Japanese and Western Literature. Armando Martins Janeira

personal emotion becomes impossible.

      Before this vagueness, this quintessence of emotion, it becomes very difficult for the foreign reader to make a judgement about this poetry. For him it remains incomplete, as he is not able to cooperate fully with the poet and explore the possible developments of its complex and multiple meanings.

      In early Japanese poetry natural phenomena were considered divine and mountains were sacred. Mount Fuji was worshipped as a tutelary god, as, in minor degree, were other mountains like Tateyama and Tsukuba. The ocean, rivers, and lakes were the homes of gods. For many Japanese they still are. This deep religious feeling, rooted in Shintoism, could not be classified simply as animism, but is certainly one of the explanations for the predominant position nature still takes in Japanese poetry today.

      While Japanese poetry is pure contemplation, Western poetry, in its highest expressions, is the fruit of an active attitude. The highest measure of Western life is not contemplation, but action, which is the source of a new being. We see this in Dante, whose poetry is not simply a reflected image of the world as it is; Dante acts and creates his own distinct world. His aim is to take men away from their unfortunate existence and lift them to another state of radiant happiness. As Merejkowsky puts it, Dante is not content in telling something to men, but wants to make of them something they are not, to lift them to the plenitude of their being. This dissatisfaction with nature as it is, this extreme ambition, is the core of Western poetry, which lies at the opposite side of the serene ideals of the East.

      Western poetry has no limits to its flight; its aim and ambition are boundless. There are no barriers to its inspiration, as its essence and soul are infinite and eternal. Eastern poetry admits a point, at the highest peak of poetic activity, where further creation becomes impossible. Too great an inspiration, writes Tokoku Kitamura, as that of Basho at Matsushima, causes so complete a submergence of self in the universe that it makes writing impossible. That is why Basho would go no further than to murmur mere exclamations after the name of the beautiful islands:"Matsushima ya, Matsushima ya, Ya Matsushima." Zeami expressed the same idea when he affirmed that the highest point of proficiency in Noh is one in which all performance becomes impossible.

      With this concept of nature is linked a sense of time particular to Japanese and Chinese poetry. There are numerous poems written about the nostalgia of seeing the autumn leaves fall, the beautiful red leaves of the maple tree, the fall of snow associated with old age, or tender poems chanting the beauty of new spring leaves or cherry blossoms. But also haiku is linked necessarily, by the rules of its construction, to the seasons of the year. This is so important in haiku collections that seasonal themes received a special name, saijiki.

      Here is a haiku inspired by the feeling of the seasons.

      Summer:

Yagate shinu	That soon will die
Keshiki wa miezu	Nobody could see
Semi no Koe	In the voice of the cicada.

      In this very condensed poem, Basho evokes the hot summer day (the voice of the cicada is enough to suggest the heat of summer and the solitude of the fields), the transience of life, and the brevity of joy (even when a spiritual one).

      Autumn:

Meigetsu ya	Bright full moon
Ike o megurite	The pond I wandered around
Yomosugara	All night long.

      Spring:

Na no hana ya	Oh rape-flowers
Tsuki wa higashi ni	Moon in the East
Hi wa nishi ni	Sun in the West.

      Winter:

Chiru susuki	Falling grass of susuki
Samuku nam no ga	The cold increases
Me ni mieru	Before the eyes.

      Here is beauty in simplicity. The principle underlying all Japanese artistic expression is perhaps the control of feeling. This can be seen in the simplicity of time, in the sobriety of colour in painting, and in the austere elegance of classic sculpture and architecture. This simplicity tends to be heightened by a refinement, purity, and luminous synthesis. But what I like best in Japanese poetry, what gives an impression of grandeur as in certain poems about nature by great Chinese poets like Li Po and Tu Fu, is the poetry of Noh, Here we can marvel at the weight of every word and be overwhelmed by its strength and universal beauty. Who could but admire the passage of Hagoromo, beautifully translated by Arthur Waley?

      Now upon earth trail the long mists of Spring;

       Who knows hut in the valleys of the moon

       The heavenly moon-tree pats her blossom on?

       The blossoms of her crown win back their glory:

       It is the sign of Spring,

       Not heaven is here, hut beauty of the wind and sky

       Blow, blow you wind, and build

       Cloud-walls across the sky, lest the vision leave us

       Of a maid divine!

       This tint of springtime in the woods,

       This colour on the headland.

       Snow on the mountain,

       Moonlight on the clear shore,—

       Which fairest? Nay, each peerless

       At the dawn of a Spring day.¹⁴

      THE CONCEPT OF LOVE

      The concept of love in poetry is basically linked with the position of the woman in a certain society. We do not need here to go as far as to consider the economic situation of women and their place in the family ; but it is obvious that the way a poet looks at the lady of his dreams and her situation necessarily influences the tone of the song he sings to her. An analytical study of the relation between the position of the woman in a certain society and the character of the poetry she inspires has never been done; but it is easy to see that the devoted way the troubadours addressed their belles is far from the direct, abrupt and even sometimes brutal apostrophes of the poets of our time, Japanese included. From an anonymous English troubadour: Ma très douce et très aimé. . . . Night and day for love of thee suspiro. From one of the greatest Japanese modern poets, Sakutaro Hagiwara (1888-1942): "Woman, with your breasts like rubber balls." Western poetry has suffered for many centuries from the influence of the courteous type of love of the Middle Ages, in which the woman was worshipped by the knight-poet who died from love for her. In this worshipping of the troubadour and kneeling before his belle, there is certainly a deep religious influence suggested by the ideal of the Virgin Mother. All the great epic poets invoked goddesses or women to give them inspiration. Venus, Beatrice, Dulcinea, and Eleanora are not only literary creations, but also sources of creative power; Milton's Muse has been identified by some critics with the feminine principle in the cosmic creation.

      Denis de Rougemont, in his interesting book Love in the Western World, asserts that the religion of love has dominated the Western world until today, opposing love to life and pursuing passion to death. Its foremost expression is the myth of Tristan and Iseult—love is a "boundless desire." This idea appears in the tradition of courtly love in the great literary works of the Renaissance and of the Romantic Movement.

      There is nothing similar to this feeling of worship and spiritual devotion in Japanese poetry. The woman was never an ideal. The social influence of woman with her position lower than man, and the Buddhist thought which confirmed this did not encourage poets to assign high places to women in their dreams. About