The ‘Honchō monzui’ (Literary Essence of our Court) is a private anthology of poetry and prose in Chinese, in 14 books, compiled by Fujiwara no Akihira (989?-1066). The work includes several textual genres and was intended as a reference book for literati performing bureaucratic duties at court. In this paper I analyse a number of texts such as letters for promotion, statements of opinion, satirical poems that were all composed during the reign of Murakami (r. 946-67), and in which a strong criticism towards the corruption of the ‘ritsuryō’ system emerges. In particular, I argue that among the texts collected to be a stylistic model for other writers, the anthology includes also some texts that should be best regarded as models of dissent. Therefore, the compiler Akihira expresses his own unease in a society where literati are not the real agents of what should be the right ruling of the Country, as in the past, and provides future generations with good models for expressing dissent.