Formative Elements of the Japanese Poetic Tradition - Brower and Miner

8/12/2019 Formative Elements of the Japanese Poetic Tradition - Brower and Miner

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Formative Elements in the Japanese Poetic TraditionAuthor(s): Robert H. Brower and Earl Roy MinerSource: The Journal of Asian Studies, Vol. 16, No. 4 (Aug., 1957), pp. 503-527Published by: Association for Asian StudiesStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/2941636.

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Formative lements n theJapanesePoeticTradition ROBERT H. BROWEREARL ROY MINERtTHE poetry f everynationand age is a complex xpression f thehistory,spirit, nd individualgeniusof a people; and, as each successivegenerationevaluates a native or an alien poetic tradition rom ts ownhistorical nd cul-turalvantage-point,t discoversmeanings nd values as well as limitations ndweaknesses n the poetry t reads. Each generationmust reassessfor tself heglory hat was Greece or thegrandeur fJapan-so that theattempt o describetheformativelementswhichunderlieJapanesepoetic expressions more han asingle essay, individual, or generation an accomplish. But the undertakingneverthelesseems necessary oday,whenwe can no longerbe satisfiedwiththeolderextremes f Victoriancondescension owards "Japanese epigrams"; theexclusively istorical r biographical reatmentwhichevades direct nalysis ofthepoetry;or that simple-mindedxoticismwhich prefersgnorant apture othedisciplined ffort f literary riticism. or the Westerner s well as fortheJapanese,poetry ives only as it is understood nd felt, nd our experience fJapanese poetry oday mustreflect ontemporary ritical tandardsand tech-niques of analysis-the means ofunderstanding iven us by our own age andculture.These limitations nd principles re basic; but our essay is furtherimitedchronologicallyo a single continuous egmentof the total Japanese poetictradition-to whatmaybe calledtheprimitive,heexperimental,nd theclas-sical ages,from pproximatelyhe fifthentury o themiddle of the thirteenthcentury four era. We shallconsider he "secular"poetry ftheperiod, eavingaside suchovertly eligiousmaterials s ShintoorBuddhist iturgiesnd hymns.Further, xcept for the primitive ge (extending o the mid-seventhentury),we shallconcern urselveswiththe "literary"poetry, heproductof consciousartistry. urmaterials rethereforeerivednthemainfrom heearly hronicles,ofwhichthe Kojiki (712) and the Nihongi (720) contain most of the extantprimitive erse; theMan'yoshu c. 759), the firstnthology fJapanesepoetry,

Dr. Brower s AssistantProfessor f Japanese at StanfordUniversity. r. Miner isAssistant rofessor f Englishat U.C.L.A.; his book, The Japanese Tradition n Britishand American iterature,s scheduledforpublication ythe PrincetonUniversity resslate this year. The authors re collaborating n a book-lengthritical tudyofJapanesepoetry, n which hey are developing he ideas outlinedhere. This article was originallyread as a paper before the Stanford UniversitySeminar on East Asian Thoughtand Society, and the authors wish to express their gratitudeto ProfessorArthurF. Wright or his encouragementnd for many helpful uggestions.Naturally theyac-cept responsibilityor ny errors r infelicitiesn thisessay.

503


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504 BROWER AND MINERthebulkofwhose ome4,500poemsbelong otheseventh ndthefirst alfof heeighthcenturies; nd the firstnine Imperial anthologies, rom he Kokinshiz(?905) through he Shinchokusenshic. 1234), whichare the most importantcollections f iterary oetrywritten rom he ate eighth o the earlythirteenthcentury. inally, hetwomajorpoeticformswhichweredeveloped ndpracticedduring hisperiodwillconcern s here.The firsts the choka also, nagauta),or"long poem,"whichcameto comprise n indefiniteumber fpairsof five- ndseven-syllableines,withan added seven-syllableine at the end,and to whichmightbe added one or morehanka (also, kaeshiuta), r "envoys."The second,and more mportant orm o the developing radition,s the tanka,or "shortpoem,"whichconsists fthirty-oneyllablesgrouped n five ines,of whichthefirstnd third ontainfive yllables, heothers, even.'Therearethree ssential spectsofthepoetry ftheperiod ndtypes ustnowdefinedwhichdeserve o be called basic formativelementsn thedevelopmentof an integralpoetic tradition.These three elements re not confined o theperiod nder onsiderationere, ndarenotwholly niquetoJapanese oetry; utin detail, emphasis,and patternsof development, hese elementsgive theJapanesepoetic tradition ts unique character, nd recommend hemselves spointsof departure or furthertudy.The first lement s that of constancy:there re severalconstant ualitieswhichdistinguish apanesepoetry rom hepoetry fothernations.The second s thatofrecurringycles:there repatternsof changewhichare repeatedoverthe centurieswithstriking egularity. hethird lements that ofcumulative evelopment:here s a temporal equenceofdeveloping raditionwhichdecrees hat everypoetbe mindful f his place nthehistory f his tradition.As patterns nd constantsofpoetic expression, hesethree ormativelements perate ncomplexnterrelationt all times, ut for hesake ofanalysis, t is useful o discussthem eparately.

IOne ofthe most mportants well as one of themost neffablef theconstantelements fany poetry s the medium tself, anguage.The lexiconofclassicalJapaneseshareswiththatofChinesea concretenessnd particularity ifferentfromWesternpoetic anguage.That "Beauty is truth, nd truthbeauty"maywellbe a sentimentharedwithKeats bya Japanesepoet,buttheJapanesepoet' The 5- and 7-syllable ine did not become fixed n Japanese prosodyuntil the7thcentury,nd thenumber fsyllablesper ine in themostprimitive ersevariescon-siderably.The envoy (which may have been pronouncedhenka in the period ofthe Man'y&shii)was an innovation fChinese nspiration hatbeganto come ntovoguein themid-7thentury.t was identical n formwiththetanka.See MorimotoHarukichi,"Man'yashiu,"Nihonbungakushi:odai [History fJapaneseLiterature: ncient eriod],

ed. HisamatsuSen'ichi (Tokyo,1955),pp. 291-292.Much ofthebestMan'yoshupoetryis translated in The Manyoshu: One Thousand Poems, published for the NipponGakujutsuShinkokai Tokyo,1940),hereafterbbreviated s NGS. For a convenientistofthe21 Imperial nthologies,ompiled etween?905 nd 1439, ee Edwin 0. Reischauerand JosephK. Yamagiwa, Translations romEarly Japanese LiteratureCambridge,1951),pp. 131-135.


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JAPANESE POETIC TRADITION 505typically resentsheobjectwhich s beautiful nd assumes t is trueor he wouldtell us otherwise. lthoughwemayfindn theolderJapanesepoeticvocabularytermsfor such physical nd emotionalqualities as "whiteness," sadness," or"love," and although he anguage s capable of makingformal s wellas meta-phoricalabstractions,he lexicon nevertheless oes not include such words as"truth" or "honor": there s no Holiness to ride into a Spenserianallegoricalfield,nor a Pity to shed a Baroque tear.2The personifiedbstraction, r theabstraction f a moralor ethicalquality,whichwe owe to Hebrew, ate-Latin,and medievalwriting,imply re nota part of Japanesepoetry.The tradition salien to it, and the part ofhumanexperience onveyed n ourpoetryby suchabstractionss expressedotherwisen Japanese. Such an emphasisupon par-ticularity nd avoidance of abstractionhelp explain why many Westerners,especially hemoralVictorians, ave been prone o emphasizewhat s "lacking"inJapanesepoetry, nd have often reated t with condescension.3he problemwe face s really dual onethen:to showwhyJapanesepoetry s concrete n itsfunctioningsnd to suggesthow larger,moregeneralmeanings re conveyed.The first art of the answermay be givennow and the second deferredo adiscussion f magery nd othermatters.Perhapsthe crucialaspect of the languagewhichhas led to such subtlepar-ticularitiess the nature of ts nouns,verbs and adjectives,and particles.Thenounsofthetraditional apanesepoeticvocabulary re almost nvariably bjectsapprehensibley thesenses, nd thereforelmosteverynoun s psychologicallyan imageand incipiently literarymage.Japanesenounshave,then, greaterpotentialofnuance and connotation han ourmoregeneralizedvocabulary,factwhichcan be demonstratedn twoverydifferentays. First,theJapaneseis one of the world'sfewpoetic traditionsn which even nouns ofplace char-acteristically ave connotativeor semi-metaphoricalignificance.econd, theimagisticpotentialofJapanesepoetry s precisely he qualitywhichattractedrecent rench nd Englishpoetswhowereweariedbytheabstractmoralizing fa dilutednineteenth-centuryradition.WhileJapanese poetry hares a concretenoun-vocabularywithChinese, tsverbs and adjectivesmake it an entirely ifferentoeticmedium.Few modernliteraryanguageshave such rich nflectionso adjectivesand few are capableof suchsubtleverbaldistinctions. apaneseverbs ftheclassical anguagedo nothave our seven so-calledtenses,but as many as seven premodalmorphemesexpressing arioustypesof aspect combinedwithas manyas fourteenmood

