In 1075, recently after his ascension to the throne, Emperor Shirakawa (1053-1129, r. 1072-1087) comissioned an imperial anthology of waka poetry, the first of its kind in nearly 100 years. At the same time, the imperial family was beginning to rapidly rise in political strength, just as the Fujiwara Northern house that had controlled the court for much of the past century was beginning to lose its grip on power. In this thesis, I argue that the imperial anthology reappeared in 1075 due to its use as a political tool as much as a literary one, and that it was commissioned by Shirakawa in order to project the power of the imperial house against his court rivals. This thesis examines the relationship between the powers over territory and time attributed to the Heian emperor and the selection and arrangement of poems in the Gosh?i wakash? (1088), especially in its hare no uta (formal) poems. By gathering a collection of poems, many of which had been composed in the presence of imperial figures in formal situations, that capture the health and bounty of the land and the smooth progression of time, the compiler created a highly visible tribute to the glory of the imperial house, just as it was rising in power. I propose to examine the Gosh?ish? as a testament, by the members of Shirakawa's inner circle, to the righteousness of his reign and the extensiveness of his innate power, as the ruler of the realm, over spatial and temporal aspects of nature.