Japanese Traits and Foreign Influences

Inazo Nitobe

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2010
• Print ISBN: 9780415852371
• eBook ISBN: 9781136925115
• Edition: 1
• Topic: History
• Subtopic: Japanese History
• Index: History

This volume collects together essays and lectures given by the author from 1922-1927 to a variety of international audiences. Together they illuminate essential aspects of the Japanese mentality and way of life, particularly in social, religious and linguistic aspects.

ON HAIKU

“Canons of verse I introduced, and neatly chiselled with, To look, to scan: to plot, to plan: to twist, to turn, to woo: On all to spy; in all to pry.”

—Aristophanes, “The Frogs.”

I

AMONG the numerous forms of literary compositions that have come into existence in Japan, in order to provide modes of expression suitable to various mental moods and temperaments, none has attracted in Europe as much attention as haiku—perhaps the briefest rhetorical device anywhere invented. Consisting of only seventeen syllables divided into three lines, it shares some features of the sonnet and can perhaps be best compared with it. In the standard structure of the sonnet, there are three periods or breaks in thought, expressed in the fifth line of the octave, the beginning of the sestet, and in the last line, which should be the climax. It is this tripartite character of the sonnet that can be compared with the three lines of the haiku. Otherwise the two forms are very remote from each other, both in their object and technique. There are certain other forms in Europe, especially in countries of Romance and Celtic languages, which are almost as short. Some forms of Welsh prosody—such as the cywydd metre, consisting of an indefinite number of lines of seven syllables each, or the englyn form consisting of four lines of 10, 6, 7, 7 syllables respectively—are perhaps the best examples of poetical brevity in Europe. Or perhaps Spain affords more compact forms in solea, seguidilla and cuarteta. But these forms have scarcely been adopted beyond the frontiers of their native land. And as far as a geographical diffusion is concerned, it is only the triolet that may be said to have won any degree of universality in Europe and America. The triolet has not changed its form ever since its beginning in the 13th century. Consisting of only eight lines, it has its first, fourth and seventh lines repeated, and again its second and eighth are repetitions. So, practically, it consists of five lines only—like our uta, of which I shall speak later. Mr. Edmond Gosse says of the triolet; “It is charming; nothing can be more ingeniously mischievous, more playfully sly, than this tiny trill of epigrammatic melody, turning so simply on its own innocent axis.”

Mr. William L.Schwartz has made an interesting study of the haiku in his Japan in French Poetry.¹ In the late sixties, the French Impressionist painters discovered the art of Japan and they were followed by their compatriot literati. It is striking that, beginning with Catulle Mendès’ poem on the Sun-goddess, so many of the literary productions on Japanese themes took the form of the sonnet. Heredia’s famous sonnets on the samurai and the

¹ Publications of The Modern Language Association of America (vol. xi., No. 2).

daimyo were called “transpositions” of Japanese colour prints. Chapron de Chateaubriant and Levet chose some Japanese subjects for their sonnets.

But the man who has given wide currency to haiku and haiku form in France is the rising philosopher, Monsieur Paul-Louis Couchoud. His study of haiku appeared in Les Epigrammes Lyriques du Japon (1906), in Les Lettres edited by Fernand Gregh, who himself published some quatrains in the haiku style. Since then Neuville, Madame Burnat-Provins, Voisins, Peri, Challaye, Vocance (who wrote a number of haiku in the trenches at the front), and still later Jules Romains, Jacques Boulenger, René Maublanc, have either explained what haiku is or have themselves borrowed its form for expressing their own ideas. Mr. Schwartz notes that the growth of haiku has been stimulated by the War.

In dwelling somewhat at length on the growing popularity of haiku in France, I must do justice to English students through whose works it found its way to France. Aston’s Japanese Literature and Professor Basil H.Chamberlain’s Japanese Poetry and his essay on Basho and the Poetic Epigram ante-dated the spread of haiku in France¹ Chamberlain’s description is picturesque and accurate. “It is,” he says, “the tiniest of vignettes, a sketch in barest outline, the suggestion, not the description, of a scene or a circumstance. It is a little dab of colour thrown upon a canvas one inch square, where the spectator is left to guess at the picture as best he

¹ See Revue Franco-Nipponne, Ière Année, No. 1. Also Le Haikai Français in Le Pampre, Nos. 10–11 (1923).

may. Often it reminds us less of an actual picture than of the title or legend attached to a picture.”

He has himself translated a large number, but confesses his own dissatisfaction with them. Lafcadio Hearn has also put into his inimitable English some of the more popular ones. Perhaps the largest collection in English was made by Mr. William N.Porter, who translated and collected 365 haiku under the title A Year of Japanese Epigrams. His selections are, however, of mixed value.

We cannot sympathise too deeply with anybody called to render into a foreign tongue the epigrammatic poems so peculiar to the national genius of our people; for it is the outcome of many varied factors of long duration. And it is my attempt to show what those influences were; but like so many forces that give a tangible result, they cannot be put in black and white for immediate comprehension. I can often hint at a few factors. Sometimes all I can aspire to do is to say what they are not. Most truly a Japanese artist spoke, when he wrote how he painted a white bird in Indian ink:

“Paint where it is not,
And the heron forthwith
Shows its spotless form!”