2Formal means of derivingnouns fromverbs or adjectives are foundin such amorphemes -sa in theMan'yoshui.ome,but notall, of thenouns o formed re abstrac-tions: kanashi"sad," and kanashisa "sadness." See Sir GeorgeSansom,An HistoricalGrammarfJapanese London,1928),pp. 293-295.Anexample f a metaphoricalbstrac-tionmightbe koi "love." However,whileabstractions xist n classical Japanese, heyare muchmore rare, and covermuchmore imited reas ofexperience hanin WesternEuropean anguages.3For example,W. G. Aston,JapaneseLiteratureLondon,1899),Ch. ii, especiallypp.24-34.


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506 BROWER AND MINERmorphemes.4he resultof thishighly omplex ystem s a particularly ine ndsubtle adjustment of tone, ultimatelybeyond the reach of translation ntoWesternanguages, nd an instrumentspeciallywell suited to exploringtatesoffeeling,mind, nd being.Two kinds of particles ncrease he armament f the Japanesepoet,althoughthedistinction etween hem s more one of poetic than grammatical unction.Those may be called grammaticalwhich re "joined" to nouns to indicatecase,and those rhetorical hich re related o the syntax nd meaning s a wholeforvarieties fexclamation, uestioning, nd stress.The rich exture heseparticlesgive to the verse can be understood y comparing heirverbal concretenessopunctuationmarks or theirvariety o the monotonous Oh's" and "Ah's" oftranslators. he following ankaby Fujiwara no Shunzei (1114-1204) may betaken as an example:Kiku hito o He who heard them:Namidawa otsuru His tearsbroke at their ries-Kaeru kari The wild geese wingingNakiteyukunaru In sad departure rom hebeautyAkebono o sora. Ofspringtimeawnspread hroughhesky.6In this poemtheparticles o and wa emphasizekiku hito he who heard them"and namida "tears," and at the same timeestablish relationshipnd implicitcontrastbetween hese wordsand kari "wildgeese" and nakite crying" n thefollowingines.Largely hroughheuse andplacement ftheseparticles, hunzeibringsmanandnature nto closerelationship:hegeese "cry"-but itis the manwhoweeps; the man is sad at thepoignantbeautyofdawn-but it is thegeesewhoaremadeto feelreluctant o leave the scene.Without hewa afternamida,the poemwould not conveythisreciprocal ymbolism.Viewedin the lightofthe aims it sets for tself, uchparticles nd otherpoetic-linguisticonstituentsgivethepoeticmedium t once an economy nd a subtletywhich rethedespairofthe translator.These aspects of grammarnd linguistic tructure re fundamental,ut theycannotbe evaluated n isolation nymore han a stream an be measuredbyits4Differingmethods f analysis will yield different umbers f inflectional ategories.The figures iven here are based upon Masako Yokoyama, The nflectionsf 8th CenturyJapanese, Language, XXVI (Jul.-Sept., 1950), Supplement, 25-45. Verbs of thetenthcentury,f analyzed n accordancewith this same method,would show a decreaseoftwo or three n thenumber fmoods.

6 This and other poems quoted in this article which appear in the chronicles,the Man'y5shuind the Imperial anthologies are identified y the numbers ssignedto them nKokka taikan CompendiumfJapaneseClassicalPoetry] 6thed., Tokyo, 1925,2 vols.). The nameofthe anthology rother ource s first iven,followed ythenumberofthe poem n sequencewithin heanthology. he present oem s Shinkokinshul9,theShinkokinshuleingthe8th Imperial anthology, irst ompletedn 1206.All translationsare by the present writers unless otherwise ndicated. This and other translationsof poems fromthe Shinkokinshulre indebted to the exegeses in Kubota Utsubo,Shinkokinwakashu2yoshakuACriticalCommentaryn the hinkokinshu]8th ed., Tokyo,1946-47, vols.).


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JAPANESE POETIC TRADITION 507cupfuls.For Japanesepoetrydoes have an almost stream-like, lowing adencewhich reminds ne of Sir John Denham's image of the Thames for his poeticideal:

Though deep, yet clear, thoughgentleyet not dull,Strongwithout age, without 'er-flowingull.6These qualities of depth (or sonorousness), entleness, trength or firm on-sonance), nd fullness or assonance n harmonywithmovement) row rom wofamiliar ruths.Japanese has an unusuallyhigh proportion f vowels n regularalternationwith consonants nd is a language of little accent. Perhaps onlyVirgil could write verse with such melodious assonance and strength f con-sonance as the famoustankaby Ariwarano Narihira 825-80):

Tsui ni yuku Though formerly heardMichi towa kanete About the road that all must travelKikishikado At the inevitable nd,Kino kyoto wa I neverthoughtmy time should comeOmowazarishi. So soon as yesterday r now.'But it is more than sound whichgives Japanese poetry ts cadence.The highlyinflected atureof the anguagegives t a freedom, ven a looseness nd startlingvariety, fsyntax n extendedwritingwhich endsa sinuousforward ressure otheverse.At thesame time,however, hesyntax s morefixedwithin heclausethan, say, in Latin,with the result hat the over-all ffect f the movement fverse, especially n choka, is something etweenthe Latin and the English: astyle of great fluidity etweencloselyorderedsyntacticalunits and charac-teristically tiffened nd enriched with parallelismbetween the constituentclauses andharmonywithin hem.The cadencesofJapanesepoetryre ndeed sograceful nd smooth hat some poets seem guiltyof the folly ften mputedtoTennyson nd Swinburne-of playing oo gooda tunewiththelanguageto paymuchattention o the ibretto.Whilethis s notreally rueoftheJapanese nymorethan ofTennyson, hegreatest oetsseemwaryof thispleasant folly ndroughen heirverse texturewith elisions, rregular ines, abrupt sounds,pertur-bationsofsyntax, rchanges n pace. But to speakofthesematters s to raise asecondtopic: that of the constant lementwhichwe find n Japanese prosodyand style.Prosody s ofcoursecloselyrelated to language,and littleneed be said hereabout the syllabicfives nd sevens ofJapanese poetry.The problemof where

6Sir John Denham, "Cooper's Hill," The Poetical Works of Sir John Denham,ed. TheodoreHowardBanks, Jr. NewHaven, 1928),p. 77, ines 191-192.7Kokinshua861.The translations fthis and otherpoemsfrom he Kokinshit eflect heexegeses in Kaneko Genshin, Kokinwakashiihyoshaku A Critical CommentaryntheKokinshui]12th ed., Tokyo, 1940).Tradition holds that the presentpoemwas com-posed during the poet's last illness. It also appears in the final "episode" of theIse monogatari, 9th-or 10th-centuryollection f poemswithprose contexts ttributedto Narihira.See the Kochut ihon bungaku aikei [Annotatedollection f JapaneseLit-eraryTexts], I (Tokyo,1937),92.


