Although it is often considered that Saigyo was a poet who maintained his own individuality by refusing to belong to any of the schools, whereby he stayed an outsider to the world of tanka poets and distanced himself from convention or tradition; however, it must be emphasized that this is clearly a misperception of Saigyo.
しばしば西行は「歌壇の外にあっていかなる流派にも属さず、しきたりや伝統から離れて、みずからの個性を貫いた歌人」として見られがちであるが、これはあきらかに誤った西行観であることは強調されねばならない。