Japanese and Western Literature. Armando Martins Janeira

could serve as an intermediary between East and West. Before and after mm this same hope was expressed by Walt Whitman and Amy Lowell, not to mention Lafcadio Hearn and Fenollosa. Today, Prof. Earl Miner also thinks that "almost alone of the Asiatic cultures, Japan has played the important role of providing a meeting ground for East and West."⁴

      The high economic development which has brought Japan to the front of the most progressive nations, and the innovations added by the Japanese to Western techniques tend to lessen each day the gap between Japan and the West. We must say, though, that the Western world does not think Japan to be as near to it as the Japanese themselves feel near to the West.

      Western culture is widely known in the Far East; the main English, American, German, French, and Russian writers influence Japanese novels and poems. Japanese psychology presents to the West peculiarities and mysteries that an already abundant number of books has not yet exhausted. The Japanese way of life presents secrets and enchantments which have been praised by Western enthusiasts for about a century. It is undeniable, however, that the Japanese attitude towards life, the unique social atmosphere which originated in immutable old insular traditions, and the particular light that Buddhism gives to the Asiatic continent are things the Western man does not yet fully understand.

      Since the beginning of our century there has been an important trend towards the serious study of the culture of the Eastern countries in its various aspects, and towards the bringing together of the knowledge and wisdom of East and West. Valuable studies have been done in sociology, comparative religion, historiography, and other fields. It is time to enlarge this new trend to include literature, to look into what is similar and what is different in the ideas and forms created in Japan and in the West. We will see then, for instance, that picaresque novels appear at about the same time in Japan (at a time when she was closed to the West) and in Spain, showing surprising similarities. We are faced not with a merely superficial and casual coincidence but indeed with equivalent literary expressions which originated in the particularity of Japanese and Spanish societies. Their evolutions from ruralism and military feudalism towards mercantilism and progressive urbanism show fundamental similarities. On the other hand, there is epic poetry, where the contrast we find between samurai Japan and Christian Europe can help us to see the rise of the great European epic poems in a new light.

      A parallel between two different cultures as far as they are manifested in literature cannot fail to be fruitful, because they reveal such a rich variety of elements: a variety of form and ideas, different experiences and wisdoms, different popular traditions, different philosophies of life, and different religions—a ground of fertile contrasts and provocative similarities from which great myths and symbols have arisen.

PART ONE. A WESTERN INTERPRETATION OF JAPANESE LITERARY CULTURE

CHAPTER I. CLASSIC POETRY

      INTRODUCTION TO CLASSIC LITERATURE

      When we consider Japanese literature in its entirety and compare it with the great literatures of the West, we first notice its importance, being one of the richest literatures in the world; second, its early maturity; and third, its inclusion of the main genres developed in the Western literatures, though the degree of their importance is different. With great surprise we find that some genres were developed in Japan and in Europe at the same time, though there was no possible communication between them, for Japan had closed its doors to the West.

      The first genre to appear fully developed in Japanese literature is poetry. We notice a similar phenomenon in all literatures—all men begin their artistic attempts by praising in musical words the beauty of the world.

      The first, and greatest, compilation of Japanese poetry is the Manyoshu (Collection of Myriad Leaves), made in the latter part of the eighth century. It includes poems from the fourth to the eighth centuries, but the greatest part belongs to poets from the seventh and the first part of the eighth.

      The Manyoshu comes after Greek and Roman poetry, but four or five centuries before the European national literatures began to make their first attempts. England was still one or two centuries from the Anglo-Saxon poetry of the heathen lay of Beowulf and the Christian poems of Caedmon and Cynewulf and still about six centuries from the first English lyric, which appeared in the fourteenth century. In France, Germany, Portugal, and Spain, vernacular literature would come much later, in the eleventh century; in Italy, later still, in the thirteenth.

      The Japanese followed the example of the Chinese. In China, poetic anthologies appeared much earlier. The first, the Shi Ching (Book of Songs), is supposed to have been compiled by Confucius in the fifth century b.c.; another, the Ch'u-Tz'u (Poems of the Kingdom of Ch'i), was compiled at the end of the first century b.c., the same century in which Meleager compiled his Garland, the first Greek poetic anthology. An anthology of prose and poetry, the Wên Hsüan (Literary Selections), was compiled in the sixth century by Hsiao Tung. These and other Chinese anthologies were widely read by Japanese poets. The glorious period of Chinese poetry was in the T'ang dynasty with Li Po and Tu Fu (eighth century) at the time when the Manyoshu was being compiled.

      If we consider world literature as a whole, Japan has been a forerunner in the novel, the diary, and drama about the common man. It was in Japan that the novel was born, in the tenth century, at a time when Europe was still plunged in the dark Middle Ages. Western European literature was making strenuous efforts to break through the heavy crust of their barbarian popular Latin or Anglo-Saxon languages and trying to lisp the first infantile poems of their troubadours, their naïve stories of saints and crude heroes. Japan had already produced in Murasaki Shikibu's Tale of Genji the most genial novel in its language and one of the greatest works of world literature.

      With The Tale of Genji comes another genre in which Japan pioneered and remains today one of the outstanding producers: the diary (nikki). In their diaries Japanese writers have developed a kind of biographical writing in which the idiosyncrasies of their national character are marked more clearly than in any other genre.

      In the theatre, both in the literary text and in the scenic art of bringing words to life, the Japanese genius again was able to find an art strongly expressive of its national personality. If we consider all these genres together, or if we compare them with the creations of Western literature, we come to the most surprising and provocative reflexions.

      FORM AND CONTENT IN JAPANESE POETRY

      Poetry in Japan is esteemed, as in no other country in the world. Many Japanese emperors, great politicians, warriors, and scholars were poets. Today, poetry still holds a high position officially and socially. It is one of the duties of the emperor to preside at the Kosho Hajime, New Year's poetry contest, which takes place in the Imperial Palace.

      Every year the emperor chooses a theme and a word for the poets competing. Japanese from all over the world (and today even a few foreigners) submit their compositions in tanka form; the selected ones are read before the throne. The Imperial Bureau of Poetry (O-uta Dokoro) was permanently established in 1888 by the Meiji emperor. In former days these palace competitions were so intense "that some of the competitors actually died from despair."

      Poetry is so widely cultivated in Japan that there are more than one thousand reputable poetry magazines and innumerable poetry clubs all over the country. It is a frequent practice for cultured Japanese to write poetry during their leisure, at least as a sort of mental exercise. Even in small remote villages haiku contests are held and the winning poems are exhibited on the main door of the temple. The admirers of great poets erect large stones carved with their favorite poems (called kahi, or poetry monuments). This shows not only the wide regard for poets and poetry but also the high standards of education in Japan.

      A foreign reader easily comes to the conclusion that poetry is the genre that counts least among Japan's impressive achievements, and that probably on account of the nature