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508 BROWER AND MINERthese syllabic engths ame from, ikethe problem f the origins f blankverse,willprobablyneverbe solved satisfactorily.Vhetherheycome from n analogywithChineseversepatterns, r from hythms o suit some ancientmusicalform,or from ome whollydifferentource,the fact remains hat the alternation fshort nd longer ines s a part ofthe genius of the language, ust as accentedand alliterative erse was the best mediumfor the strongly tressed nd pre-vailingly hortwordsof the old Germanic anguages.8There seems to be an artistic quivalentto Newton's third aw of motion,however-that in order o receive n advantage from literary onvention,nemust also take the equal and oppositedisadvantage. The fluid smoothness fJapanese prosodic style s not,under all circumstances, ny more adapted tosustained poetic forms hanthe involutedconceitsof our Metaphysicalpoets.The great poets of the choka, uchas Kakinomotono Hitomaro fl. c. 680-700)and Yamanoe no Okura (?660-?733),not only deliberately oughen he textureoftheir erse,but also stiffentwithparallelism fthought nd sound, ingle nddouble parallelism, ntithesis, choing nd re-echoing f dea and soundin dif-ferent artsof thepoem, closelyworkedout formal tructure,ronies-and thevarious sophisticated hetorical echniques lso found n Westernpoetry.9Withthesetechniques o give the chokastrength nd to slow down the cadence,orwhat is the same thing, o slow downour response o the cadence, thesepoetscould also reaptheadvantagesof theonward-pressing elodic weetness f theJapanese prosodic style. The troublesome hingabout achievingthis superbstyle s that it takes very great poets indeedto mergecontradictorylementsinto a single ffect.n short, t seems ikely hat one of the principal easonsforthe much-lamented emise of thechoka n the eighth enturys that the tankalengthwas sucha ready compromise, formnwhich hegreatest oetsas wellas thoseofsomethingessthansurpassing reatness ouldwritewithout apsinginto that gravest f iterary ins,monotony. he tankawas found obe an idealunit of cadence and thoughtfor the uses to whichJapanese poetrytypicallycame to be put, especiallyas successive generations f poets soughtgreaterrefinementn a narrowed oeticrange.'0How melodic and yethow strong hetankaform s can be understood ycomparing favorite ne-perhaps thepoembyNarihiraalready quoted-with a favoritehaiku,suchas the famousone byMatsuo Basho (1644-94):

Kare-edani A crow s perched8Takeda Yukichi, Jodai kokubungaku o kenkyui Studies in Ancient JapaneseLiterature]Tokyo, 1921),pp. 71-72; Takeda Yukichi,Man'yoshutenchuishaku:osetsu[Complete ommentaryn theMan'yoshui:ntroductoryolume] Tokyo,1951), pp. 93-94;Takano Tatsuyuki, Nihon kayoshi [Historyof Japanese Songs and Ballads] (rev.ed., Tokyo,1938),p. 21; Tsugita Jun,Kokubungakushihinko New nterpretationsfthe

History f Japanese Literature]Tokyo,1932), , 50.9 See, forexample, he detailedanalysesof the formal tructure f Hitomaro'schokain Saito Mokichi,Kakinomoto o Hitomaro,I (Tokyo, 1937),esp. pp. 385-419.10HisamatsuSen'ichi,Nihon bungaku yoronshi:odai,chuisei en History f JapaneseLiterary riticism: ncient nd MedievalPeriods] Tokyo, 1949),pp. 46-56.


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JAPANESE POETIC TRADITION 509Karasu no tomarikeri Upon a leafless ough-Aki nokure. The autumndusk."

The haiku has rhythm, ut not protracted nough to give a sense of melodicmovement; t is almost all images related by juxtapositionratherthan by acoherent lace ina syntactical, hythmiclow.The evidence f history s well as practicebears outthe claim of the tankatobe the normofJapanesepoetry.For while chokawerehardlywritten ftertheend of the eighth entury, nd therenga "linkedverse") and haikudid notcomeinto prominencentilthe fourteenthnd sixteenth enturies,he tanka has en-dured throughouthe history f the literary radition.'2 his is not to make amoral of aesthetic udgment, ut to observethat after he first rimitiveongsand the emergence f a literary ense,the tanka form s realized, and that al-thoughtwas to see many a hard day,and other ormswere to have theirhour,the formal onstant f the Japaneseprosodic raditions thisverse of thirty-onesyllables.The uniquepersistence fthis brief orm hrough early millenniumand a half s a historical nd culturalmarvelwhich requentlyvokes n theWest-ernamateur woequally romantic nd fanciful eactions. he first s to think fJapanese oetry s poetry o quintessentiallyistilled hat all the Western oetneed do is gather ssencesfrom heJapanese nthologies, ilutewith he Parnas-siansprings,nd serveto thedelighted eader;thesecond s to dismissJapanesepoetry ecause of ts brevity,nd by dismiss s meanteither urninghe heelorthinking ne can, as a Westerner,it down and composea real tanka. Both ofthesepopularmisconceptions aybe answeredn thesameway: Japanesepoetryis admittedly xtremely ondensed;however,t transcends ts limitations, otby becoming urespirit, ut by certainuseful nd oftenunique poeticconven-tions nd bytechniques haredwithWestern oetry.These techniques ywhichJapanesepoetryhas, overtheyearsand centuries,ranscendedtsformalimits,demand respectwhich laimsourattention ndwhich houldfreeze heanxiouspoetaster'shand.Some of thesetranscendingechniqueshave alreadybeen described-paral-lelism nd other hetorical atterns,rony, emi-imagisticse ofplacenames, ndthe ike. But thereare otherelementswhichfall betweenthe constantsoflan-guageandtheconstants fprosodic tyle. uch techniquesre the kake-kotobar"pivot-word,"he makura-kotobar "pillow-word,"he o or semi-metaphorical"preface," he engoor "verbal association,"the honka-dorir "allusive varia-tion,"and thelike.'3The two mostfamilar f thesetechniques, he kake-kotoba

11For this, and earlier versions of the same poem, see Ehara Taizo, ShinkoBasho haikuzenshui Complete ollection f theHaiku ofBasho, NewlyCollated] Tokyo,1947),p. 122.A haiku s, as this xample llustrates, poem n 17 syllables, n the pattern5, 7, 5.12For a descriptionof the technique and practice of the renga, see DonaldKeene, JapaneseLiterature: n Introductionor Western eaders London,1953),pp. 31-37.13The "pivot-word" s defined nd illustrated n the presentessay. The "pillow-


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510 BROWER AND MINERand themakura-kotoba,an brieflyerveto represent he widergroup.The tech-nique ofthe pivot-words essentiallyhat ofusing single eries fsounds n twooverlapping yntactical nd semantic atterns, s in this poem byKi no Tsura-yuki d. ?945):

Kasumi tachi With the spreadingmistsKo no memoharu no The treebuds well n early springYuki fureba And wet snow petals fall-Hana naki sato mo So even my flowerlessountry illageHana zo chirikeru. Already ies beneath tsfallen lowers.'4The word haru meansboth "swell" (as buds) and the season, "spring." t seemssignificanthat this technique,whichmight lmost be called a syntactical on-ceit, came to its fullest evelopmentnlywith he emergence f tanka s the pre-eminent orm.1" anka needed, farmorethan choka, o transcend ts limitsbysuch techniques, nd one seriously oubts whether he kake-kotobas anymoresuitedfor ongpoemsthan theanalogousforms fwit nour Metaphysical oets.In large measure,however, uch a technique s representative f a constant nJapanese poetryof all forms-a strong mphasis upon a richpoetic texture,whether f these verbal dexterities r vividly presented mages expressive ofpersonal oncerns.Perhapsfew echniquesnpoetichistory avebeen as impatientlyriticized ras plaintively efended s themakura-kotoba.ts defenders roclaimts freedomand daring nd its superiorityo the Homericepithets.The attackersdeclarethat t maybe decorative, ut with heglowof dead wood npoemswhich an illafford ucha rhetoricaluxuriancy.'6We must seek to avoid either f theseex-tremesby rememberinghe literary rinciple hat no techniqueused by goodpoetsand poor poetsalikeis eithergood or bad in itself.The question s one ofwhat is made ofa technique n relation o othertechniques, deas, and poeticneeds, and our approach must be historical s well as critical.The earliest ightwegetofthemaklura-kotobas inthepoemsof theKojiki andNihongi.Fromthebeginning,hetechnique s usedpartly or ound,partly orrhetoricalmplifica-tion, ndpartly ormagery. ut we reallybegin o understandhepotentialitiesword," which we also discuss, is a kind of fixed epithet,usually of 5 syllables.It is related o a following ord or phrase hrough oundorsense association, requentlyat severalremoves. he jo, or "preface," s similar o themakura-kotoban function, utis considerably onger nd more free.Most, but not all, jo are metaphorical. he engo,or "verbal association," s a variety f wordplayinwhich second, atentmeaning f aword s brought ut through he use in another artofthe poemof a termwhich vokesthis second meaning hrough ssociation. The honka-dori,r "allusive variation," s aneo-classicaltechniqueof adapting an identifiable art of an older poem to a newcontext.

