaro. The last 4 books were created by Yakamochi, each containing notes on how the poems were written. Princess Nakata mainly focused on the two main seasons of spring and autumn; Yamanoue no Okura wrote most of his poems on the public's social concerns and made few on love and nature while Kakinomoto no Hitomaro worked on his collection (Hitomaro kashū) and published......half of the paper..... .%20poeti%20e%20poesie.pdf>.3. Citko, Malgorzata. "Handout 4- Kokin waka shū." (2011): 1-3. Network. 31 January 2011. .4. Citko, Malgorzata. "Handout 8 - Heian Period." (2011): 1-3. Network. January 31, 2011. .5.."Kokin Wakashū." Wikipedia, 26 12 2010. Web. 31 January 2011. .6. "Man'yōgana." Wikipedia, 28 01 2011. Web. 31 January 2011. .7. "Man'yōshū." Wikipedia, 28 01 2011. Web. 31 January 2011. .8 "Pillow Talk". The fireflies sing. Fireflies, 22 002. Web. January 31, 2011. http://fireflies.xavid.us/2010/02/22/pillow-talk/.