The Poetics of Kawaii

A presentation at the Aww-Struck: Creative and Critical Approaches to Cuteness online seminar sponsored by the University of Birmingham and University of London, May 21, 2021

Abstract:

Sei Shōnagon (966-1017), the noted poet and noblewoman in the court of Empress Teishi who wrote The Pillow Book, includes in this canonical work a “List of Cute Things.” Though this passage is frequently mentioned in scholarship on kawaii, it is seldom analyzed and never treated as an expression of the author’s poetics. Yet taken item by item this list provides a veritable blueprint of the kawaii aesthetic that holds true to this day. This paper offers a close analysis of Sei’s list to reveal how this brilliant poet constructed the first articulation of the poetics of kawaii. 

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