14 Kokinshi9.16 The prevalence f kake-kotoband engo, nd a decrease n the use of makura-kotobaand jo, are marked eatures f the poetry f the 9th and 10thcenturies,whenthe chokawas already a dead letter.See Tsugita, I, 157.16 See, for example, NGS, pp. xxi-xxii;and the criticismsby the modernpoetIto Sachio (1864-1913) f Hitomaro'suse of the technique, eportedn Saito, II, 444.


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JAPANESE POETIC TRADITION 511ofmaklura-kotobanthepoetry fHitomaro.As nearly s we can tell,he createdforhimselfbouthalfof hispillow-words,ndhe usesthemfor hemingled ur-pose ofamplifying r heightening is style,forsound,and formetaphorhalf-submergednformality.'7ow Hitomarowroteforhiscourt s Pindar,Spenser,and Drydendidfor heirs, nd likethem,he appearsnottohavebeen a memberofthe circles t the verysocial top. The makura-kotobaas perhapschieflytechnique orpoemsto an audienceofsocialpeers orsuperiors n occasionswithelevatedsubjects-in short, o elevatehisstyle s surely s Pindar'stheogenies,Spenser's llegories, rDryden'smetaphors fAugustanRome.In hishands,thetechniquewas at onceritualisticnd fresh;n somefeebler ands,thetechniqueoften id becomedead wood.But wemustrealizethat evenpoets ofmuch aterperiodswhen the audiencewas changedcould use the techniquemeaningfully,either ycreating ewmaklura-kotoba,r byuse of oldonesto recall heglories fthetradition's arlier ays in a manner ikeT. S. Eliot's echoings, rto give thetechnique newmeaningn a fresh ontext, ay, by integratingtseffect f un-sophisticated andorinto poetry of an artful implicity, s in this poem byFujiwara no Teika (1162-1241):

Momoshikino Fortress-strongTonoeo izuru The Palace, whoseguardsmen's allYoi-yoiwa I leave night fternight,Matanuni mukau To meetyou,thoughyou do notwait,Yama no ha no tsuki. 0 moonuponthemountain's im."8The makura-kotobas also a matter f magery, neofthemost mportanton-stant elementsof Japanesepoetry. t may perhaps seem illogicalto includeimagery-a technique f all poets-among thoseconstantswhichgiveJapanesepoetry ts uniquequality,but ofcourseby imagerywe mean thecharacteristicand differingatureoruse of magery. he place to begin s withthe obvious-thataspectofpoetrywhich ften scapes us too subtlemoderns-bytakingnoteofwhateverybody nows, hatJapanesepoetry as an unusually ighproportionofnatural mages.Thereareprobably everal ignificantauses for his mportant

fact.First, here s thesensory atureof nouns and thehabit ofparticularityfthought nd expression iscussed arlier. econd,there s an alteredor redefinedanimistic mpulse whichhas continued o survive n Japaneseculture,givingnature n attractionnd an emotional alue reflectedneveryday ife s much sin poetry.Third, here s a moresophisticatednd philosophical onceptfrommingledBuddhism ndTaoism oftheoneness fall natural ifewhichgiveswhatwecall external ature closeness ndrelevance ohumannaturenot tobe found17KonishiJin'ichi,NihonbungakushiHistory f JapaneseLiterature]Tokyo, 1953),p. 22.18 Shinchokusenshul170.The pillow-words momoshiki, orecommonly sed beforeomiya "great palace." The usual explanation s that it means "innumerableblocksofstone builtup." This poemwas written yTeika fairly ate in life,and representsdeparture rom moreornatepoeticalstylewhichhepracticedwhenhewas younger. eeYasuda Akio, "Waka" ["Native Poetry"],Nihon bungakushi:huiseiHistory f Japa-neseLiterature:MedievalPeriod], d. HisamatsuSen'ichi (Tokyo,1955),pp. 38-39.


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512 BROWER AND MINERin Western ultures, haped as theyare, to a large extent, y various dualismsbetween pirit nd matter,man and nature, nd the like. Fourth,there s theexample nd prestige f Chinesepoetry,whose use of natural mageshas playedan importantoleat times n shaping he Japanese radition.Natural magerysso much a partof thethought nd practiceof classical Japanesepoetry nd itscultural mbience hatthe firstheoretical riticism hich urvives, surayuki'sPreface o theKokinsha,uses it as a runningmetaphor or he purposes nd in-spiration orJapanesepoetry: The poetry f Yamato takes root n the humanheart nd growsnto the eaves of tenthousandwords."19ClassicalJapanesepoetry ftengivesnatural mages anotherdimension, hatofpersonification,nd it is instructiveo compareJapanesepersonification ithour own.Shunzei'sreflectionfthepoignancy fpresent eautywhenone's mindis filledwiththoughts f the past givesus a Japaneseexample.Mukashiomou I ponderon thepastKusa no iorino While the summerrain falls through hedarkYoruno ame ni About my grass-thatchedutNamidana soeso But, hototogisu,inging hrough hese hills,Yama-hototogisu. Do not call out a fresheningo my tears.20This is a typicalJapanesepersonificationn that it involves n emotionalbondbetweennature nd thespeaker, nd it is also common n its use ofapostrophe.Shakespeare's morn,n russetmantle clad" is a personifiedatural mage,butits functions not somuchto humanize he mageas to decorate t andto giveasense ofaction;and of course here s no addressto thepersonification.here saddress in the lovely opening ine of Samuel Daniel's sonnet,"Care-charmerSleep,son ofthesablenight," uthere here svery ittlemageand thepersonifi-cation s oneof n abstractionwhich, swehaveseen, s alientoJapanesepoetry.Keats's address othenightingaleomes loser otheJapanese, ut hisanguishedsenseofthegulfbetween he immortal ird and the mortalpoet is too sharpadualism o be accepted nmostJapanesepoetry.

Although here reveryfewWesternpersonificationshichhave the qualityoftheJapanese, t is an interestingactthat notonlydo both traditionsmployallegory, utthatthey lso tendto employ tfor hesamepurposes-the themesof ove and religiousmorality.As we wouldexpect,however,Japanese allegorydoesnotemploy uch abstractionss Guillaumede Lorris'EsperanceorSpenser'sJustice.Moreover,Japanese allegory s less "transparent" han Western. t isnot announcedby type-names, y theWesternhallmark fabstraction, rby adeclaration hat a BeatricestandsforLove and Revelation.Japanese llegorysoften inted,fnotannounced, ydiction r mageswhich lertthereader, ince19 Kaneko, p. 51. For a complete ranslation f theJapanesePrefaceto theKokinshu,see GeorgesBonneau,Le monumento6tique e Heian: le Kokinshu, : Pr6facede Ki noTsurayuki Paris, 1933).20 Shinkokinshfu01.Hototogisumeans"cuckoo," butwe have used theJapaneseherebothfor ts mellifluous ualityand to avoid possibleunpleasant ssociations.


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JAPANESE POETIC TRADITION 513such expressionss "person" (hito)or "darknessof the soul" (kokoro o yami)oftenprepareus for love allegory; nd images ikethatof dewfrequentlyresymptoms f religious llegory.These hintsare merelyhints and not infalliblesigns,however, or hewords nd imagesmay be used in non-allegorical oemsand theremay be allegorywithoutthem.As a matterof fact,there is oftennothingnthe poem, s the readerofthe message-poemsn theTale ofGenjiwillrecall,bywhichwe can be surethatthe poem s allegoricaln mode; and some-times nly prose ontext,radition,r critical upposition ives ny nklinghata poemcarries "darke conceit."'"This is an important istinction etween heallegoricalmodesofour two cultures:Japanesepoemsoften xistas descriptivelyrics r single xpressionnd are quite satisfactoryrtisticwholeswithout henecessity or heprivatemeaning onveyed, ay,as a messageof ove. Westernallegorys usuallymonolithic-without hemeaningofthemetaphor, here slittlesignificanceo the poem; Japaneseallegory, n the otherhand, is oftenJanus-headed,with one preoccupiedface turned toward the images of thenatural cene ndwith he other iving knowingwink o somedear girl r fellowpriest.The linesbetweenmage,metaphor, llegory,nd symbol renot alwayseasyto draw nWesternpoetry, nd the distinctionsre evenmoredifficulto makeinJapanese,where he mageof perhapsquailscryingnthe autumndusk s notonly n image,but also an affectivemetaphor or sad loneliness nd a symbolof theexperience fthepoet,as in thepoemwhich hunzei s said to have mostpreferredmonghis ownwork.