In speaking of haiku I shall relate what it strictly is not,—relate the atmosphere and the general intellectual surroundings of which it is a product.

II

Haiku, hokku, and haikai are interchangeably used for this form of prosody. Originally they all meant different things.

Haikai means literally “amusement” or “pleasantry,” and the term had special reference to the contents of a regular poem (uta or tanka) rather than to the form of construction. The uta itself was as a rule serious, grave in character. Even lovers sang of yearning rather than of joy, more of parting than of meeting. But when on account of the subject treated or words used or the idea expressed, a poem assumed a humorous tone, it was called kyoka (a crazy verse) or haikai (pleasantry, a jest). We meet with this word in the anthology (kokiu-shu) compiled in 950 A.D. Thus haikai meant a farce, satire, parody. As far as its form was concerned, it did not differ from an ordinary uta, which consists of five lines of 5, 7, 5, 7, 7 syllables respectively, altogether of 31 syllables.

Of these five lines, the first three, consisting of 5, 7, 5 syllables, form the upper hemistich and are called the hokku or the “starting or initial hemistich,” and the lower hemistich, containing the two lines of seven syllables each, is called the age-ku (the “lifting or finishing hemistich”), or tsuke-ku (the “attached hemistich”).

The very simplicity of our prosody explains the widespread indulgence in literary diversions of various kinds. And to make mention now of only one of them, the renga—to be appropriately translated “linkers” or “linking poetry,” a sort of “capping verses”—came into great vogue as early as the eleventh century among the courtiers, the literati and priests. Renga was a form of intellectual pastime, of a flow of wit and a feast of soul, and it was practised in social parties as well as in correspondence. When one person composes the upper or the lower hemistich, somebody else adds the wanted phrase to complete a poem. Sometimes a long conversation or even a religious discussion was carried on by this method. By the beginning of the thirteenth century, the renga was so expanded that any number of hemistiches could be added, even as many as a hundred. It is easy to understand how it came to be made an instrument for the display of wit, and for the expression of passions of a lower order. Facit indignatio versum! A collection of these comic verses was first undertaken by the priest Sokan Yamazaki (1465–1553). Renga was often identified with haikai, and, since “brevity is the soul of wit,” the haikai writers employed only the upper or opening hemistich, the hokku, leaving the lower to be supplied by the reader, like a good logician who states the premises so clearly that the conclusion is too obvious to state.

In this way were renga, haikai, and hokku identified both in name and in character. As to the term haiku, it is only the combination of haikai and hokku-hai, pleasantry joined with ku, phrase. Proficients in the art were called haijin, the haikai-men.

The popularity of haikai and the free use (and abuse too?) made of it, has caused distinctions and modifications in its subject matter as well as in its diction. These took upon themselves such different names that they are bewildering to an outsider.

III

The distinguishing character of haiku, as compared with other forms of literary production in our language may be stated as follows:

The most important characteristic is, as stated above, its construction. It consists of three lines of 5, 7, 5 syllables, respectively, altogether of 17 syllables. This is the standard, the type. But in this respect as in so many other forms of versification, it allows an ample latitude for exceptions, varying from fifteen to as many as twenty-five syllables. What are here called syllables are really sounds, the Japanese language having fifty such in its syllabary, including no more than five clearly pronounceable vowels, a, i, u, e, o. All the consonants, when spelt in the Latin alphabet, must end in one of these vowels. This fact will make it more easily comprehensible why rhyming is not an important factor in our prosody, or else there would be a tedious recurrence of the five primary sounds. There is no rhyme in uta, nor in haiku. Alliteration is possible and abundant use is made of it.

Neither the uta nor its derivative haiku is intended for singing. Both can be chanted and the uta is on very formal occasions—say in the poetical contest at the Emperor’s Court—when it is read out with such intonation as to entitle it to a musical utterance.

There are a number of poetical compositions, all based on the distribution of 5 and 7. Some scholars are of opinion that these 5’s and 7’s can be disintegrated into the more primitive 2’s and 3’s intended for musical accompaniment. Naturally, for singing purposes all degrees of epithesis and prosthesis, as well as of ecstasis and acopope, are permitted.

It may rightly be questioned how a haiku can fall under the classification of poetry, when it has no rhyme, nor can it be sung. To this, it may be answered that generally the sentiment expressed, is not in itself so effusive or emotional as to be helped by musical accompaniment. What Brunetière said of modern lyrics in Europe applies to haiku, namely that they sing themselves in the heart, not on the tongue.

Let me repeat then, that the first characteristic of haiku is its literary form—a form intended for a literary purpose rather than for a vocal, for eyes and not for ears.

The haiku has another literary device to distinguish it from other compositions, by possessing a few, very few, particles called kire-ji (cut letters) used to “cut” off words in order to make it clear whether ...

Table of contents

• CONTENTS
• PREFACE
• THE CHANGING ORIENT
• SOME TRAITS OF ORIENTAL MENTALITY
• CHINA’S CULTURAL INFLUENCE ON JAPAN
• THE MORAL BASIS OF JAPANESE MONARCHY
• ON TEAISM
• ON HAIKU
• AN EASTERN IDEA OF CHARITY
• AN ORIENTAL CHRISTIAN’S VIEW OF THE RACE PROBLEM
• CAN THE EAST AND THE WEST EVER MEET?