Japanese and Western Literature. Armando Martins Janeira

society or the Heian period within which The Tale of Genji was born. According to this school, Murasaki typifies the contradictions of the society she describes, contradictions which brought about the collapse of the ancient aristocracy. Genji is himself the very symbol of these social contradictions and decadence, this school of criticism contends.²⁷

      A more conservative critic, Norinaga Motoori, without considering the character or social meaning of Genji, considers Genji's destiny and morality as symbols of human experience, and tries to find the explanation and moral justification in Buddhism.

      Consider the European Don Juan. In Spain he is a nobleman, not of high rank, great fortune, or personal prestige, but with all the virile characteristics of a knight: courage, strength, manly appearance. He is an average gentleman, possessing the average qualities, defects, and ideals of the gentleman of his time, but because he is a hero, he possesses them in high degree. He has an indomitable pride, inexhaustible energy, the dominating will of a fanatic, He suffers from a painful thirst for love which he erroneously deviates to mere physical love. This thirst for love of women is so great that it is prolonged in a stronger and more significant need, a mystical anguish increased by the shadow of death. Love, religion, and death are the protagonists of his adventure. He goes from one woman to another; he never stays in the same place. He goes along the narrow streets of Seville under the dark of night, or jumps over the wail of a convent, risking his life for only the sweet pleasure of a brief encounter. He defies society, the church, and God. The spur of his love is not only that he wants to possess beauty and to pursue pleasure through successive deceptions, but mainly it is an irresistible attraction to sin, with the vague certainty of final expiation.

      Mysticism with such strong erotic tones has been explained by the atmosphere of physical exaltation which existed at the time in some religious movements in Spain, One example is the Alumbrados, who went to the point of advising nuns and simple women believers to have sexual relations with Alumbrado priests and monks for the purpose of begetting prophets.

      In his study of Don Juan, Gregorio Marañon defends the thesis that Don Juan is not the archetype of virility, because the perfect varon is the strictly monogamic man, one who fixes his preference on a certain woman and does not look for sex like an adolescent. Marañon goes as far as affirming that Don Juan is not a typically Spanish character; he is an exotic importation without national roots. For Marañon the virile type of Spanish lover is el medico de su honra—the caretaker of his honour; monogamic, austere, living only for his home; with many children and with one cult; with honour upheld by violence, sacrifice, vengeance, and crime if necessary, Marañon, who was probably a type of el médico de su honra himself, was carried away by his moralist bent, and did not stick to the literary field and the Don Juan created by Tirso de Molina. The type illustrated by Marañon strongly suggests Sancho Panza, in contrast with Don Quixote. The latter, perhaps less manly than Sancho Panza, is more courageous and loves risk and adventure. He is as interested in the stern pursuit of his visions and ideals as is Don Juan in his dream of reaching the absolute in love. The main difference is that el médico de su honra is a contented man who enjoys his tranquil, limited love; Don Juan, as Don Quixote, is under a curse that never allows him to stop his quest for the absolute.

      The Spanish type of Don Juan was adopted by Molière in his much criticized play Don Juan. Louis Jouvet has attempted to give it a depth that the play did not contain, adding strong Spanish traits to it. But Jouvet's efforts could not redeem the sceptic, rationalist French Don Juan, who lacks the two strongest traits of the true Don Juan—a wild freedom in love (in Molière's play he is married) and a deep religious feeling against which he constantly strives (Molière makes him an atheist). Still further away from the purity and strength of the Spanish myth is Montherlant with his decadent Don Juan, sixty-six years old, weathered by impotence and libertinism. Nearer the original is the eloquent dialectician created by Bernard Shaw, with his brilliant arrogance and devilish cunning.

      Mozart, with his romantic Don Juan, added some traits of courage and gallantry belonging to a type of seducer, but he did not grasp the essential quality of the original, the thirst for absolute love. Though there are also Don Juans in northern European countries, as Ramiro Maetzu noted, the true type of Don Juan is the one which originated in Spain.²⁸

      Comparing the positions of Japanese and Western Don Juans, we see that Genji is an approved social symbol, he is a positive hero, grand minister, showered with honours, and adored by all women; his pursuit of pleasure is not antisocial, he is not an outcast. In the end he suffers what time and decadence reserve for every man, and even if he is a hero, he finishes as a conformist. On the other hand, Don Juan, until the very end, is a reprobate, condemned by society.

      While the Japanese Don Juan finds the thrilling paths of adventure easy and smooth—as it should be for a charming prince of royal blood in a society where strict hierarchy assured all privileges and women could not resist masculine daring—the Spanish Don Juan has to fight for the possession of his belles, and has to risk his life in dozens of duels. In the end he has to face death in the form of the stone statue of the father of one of the women he seduced and betrayed, the statue of the Commander who comes to the ultimate meeting.

      Don Juan is a great rebel—he rebels against society and against God. He is not an atheist because he challenges God, and his greatest temptation is to deny the greatness of God. His main offenses are not against women, but against God himself.

      Here we reach the essence of what so well characterizes the fundamental differences between the two cultures: Oriental culture is aesthetic, conservative, and unstirred by the curse of a ceaseless quest for the absolute; Western culture always tries to go beyond itself, is never satisfied, is essentially Promethean in its quest for a higher freedom and never gives up in its attempt to ravish the creative fire of the gods.

CHAPTER III. THE DIARY

      THE HEIAN DIARIES

      The diary (nikki) appears very early in Japan, at the same time as the novel, and has its own very original features. The genre has reached great heights and, at least in one work, presents one of the world's best works. As in the case of the novel, women were the greatest writers. The originality of their diaries, when we compare them with those of the West, lies in the poetical tone of the subtle and subdued style, and in the sharp psychological observation of human character by means of the minute and delicate sensibility of a woman. Most of the classic diaries were written between the tenth and fourteenth centuries. The diary is so much to Japanese taste that their number today is uncountable.

      The first diary known is that of the poet Ki no Tsurayuki, Tosa Nikki (The Diary of Tosa), written in 933, the first Japanese work of literary prose. It is a simple and charming description of the author's return from Tosa, where he was governor, to the capital at Kyoto.

      Kagero Nikki (The Gossamer Years) is a realistic narrative about a housewife married to a most unreliable prince, but nevertheless a man whose character was good and kindly. The diary is remarkable in its abundant detail of social life, its realism, its vividness of narration (although never very imaginative), and the frankness with which the difficult relations with the capricious prince are described. But the really interesting diaries of the period are those of the poetess Izumi Shikibu, the novelist Murasaki Shikibu, and especially the diary of Sei Shonagon.

      THE DIARY OF IZUMI SHIKIBU

      The diary of Izumi Shikibu refers to the period 1002-3. The author is considered one of the greatest woman poets of Japan. Her diary is an intimate account of her love affair with Prince Atsumichi. She was then an experienced woman; she had been divorced, and, shortly after, her former husband died; she had a daughter who was also a poet. We know of her lover, Prince Tametaka, who had also died. The diary is the vivid confession of the intimate, deep exaltation of a matured woman transported by a passionate love. The whole diary speaks of nothing but love; there are no comments on other people, no observations on manners, no reference to events except those of her love. Reading this beautiful diary, we can imagine how a love affair was in tenth-century Japan between two people of cultured and refined taste.