This exploration of the life and times of a poet in late medieval Japan is a companion volume to the author's translation of "The Journal of Socho", the travel diary and poetic memoir of Saiokuken Socho (1448-1532), the preeminent linked-verse (renga) poet of his generation.

This is a companion volume to the author's translation of Saiokuken Socho's " The Journal of Socho" (Stanford, 2002). The volume gives an overview of the author's life and times, explores the relationships between politicians, patronage, and the creative process, and reads the journal in terms of the standard norms of genres that Socho appropriated and reinterpreted.

"H. Mack Horton has succeeded admirably in bringing to life not only the rich humanity of Socho, his poetry, and his text, but also the literary world in which he was active . . . .[Song in an Age of Discord contains] rich, multifaceted contextualizations of Socho and his life in a time of turmoil and transition."