Yu sareba As evening alls,No-beno akikaze From alongthemoors heautumnwindMi ni shimite Blows chill ntothe heart,Uzuranakunari And thequails raise theirplaintive ryFukakusano sato. In the deep grassof secludedFukakusa.22Insofar s thispoemdescribes scene,dusk,the autumnwind, quails, and thevillageofFukakusa (literally, deep grass") are mages. nsofar s these magesare vehiclesof a melancholy enor,theyare metaphors.But the images alsofunctions symbols f stateofmind nd represent truth, ecausecenturies fBuddhist monism nd poeticpracticehad invested thesenatural mageswithovertoneswhichmade clear their elationshipoman.We are left, hen,with omethingf a paradox.The privateor individualre-

21See, for example,the exchangebetweenthe Lady of Akashi and her daughterin ArthurWaley'sTale of Genji (1-vol.ed.,London,1935),pp. 468-469.TheTale of Genji,or Genji monogatari,s the great novel of court life believed to have been writtenin theearly11th entury yMurasaki Shikibu.The customofincluding rosecontextswith poems to specifythe occasions which inspiredthem is already establishedintheMan'yoshu nd continues hrough he Imperialanthologies.22 Senzaishui 58. The Senzaishuis the 7th Imperialanthology, ompiledby Shunzeiand probably ompletedn 1188.Shunzei'sfondness orthispoem is reported y Kamono Chomei (?-1216) in his poeticaltreatise nd collectionof anecdotes, he Mumyosho,or Nameless election. ee Yasuda, p. 21.


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514 BROWER AND MINERsponseofthe poet s expressedn terms f mages nd symbolswhich rise fromcultural onventionr religious elief.This paradoxoforiginal onventionality,as itmay be called, s at oncethe resource nd the bane ofJapanese oetry, inceit enables he poeteither o say a greatdeal in little r to say very ittle n ittle fhe contents imselfwithmouthing heconvention.Unfortunately,heWesternreader s not alwaysable to distinguishmereconvention rom ubtleoriginality.And theparadox eads us to another onstant n Japanesepoetry: t is notonlytheimagery, ut also themodes orfunctionswhichare moresocial or conven-tionalthan in Westernpoetry. n theWest,this public concept of poetrywasperhapsmost closely pproached n the Romanand EnglishAugustan ges.This public qualitytakesmanyforms. apanesepoetrys often sed wherewewoulduse prose-as a modeof discourse. etters, ongratulations,nd addressesor declarationsof manykinds are occasionsfor poetryfrom he time of theKojiki on. Lucretiusdid indeedexpresshis Epicureanphilosophyn the poetryofDe rerum atura nd Pope his Deism in hisEssay onMan, but these re poemsofphilosophical r moralratiocination,ypesof generalization ncongenial otheJapanese,wherepublicpoetry s better uitedto theparticularitiesf socialdiscourse.Japanesepoetry s muchmore occasionalthanours; it tends to arisefrom ublic situations, o deal withtopics which re socially cceptedand con-sideredproper o poetry, nd to conveythese n ways suggested y tradition.Departuresfrom ccepted norms oftenhave aroused debate, at least amongJapanese ritics.n onepoem,for xample,Hitomaro eems opersonifyheCapeofKara. Since capes arenot usuallypersonifiedwhile birdora treemightbe),somecommentatorsave arguedthat Hitomarouses a synecdoche,hat it wasnot the cape which was waiting,but some unspecified eople standingon it.Modernopinionholdsforpersonification,ut thecriticalfussshowshow stronga pressure radition an exert.23t is true that somekinds ofmedievalpoetrybecomemorereflectivend less occasional, ut theoccasionalmodes urvive, ndthe reflectivemodesemploy symbolismwhichtends to be thepublickindofBuddhismrather hanthehomespun ariety fYeats' cyclesof the moon.Suchconsiderationsfthepublicnature f mageryndsymbolismlsoinvolvethemeanings onveyedby metaphor nd the greatconstant, f not invariable,themes fJapanesepoetry.These themesneed onlybe namedto be understood,butperhaps heymaybe grouped omewhat ifferentlyrom heusualJapanesepatterns fspring, ummer,nd so on; poemsof ove; religious oems; aments;and the like.24t seems moremeaningful o saythat nature, ove, and humanaffairs rovidewhatmaybe called the basic poeticthemes.Then there s timewhich threatens hese basic values and has been a preoccupation fJapanese

23 The poem is Man'yoshu30, the firstof two envoys accompanying he choka,"On Passingthe Ruined Capital of Omi." For a translation,ee NGS, p. 27. The criticaldifferencemong the commentatorss represented y Keichui (1640-1701) nd KadaAzumamaro 1669-1736), zumamaroholdingfor ynecdoche. hey are quoted in Saito,II, 5-6.

24 The classificationfpoems according o such categorieswas standardpractice,es-tablished n theKokinshuind followedn subsequent mperial anthologies.


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JAPANESE POETIC TRADITION 515poets for enturies. nd finally here re those themeswhich ranscend he con-flictwith ime-such themeswhichmay be typifieds religion, ecularmysticism,cosmic rony, nd a broad sense ofhuman dentity.In the context fJapanese magerynd social modes, hese hemes re handledin a way that is more directthan in most Westernpoetry.There is a greaterimmediacy. he lack of abstraction, orexample,makes the poet's response ohis subject eemmoredirect, nd this mmediacy as an important ffect n thetwo kindsofestheticdistance. On the one hand, there s usually ess distancebetween he poet and his subject ormaterials,whether he subject s nature orthewoman oved; and onthe other and,there s less of distinctiono be drawn,usually,between he individualpoet and the speaker of his poems. This lesseresthetic istancewas approximatednWesternRomanticpoetry, nd it may besignificant hat the Romantics, ike the Japanese, were deeply interested nnature.But Japanesepoetry annotbe called Romantic, ecause ts highly ublicnature, o much like our Augustan poetry, ancels out or perhaps ratherhar-monizeswiththe expression f individualpersonality.We can, however, allJapanese poetry yrical and social at the same time. Indeed, so many of thequalities lreadydiscussed eem to be related o thiscentral act that t does notseemtoosuperficialo conclude discussion fthe constant ualitiesofJapanesepoetryby characterizing he tradition s a personal yricismn a public andtraditional ontext.

IIThe natureof reality hanges s soonas onebegins o consider ime s a modeofexistence: nd timemustbe taken nto account n a studyofJapanesepoetry,not only as an important heme,but also as a formative lementn the growthofthe tradition. uch an approachreveals elementsunderlying yclic patternsoverthe centuries-a recurrencefcertaindeals, relationships,nfluences,uali-ties,and movements.One ofthemost mportant f theserecurring atterns sthat whichunderlies he attemptmade by poets in age after ge to achieve abalancebetweenpersonalism nd impersonalismr superpersonalism.In each age, the personal yricism eeded to be brought nto a balance-abalance meaningful o the age-with social ideals ofrelationsbetweenclasses,relations etweenmenandwomen nlove or married, elations etween hepoetand public affairs,nd so on; and intoa balance as well withthesuperpersonalideals of a broader humanity, he natural world,religion, nd the like. Thesepolar opposites fpersonalismnd superpersonalismereessential o eachother,andeverything as tobe gainedbytheir roper armony. oo muchpersonalismrepeatedlyed, not as in ourfragmented orld, o obscurity, utto sentimental-ity; and too much mpersonalismed to excessive rtificiality, onotony, lich6,and formalism. ither extrememightbecome flaccidly onventional. n ageafter ge,wecan see thestruggleo achievea meaningfulalancepeculiar o theage, usually by harmonizing directness fpersonal responsewith a growingsophistication f technique;a harmonybetweenpoet, subject, and audiencethrough fineness ftone,an importance ftheme, proprietyf estheticdis-


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516 BROWER AND MINERtance, nda response o theneeds of he age. More than that, t s possible o mapthecourse f uch an age or period s the earlierHeian by tsprogress rom newsearchfor morevital personalismo a balance and thento a decadent conven-tionality, patternwhichoccurs n earlier nd subsequentperiods.25Thissequencefrom ersonalism o balance to conventionalityeads us to morespecific yclicelements f poeticpracticeby whichpoets attemptedto achievetheirharmony.Very early, perhapsmuch earlier than is usually recognized,since tbeginswith he generation fHitomaro n the seventh entury, here s atendency,mpulse,or practicewhichmay be called primitivism.We normallyidentifywo kinds of primitivismn Western aste-the chronological nd thecultural.Chronological rimitivismurns o an older ge for ts values, and cul-turalprimitivismo a contemporaryut alien civilization.Japanese poets showthesekindsofprimitivismnslightly ifferentorm. omethingike chronologicalprimitivism as repeatedly ccurred,specially n transitionalimeswhen, iringofan over-sophistication,oetsadmire nd emulateolderpoetry othfor ts pre-sumedsimplicity nd for ts presumed uperiority ver the sophisticated om-plexity f a laterage. A conscious nd artful implicity r naivet6 s often sedinthismanner n a search fora therapeutic ntidote to conventionalitynd toestablish heproperbalance betweenpersonalism nd superpersonalismor theage. Suchprimitivismften orrowed reshanguagefromhe spoken ongue, utit also led poetsto older, impler iction nd images and to treatsubjectswithsimpledeclaration f thespeaker'sfeeling.

