The Heian period (794-1185 AD) is remembered as a period of great creativity and literary innovation on the part of the Japanese court: waka, true Japanese poetry, established itself as an art form of its own, independent of Chinese poetry, and Ki no Tsurayuki compiled Japanese poems written by the aristocracy in the famous Kokinwakashū in 905 AD. Although literature continued to prosper and new forms written mainly in prose also developed under the court, poetry did not was never forgotten and was constantly included in these narratives. The role of poetry in narrative prose was to express emotions and describe scenarios perhaps too intense to be limited to prose, to serve as a guideline for writing poetry, and to provide information about the method of communication between men and women. Tsurayuki wrote in the preface of the Kokinshū, Kanajō, that poetry was a mixture and balance of kotoba (words), kokoro (heart, emotion), and sama (style). It is naturally a very suitable medium for expressing those same emotions that one feels incapable of expressing in words, those majestic or delicate or fleeting scenarios of which one may feel that not even an image could capture the true essence. In 936 AD, Tsurayuki wrote the Tosa Nikki (Diary of Tosa), a record of his return to the capital after serving as governor of Tosa. In the guise of a lady-in-waiting, she wrote about the hardships of the journey and, to fully capture the feelings of her traveling companions, recorded poems that they supposedly wrote whenever they were overwhelmed by the grief of Tsurayuki's daughter, who had died while he was traveling . Tosa, or I saw a particularly moving scene. One of these poems expressed the elegant confusion and anguish of a traveler who could not bear the pain of reme...... middle of paper...... Japanese Romantic Relationships of the Heian Era (Honors Thesis ). Retrieved February 9, 2011, from https://kb.osu.edu/dspace/bitstream/handle/1811/25243/jThesisFinal.pdf.Hooker, R. (1999). The flowering of Japanese literature. Retrieved February 10, 2011, from http://www.wsu.edu:8080/~dee/ANCJAPAN/LIT.HTM.Japanese Literature. (2011) In Encyclopedia Britannica. Retrieved February 9, 2011, from http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/301194/Japanese-literature.Kawabata, Y., & Keene, D. (Tr.) (1998). The story of the bamboo cutter. New York: KodanshaAmerica Inc. McCullough, H. (1968). Tales of Ise: Lyrical Episodes from 10th-Century Japan. Stanford: Stanford University Press.Sargent, G.W. (Tr.) (1955). Tosa's diary. In D. Keene (ed.), Anthology of Japanese literature from the earliest times to the mid-nineteenth century. New York: Grove Press, Inc.