Japanese and Western Literature. Armando Martins Janeira

Tanizaki wrote:

      Ancient Japanese court literature and the drama of the feudal ages, with Buddhism a strong and living force behind it, had its classical dignity, but with the Edo Shogunate and the decline of Buddhism even, that disappeared. While the dramatists and novelists of the Edo period were able to create soft, lovely women, women who were likely to dissolve in tears on a man's knee, they were quite unable to create the sort of woman a man would feel compelled, to kneel before.¹⁵

      But this says too little. Love, as it was sung by the poets of the West, was unknown to the Far East. It is known that the very word for love could not be pronounced, in Japan, in polite company.

      Lin Yutang wrote this:

      The most singular contrast between Chinese and Western art is the difference in the source of inspiration, which is nature itself for the East and the female form for the West. . . . Whereas the Chinese painter symbolizes spring by a fat and well-shaped partridge, the Western painter symbolizes it by a dancing nymph with a faun chasing after her.¹⁶

      Love in Chinese poetry is seldom if ever Platonic. Besides, the note of friendship is more frequent than in Western poetry; to this J. Y. Liu adds, "There are many Chinese poems by men professing affection for other men in terms which would, bring serious embarrassment if not public prosecution to an English poet."¹⁷ In Japan, said Junichiro Tanizaki, the "liberation of love is the most substantial influence we have received from Western literature.

      In the Manyoshu, we find, love themes treated with fresh candour, hidden ardour, and conjugal attachment. We cannot find there the fire, the eloquent rapture, the maddening love known in Western poetry. Japanese lovers are never very outspoken, and they do not cultivate eloquence. On the other hand, there is a grace and fire in this reserve that has its own charm.

      The prince of the poets of the Manyoshu is Hitomaro, surnamed Kakinomoto because as a child he was found under a persimmon tree by a warrior named Ayabe, When Ayabe asked the divinely beautiful child who he was, he answered; "No father or mother have I, but in the moon and the winds, and in poetry I find my joy." The following is one of his poems:

Tasokare to ware o na toi so	In this twilight of life ask not who I am
Nagatsuki no tsuyu ni nuretsutsu	Long time drenching in September dew
Kimi matsu ware o	For you waiting.

      Conjugal love is frequently expressed with a quiet tenderness or with the nostalgia of separation that retains the fresh candour of young courtship days. Ladies are often more daring to speak of their flame. Here is a sample tanka by the Japanese lady poet who has the reputation of being the most ardent lover, Ono no Komachi. Her life inspired both ancient and modern Noh plays.

Yumeji niwa	On. the path of dreams
Asm mo yasumezu	My feet never cease running to you
Kayoe domo	But the vague dreams are not
Utsutsu ni hitome	Worth a glimpse
Mishi koto wa arazu	Of the real you.

      Another tanka:

Hito ni awan	About the one I want to see
Tsuki no naki niwa	When there is no moonlight in the garden
Omoi okite	I think when I wake up
Mune hashiribi ni	My breast ablaze
Kokoro yake ori	My soul consuming itself in fire.

      It is curious to note that the ladies declare their feeling more vividly than men, even when it is about the loss of the emperor, as in this longer poem:

Utsusemi shi kami ni taeneba	Mortal am I whom gods will not suffer
Hanareite asa nageku kimi	Separate each morning I lament you
Sakariite waga kouru kimi	Gone away I long for you
Tama notaba te ni makimochite	Were he a jewel that I could hold in my hand
Kinu naraba nugu toki mo naku	Were he a robe that I could never take off
Waga kouru kimi zo kizo no yo	The Lord whom I love so, last night
Yume ni mietsuru	In my dream could I see.

      Concerning the phenomenon of more vibrant and less contained emotion in feminine poetry in Japan up to the present, one explanation is in the fact that women are allowed, by social morals and convention, to express a love that would be in the case of a man considered degrading to masculine pride and man's superiority.

      The subject of love seems less attractive to Japanese poets than the beauty of nature, even in the more spontaneous classic anthologies of tanka. Among the twenty-six books of the Kokinshu, six are dedicated to nature and five to love. Many of the love poems are listed by the compilers as anonymous simply for the purpose of discretion.

      SIGNIFICANCE OF JAPANESE LYRICISM IN WORLD POETRY

      To conclude this chapter about classic poetry, we may say that in the rare cases in which old Japanese poets were not tied by the strict rules of tradition, they show a deep emotion, a high element of lyricism, a vehement strength, and a force and inspiration comparable to the best poetry of the West. We see it in the poetry of the Noh, which attains a force and eloquence unique in Japanese poetry. For mc, Motokiyo Zeami is the greatest poet of Japan. After Noh poetry, which goes back to the fifteenth century, we have to wait for the modern poets, inspired by the liberty enjoyed by their Western equals, to find a poetry of universal appeal both in its variety of themes and in its free form, rebellious against all the iron rules and inhibitions of the past. The ardent poems of Akiko Yosano have a strength, fervour, and inspired liberty that bring them into the class of the world's best poetry.

      But on the whole when we consider Japanese classic poetry, even with its brevity and limited subject matter, we are moved and impressed by its immense production, by its beauty, and by the richness in the particular field that Japanese poets preferred to explore. Its most refined subtlety, its peculiar gift for deep suggestion and infinite gradation of shades represent a unique contribution to world poetry. Without Japanese classic poetry, one side of nature—its most delicate beauty—would still not be revealed.

CHAPTER II. THE CLASSIC NOVEL

      THE BEGINNING OF THE NOVEL IN JAPAN

      Japan produced the first great novel of world literature, Genji Monogatari (The Tale of Genji). The author, Murasaki Shikibu, was a court lady who lived in the tenth century.

      The Tale of Genji was the culmination of a literary current which had produced other tales (monogatari) previously: Taketori Monogatari and Utsubo Monogatari, possibly from the same unknown writer; Ise Monogatari and its poor imitations; Yamato Monogatari; and Hamamatsu Chunagon Monogatari. Nearly all of these and the other tales or narratives which came afterwards told stories that were too complicated or fantastic, though brushed in most delicate tones.

      Ochikubo Monogatari (The Tale of Lady Ochikubo) is nearer the idea of