A secondform fJapaneseprimitivisms theturning o a simpler, ontempo-raneouspeople fordirectness f response nd simplicity itha motivation hesame as that forchronological rimitivism.ut in Japan,as perhaps n China,the practiceought reallyto be called social ratherthan culturalprimitivism,sincethepoetsturned, ot to the Noble Savage ofAfrica,America, r theSouthSeas, but to their wncountrymenf ower tation-to the ives,and to a lesserextent, he songsofworkers, easants, beggars, nd thelike-to refresh oeticinspiration. ut we are on hazardousestheticgroundshere and mustpick ourway carefully. iventhe humanprobabilitiesnd the socio-historicalituation,it is most ikely hatsocialprimitivisms a kind ofpastoralism.n otherwords,we see the ntelligentnd trainedpoetreaching ownto thecommoneror localcolor" and simpler houghts nd feelings daptable or even necessary o con-

2B Thus, the passionate yricism f 9th-centuryoets such as Ariwarano Narihira ndOno no Komachi a woman;fl. . 850) led to a greater iscipline nd balance n the poetryof the Kokinshuige in the early10th entury. he Kokinshu tylewas further efined ndembellishedo the pointofdiminishing eturns n the 10th and early 11thcenturies.Asimilar ycle maybe traced n the development rom he over-personalismfprimitivepoetry, o a balance ntheage ofHitomaron the 7thcentury,o an over-conventionalityin the poetry of Otomo no Yakamochi (718-85) and his contemporariesn the mid-8thcentury.n the laterHeian period, third ycle s foreshadowedn an unsuccessfulattemptby Fujiwarano Kinto (966-1041) o bring fresh ersonalismnd simplicityopoetry.The effort as continuedby the innovatorsMinamotono Tsunenobu 1016-97)and his son Shunrai or Toshiyori, -1129).The balance was achievedby suchpoets asFujiwara no Shunzei nd his son Teika in the 12th nd 13th enturies, nd the succeedingage was again characterized y a decadentconventionality.


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JAPANESE POETIC TRADITION 517temporarymodes, ather han thecommoner eaching p to save thenation romthepoeticdisaster fconventionality.here may ndeedhave beensome "mute,ingloriousMiltons" in Japanesecountry hurchyards,ut the point s that thepoetrywe know and talkabout was the possession f the courtclass and thosewho cameunder tsinfluence. one no Yoshitada (fl. c. 985) wrotewith a trulyprimitiveealism nd was only aughed t by hiscontemporaries,ho wouldnottolerate uchunprecedented nd "low" images as "my lover's hairsoaked withsweat."26No doubt courtpoetryfiltered own to the people as themesoftheWestern ourtly omances ntered ntothe ballads during he middleages,butthisprocess s that of thesophisticationf theunlettered, ot theexpression fthe voxpopuli. Hitomaro s thought o have writtent least one ofthe so-called"songs of the palace-workmen"n the Man'yoshu;and Otomo no Yakamochi(718-85) triedhis hand at the "song ofthe frontieruard."27All this has beensaid to adjust the mpressionmost of us have been givenby the stockcommentson theMan'yoshu-that it representsoetry y a cross-sectionf all the peoplefrom heEmperor o the lowliestbeggar; but morefundamentallyo point outthatsophisticated apanesepoets had simplermodesto turn o and bring newfreshnessrpersonalismo theirpoetry.28his act is a very ophisticated ne, aswe can seefromWestern astoralism-a poeticmodewhich s theproduct f uchrefined eriods s Virgil's, heRenaissance, nd Augustan England.There s nopastoralismntheGreek or German picsor n theKojiki.We mustalso distinguishhis social primitivismrom hat commonaltyndsimplicitynpoetrywhich s theproduct fperfectedrt,whether n thebreath-takingfinalspeeches of Shakespeare'sKing Lear, Hitomaro'sgrandvision ofhuman dentity n his poemon a dead body on the slandof Samine,orSaigyo's(1118-90) poems ofretirement.29he Japanese did indeedturnto thepast andsimpler eople nthepresent obringesssophisticatedmotions ntopoetry, uttheexampleofSaigyo'swithdrawalo a lifeofrefinedimplicitymidrustic ur-roundingseminds s thatthere s a Buddho-Taoist radition fretirement hichis anything utprimitivistic.To mention aigyo and the longSino-Japanese radition f retirements to

26 The lines occur n a poem n Yoshitada's personal nthology, he Sotanshui. ee theKochu kokka aikei Annotatedompendiumf JapanesePoetry],XIII (Tokyo,1929), 36.27 The authorship f the highly omplex hoka Man'yoshui0) which ears theheading,"Composedby a Workmant theFujiwara Palace," was already suspectedby thecom-mentator Motoori Norinaga (1730-1801), who attributed the poem to Hitomaro.This seems quite likely, althoughit has been suggested that Hitomaro may have"helped" the workman write it. See Saito, II, 888-891, 912-916. For examples ofYakamochi's poemsin the "frontier uard" genre, ee Man'yoshu4398-4400 nd 4408-4412 translated n NGS, pp. 175-178).28 For some of the traditional omments, ee NGS, pp. xiii-xiv.29 Hitomaro'spoem,which s quoted in part below, s a chokafollowed y twoenvoys(Man'y5sh,d20-222). aigyo,whose aynamewas Sata noNorikiyo,bandoned promisingmilitary areer nd entered heBuddhistpriesthood t the age of twenty-two. e main-tained close ties withmanyof theprominent oets of his day, but spentmuchofhis lifein retirementnd in travel.Throughout he feudal period he was held in semi-religiousveneration s theprototype f the itinerant oet.


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518 BROWER AND MINERsuggest nother yclic lementwhich, ikechronological rimitivism,s an act ofborrowing, ut is verydifferentnmotivation. his elementmay be called neo-classicism, turningo thepast,not for refreshingaivet6or simplicity,ut forsuper-personal rderwhich would give meaningful orm o contemporaryndpersonal xperience. he neoclassicalurge s perhaps trongestn the earlymedi-eval period 1150-1250) whensociety eemedtobe in chaos. Fujiwara noTeika,for xample, ouldlook uponpoetry s a means of achievingmmortalityn anage ofchaotic strife etween heMinamotoand the Taira clans. "My ears arefullof tales about the current prisings nd the campaigns o quell them,"hewrote n his diary, but I pay no attention o them. The chastisementfthered banner [of the warriors] s no affair fmine." This withdrawal,with tsconcomitanteflectionn old poetictraditionsnd echoing f thepoeticpast, istypicalofthe lateHeianand earlymedievalperiod,when henobilitymightmakea religiouscommitment o poetry s "a way of life."30But even Hitomaro,Otomo no Tabito (665-731) and Yamanoe no Okura (d. ?733) are neoclassiciststo a considerable egree.Hitomaro's public"choka suallybeginwith kindofoverture hich elebrates he glories f the human, mperial,or divinepast. Ta-bito in his poems on sake and Okura in his "Lament on Poverty" are neoclas-sical in their orrowings f themes romChinesepoetry o givemeaning o theirworld.This turningo the iterature f China is not subservience, ut the age-oldview ofartas tradition.3'At thesame time tmustbe said that someperiods re more radition-mindedthan others, nd the examplesofTabito and Okura bringus to a finalcyclicpattern, hat of therecurringmportance f Chinato theJapaneseesthetic ndto poeticpractice.The importance fChinesethought s basic and obvious nTabito's Taoistic Epicureanism nd in Okura's partiallyConfucian ocial con-sciousness.But a quasi-Chinese poetic sensibility ad been awakened beforetheir ime, s in PrincessNukada's famouspoem from he late seventh enturyontherivalbeauty fthehillsofspring ndautumn, sophisticatedoeticthemewhich hows the dawn of a Japanese poetrywith iterary s well as immediatehumanconcerns:

