Mapping the Ancient World

Note: titles of works should be in either italics or underlined:

Tosa Diary

-Think about Tosa Diary in terms of genre: In other words, what genre does this text fit into? How does its form relate to its historical context (you’ll need some background information for this).

-Nature is an important theme in the poems that occur throughout Tosa Diary. Using the poems, show how nature relates to the overall mood of the text. Do the poems affect the text’s mood?

-The prose and poetry of this text are clearly related through plot (i.e. different characters speak the poems for varying reasons). Thinking more deeply into the text’s meaning, consider how the prose affects our understanding of the poems.

-Tosa Diary is written by a male author but told through a female perspective. How does this gender switch and this perspective affect the text?