In Japan, the bird is called hototogisu (ホトトギス/杜鵑) and frequently praised for its senryu.
It has been celebrated by numerous waka poets since the anthology Kokin wakashū (920).[2]Sei Shōnagon in her essay The Pillow Book (1002) mentions a trip she and other courtiers mounted on just to hear this bird, and it was expected of them that they would compose poetry on the occasion.[3] It is also the central image in poem 81 by Tokudaiji Sanesada in the anthology of 100 poems, the Hyakunin Isshu.[4]
The Japanese haiku magazine Hototogisu takes its name from the bird,[5] and the magazine's mastermind Masaoka Shiki's adopted pen name, Shiki (子規) also refers to the lesser cuckoo;[6]shiki corresponds to the Chinese zǐguī (子規), which is an alias for its standard name dùjuān (杜鵑).[7]
In Chinese, dùjuān is a generic name and the species' common name is xiāodùjuān (小杜鵑).[7]
In Korean literature, the song of the lesser cuckoo represents the sound of sadness.[citation needed]
^Higginson, William J. (1985). The Haiku Handbook: How to Write, Share, and Teach Haiku. Tokyo: Kodansha International (published 1989). p. 27. While editing Hototogisu ('cuckoo'), the magazine founded under Shiki's guidance, Takahama Kyoshi (1874-1959) had devoted...