Fuyu-gomori When, oosenedfrom hewinter's onds,Haru sari-kureba The spring ppears,Nakazarishi The birdsthat weresilent30The quotationfrom eika appears n theentry or he 9thmoonof1180 n his diary,theMeigetsuki. ee Yasuda, p. 33.Concerninghedevelopment ftheconcept fpoetry smichi, ra "way of ife," see KonishiJin'ichi, Chfiseini okeruhyogensha o kyojusha"["Artist ndAudience n the MedievalPeriod"],Bungaku,XXI (May 1953),471.31 Hitomaro's"overtures"are said to have been influenced y the norito, r Shintoliturgies. ee, for xample, asaki Nobutsuna,JodaibungakushiHistoryfAncient apa-neseLiterature],I (Tokyo,1936), 82-283, 32,536. Onthe otherhand, a possiblerelation-ship between he lofty one and rhetorical echniques fthe norito nd the Chinesefu,orprosepoem,which lourisheduring he Han dynasty208B.C.-A.D. 220) has been sug-gested.See Konishi,Bungakushi, p. 29-30.Tabito's groupof 13 tanka n praiseofwine(Man'yoshu138-350) nd Okura's chokaand envoy on poverty Man'yoshut92-893) retranslated nNGS, pp. 117-118nd205-207.


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JAPANESE POETIC TRADITION 519Torimoki-nakinu Comeout and sing,Sakazarishi The flowers hatwereprisonedHana mosakeredo Come outand bloom;Yamawoshigemi But the hillsare so rankwith treesIritemotorazu We cannotsee the- lowers,Kusa fukami Andtheflowersre so tangledwithweedsToritemomizu. We cannottakethem n ourhands.

Akiyamano But whenon theautumnhill-sideKo-no-hawo mitewa We see thefoliage,Momijiwo ba We prizethe yellow eaves,Torite o shinubu Takingthem n ourhands,Aokiwo ba We sighover thegreen nes,Okite onageku Leavingthem on thebranches;Soko shiurameshi Andthat s my onlyregret-Aki-yamawarewa. For me, theautumnhills 32

But althoughn thisearlyperiodwritersppearto have givencloseattention oChinesepoetry, specially f theperiodof the Southern nd Northern ynasties(312-589),thefirst ycleof Chinese nfluencenvolvedfor hemostparta bor-rowing f themesand images,and did not end with a final commitment yJapanesepoetsto a viewofpoetry nd poetictechnique pecificallynd irrevo-cably"Chinese."33 abito,Okura, nd their ontemporariesould nd usuallydidwrite nmanymodes and styles hatoftenhad no connectionwith China. Thisbroader nd more triking ersatility, roper o an age of bold experimentation,givesto the poetryofthe seventh nd eighth enturies hat varietyofforms,themes,ndmaterialswhichhas beensomuch dmired ymodernJapanesewhopoint o theMan'yoshu s theglory ftheir oetic iterature. owever, hepres-tigeofChinesepoetry-and thevogueformitations-continuedo increase romtheeighth o thebeginning fthe tenthcentury.n theface of thisonslaughtfrom vastlyoldertradition,with complicated nd articulate oetic,Japanesepoetry ontinued o loseground.By thebeginningf theninth enturyt was indanger fbecoming ermanentlyelegated o theundignifiedunction f a play-thingn the half-serioususinessofgallantry.n this first ycle,then,Chinesepoetry eemed othreatenncreasinglyoreplacerather hanto enrich henativetradition.34The beginnings f the secondcycle of Chinese nfluence an be seen in therather uddenappearance n the first alf of the ninth entury fthe so-called

32 Man'yo5shfZ6. The translations fromNGS, pp. 10-11.The chokaform ad notyetbecome tandardizedwhen hispoemwaswritten:t contains n evennumber f ines,ofwhich he astthree reof7syllables. ee Takeda, Chiishaku, (Tokyo,1948), 14.PrincessNukadais placed nthe atterpartof the7thcentury,lthoughherdatesareunknown.33Konishi,Bungakushi, p. 25-26; Kanda Hideo, "Kan bungaku" ["ChineseLitera-ture"],Jodai,ed. Hisamatsu,pp. 506-535.34Konishi,Bungakushi, p. 32-33.


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520 BROWER AND MINERSix PoeticalGeniuses,withtheirnew and morevital subjectivity.35owever, twas moreparticularly ue to theconscious ffortsf the compilers fthe Kokin-shu, Ki no Tsurayuki nd others, n the late ninthcentury, hat the Chinesepoetical tradition ook on a new relevance forJapanese poetry, nd that thenativepoetry nturnwas accorded new and permanent tatus as the highest fthe arts nJapan. t would be a mistake o see inwhat we may call Tsurayuki's"Defence ofJapanesePoetry"-the Prefaceto theKokinsha-an expression fculturalxenophobia, r even the complacentbelief hat the Japanese Muse iseverybit as good as the Chinese, f not better. t is rather he emergence f acriticalconsciousness, n attemptto create forJapanese poetry theory ndprescribe practicewhichwouldentitle t once again to social acceptance, histime s an artona level withChinese oetry.Thiseffortppears ohave entailed,first,n insistence pon a restrictedanguageofpoetrywith heprestige ftradi-tionand precedent; nd secondly, he restrictionf ndividual xpression o im-portantbut subtle adjustments f the relationbetween the originality f theindividualpoetand theconventionalityf hisprescribedmaterials.36t is one ofthecommonplacesfJapanese iterary istory hatthe Kokinsha hows markedconcernwithpoetical technique; nd it is also truethat the poeticalvocabularyoftheKokinsha-a vocabularywhich ignificantlyxcludes ll wordsof dentifiably Chineseorigin-becamestandardfor hepoetry fthe restoftheclassicalperiod.37n spiteofthisdevelopmentfnativepoeticresources,t seemspossible,at least in the case of Tsurayuki nd his contemporaries,orus to tracemanyspecific spects oftheir heory nd practice o theso-called idiosyncratic"tyleofLiang (502-556), Ch'en (557-589), and earlyT'ang (618-907) poetry, nd toaccountin partforthe appearanceof a new "anonymous ubjectivity" n theKokinshaby recognizingt as an attempt o adapt thisstrictly ontrolled ech-nique to theJapanese radition.38here s also thestory, oo longto tellhere,ofthe relationship etween essercyclicalchanges n Japanese poetrywithin heHeian period (784-1185) and the successive nfluences f mid and late T'angpoetry.Noris it possible o do moreherethan pointto thebeginningsf a thirdcycle fChinesenfluencefa stronglymystical haracternthepoetictheoryndpractice ofShunzei and Teika in late Heian and early Kamakura (1185-1333)times.39We maygeneralize, owever, hat n thissecond, arly-Heian ycle, he

35 The Six Poetical Geniuses Rokkasen)were traditionally o designated ecause theyarethe9th-centuryoetsmentioned y name n Tsurayuki's reface o theKokinshu:Nari-hira,Komachi,BishopHenjo (?816-90), riestKisen (fl. . 820), Bun'ya no Yasuhide (fl. .870), and Otomono Kuronushi fl. . 880). The first hree re the most mportant.36 KonishiJin'ichi, Chaseibino hi-Nihon-tekieikaku" ["TheNon-Japanese haracterof theMedieval Esthetic"],Bungaku,XXI (Sept. 1953),917-933.37Kaneko,pp. 8-24.38 KonishiJin'ichi, Kokinshu-teki yogen o seiritsu" "The Formation ftheKokin-

shui tyle"],Nippon Gakushiin iyo, II (Nov. 1949), pp. 163-198. he Chinesetermhererendered idiosyncratic" s i-p'ang, it., "leaning o one side."39The poetry fPo Chu-i (772-846), specially hat of his later years,appearsto haveinfluencedujiwara noKinto nhis attempt o bring reater implicity oJapanesepoetry,andthisChinesepoet's relative reedom rom onventional estrictionss said to have in-fluenced one no Yoshitada'sunconventionaltyle.ThecontinuingmportancefPo Chut-i


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JAPANESE POETIC TRADITION 521Japanesetraditionwas fundamentallynd permanentlyffected: he estheticideal ofmiyabi r"elegance"which heKokinshuipoetsderived romheChinesetookawaymuchof thetanka'sfreedom, hileat the sametime t gave to it anaristocratic haracter nd the enduring trength f a literary raditionwhichcouldlastfor enturies.40The recurringmpulseof nativeJapaneseprimitivism hichhas alreadybeendescribed s doubtlessrelated n complementary ays to the configurationsfthese greater nd lesser yclesof sophisticated hinese nfluencend specificallyJapaneseforms fneoclassicism. he vitalbloodofthe Japanese radition eemsto have flowedn systolic nd diastoliccyclesofalternating eoclassicism ndprimitivism,iving ife nd form o a poetic tradition vera span of manycen-turies.

IIIOurthird ormative lements thatofcumulative evelopment,f theforma-tionof what maybe calledthe great radition fclassicalJapanesepoetry. ucha subjectobviously equires argreater copethansucha discussion s this, ndall we canhopeto do here s to establish heelement nd givesome llustrations.The elementsthatof ecular hange: hegreat lassicaltraditions one of teadydevelopment ontinuinghrough he centuries nd encompassing he constantand thecyclic lements. t is theelement f vitality nd growth nd onewhichdeclaresnot onlythatthe classicalage developedoutof tspredecessor,ut alsothatno classicalpoetcouldwrite ike Hitomaro, nymore han painter odaymaypaintas ifhe were Raphael. The pastmaybe emulatedbut notre-created.To talk about partsof tradition,s wemust fwespeakofoneage oranother,orif we compare oetsof differenteriods, s,however, oraisethebothersomeproblem fperiodizationorwhich here s no wholly atisfactoryolution.None-theless,we canhope,bysetting p only fewperiods, y nsistinghat n eachofthese here resurvivals, ross-currentsnd pre-figurings,nd byadmittinghatwe aremore nterestedn steadydevelopmenthan artificial ivisions-we canperhaps alkin simple erms bout the cumulative lementn Japanesepoetry.The four eriodswe mayuse for onveniencere: first,heprimitiverpre-Fuji-wara periodto A.D. 686; second,the experimental r Fujiwara-Nara period,686-784; third, hefirst lassicalorearlierHeian period,784-1000; and fourth,the secondclassicalor ateHeian-earlymedievalperiod, 000-1225.41Further osimplifyhe discussion,we shall consider nlytwo subjectsor themes-natureand of laterT'ang poetrys seen nthe theory ndpractice ftheShinkokinshupoets. nthethird ycle, he nfluenceppearsto have beenmore ndirect, nd to have beencon-nectedwith herevivalofTendaiBuddhism n the ate 12th nd early13th enturies. eeKonishi,Bungakushi, p. 42-45,54-59; and Konishi, "Shunzei no yuigentaio shikan"["Shunzei's Styleof Mystery nd Depth' and theTendai Conceptof Quiet Contempla-tion"'],Bungaku,XX (Feb. 1952)108-116.40Konishi,Chuiseibi," . 932.

41 We call the second period"experimental" ecause of thewide rangeof themes ndmodeswhichcharacterize he poetryof this age. Experimentationfcoursewenton inlaterperiods, utwithinmuchmorerestrictedimits. ee also n. 25.


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522 BROWER AND MINERand time; tworelationships-the oet to his materials nd the poet to his audi-ence; and certainmatters f technique.The earlyperiod s obscured, o a largeextent, n the darkness fprehistory,and we have smallhope ofknowing owmuchthe poems which urvivewerere-shaped by later poets or whether heir ttributed ates are at all accurate. Butthepoemswedo have seemto show hatone oftheirmost mportantharacteris-tics s therelationwhich hey how between oet and audience.These old poemsdeal withprimarily imple ubjects nd are almost lwaysdeclarations,whetherto a lover, o one's self nd the worldbefore ommittinguicide, r to an emperorat timeofaccessionor sickness.Nature s almost lways used fordirect ompari-son, and time s onlypart of the situation fthe poem and not properly themeat all. We can see this overridingmportance f declaration n such a charmingpiece of poeticaddress s that of the youngbut willing rincess fNunakawa tothe Deity Eight-Thousand-Spears.

Ya-chi-hoko o Divine august one,Kami no mikoto Deity Eight-Thousand-Spears,Nue-kusano Since I am onlyMe ni shiareba A tender hoot fluttering,Waga kokoro My heart s onlyUra-suno tori o A birdscampering n theshoreIma kosowa But oh, soon nowChidorini arame A plovereasy in thecatching,Nochiwa AndthereafterNa-dorini aramu wo A birdcompletely ours;Inochiwa So hereafterNa shise-tamaio Guardyour ife nd wait formeIshi-tafuya Oh swiftly lying un,Ama-hase-zukai Heaven-coursingmessengerKotono These re thewords,Katari-gotomo The words oreverung-Ko woba. Yes, these.42

Such poemsare not onlydeclarativebut almostcompletely ccasional,whetherreal or mythical.This mode ofdeclarative oetrynwhichnature nd time reonly he vehiclesof the declaration nd in which herelation fthepoet to his materials s unre-flectingurvivesn thetanka o theend of thisearly period.The ConsortoftheEmperorTenchi (626-71) addresseshis spiriton the occasionofhis impendingdeath.Aohatano Overyourflag-draped ouse

Kohatano ue wo Hungwiththe death-white empenflags,Kayou to wa Your spirithovers42 Kojiki 3. The last 3 lines, nd possibly lso the preceding , area formulahantedbythe reciter,nd not properly artof the poem. See B. H. Chamberlain, o-ji-ki 2nded.,Kobe, 1932),pp. 92-93.


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JAPANESE POETIC TRADITION 023Me ni wa miredomo Beforemyweeping yes,whilefruitlesslyTada ni awanukcamo. I grieve hatwe can nevermeet again.43

This is moresophisticated hanPrincessNunakawa's sweet reluctant morousdelayin itsgentle ssonanceand vivid magery, ut the whole poem s foundedupon the old technique fdeclaration.The remarkable oeticachievementsf the centurypannedbythe Fujiwara-Nara period 686-784) can be imaged n the geniusofa man known o us inlittlemore than name, Kakinomotono Hitomaro. There were of course others-Yamanoe no Okura, Otomo no Tabito, Otomono Yakamochi,and so on-butwhat Hitomarogave the Japanesetradition urpassesthe accomplishmentsfthese other greatpoets. His brilliant ense of poetic structure, is skill withimagery, is fertilereation fnew forms nd modes,his kind ronies, is responsetopublicoccasions, nd his expressive uman ympathymergewith uchappar-ent suddennesshatone s almost onvinced hathistory as losta host of mpor-tant transitional oets. Hitomaroand the otherpoets of the period gave thedeveloping radition real statusas literature:n themthefigure ftheliterarypoetrather han the obscurebardemergesn fullmaturity.t maybe said thatHitomaro'sbiographyies n hispoetic canon;he established isown tradition-therewas a so-called HitomaroCollection"-and withhimJapanesepoetryhascomeof age.44The declarativemode survives nto this periodand indeed for centuries, utHitomaro edefinest in terms f public, hat s social and national, hemes, r nterms fthebroadhumanity f uch poems s that on"Seeing heBodyofa ManLyingAmong he Stones on the sland of Samine,"which nds:

Nami no tono There foundyou, poorman -Shigekihamabewo Outstretchedn thebeach,Shikitaeno On thisroughbed ofstones,Makura ni nashite Amidthebusyvoicesofthe waves.Aradoko o If I butknewwherewas yourhome,Yori-fusu imiga I would go and tell;Ie shiraba If yourwifebut knew,Yukitemotsugen Shewouldcome to tendyou.Tsuma shiraba She, knowing ot even the wayhither,Ki motowamashi o Must wait,mustever wait,Tama-hoko o Restlesslyhopingforyourreturn-Michidani shirazu Your dear wife-alas45Man'yoshut 48. Here we follow Takeda (Chushaku, II [Tokyo, 1949],153), who explainsthe flagsas having been set up fora religious service on the Emperor's behalf, and rejectsthe interpretation of kohata as a place name. For a differentnterpretation,see NGS, p. 7.44The Kakinomoto no Asomi no Hitomaro no kashil, or "Hitomaro Collection," appears

to have been lost early in the Heian period, but many poems in theMan'yoshutwere creditedby the compilers to such a collection. A number of these poems have certain primitivecharacteristicswhichhave led scholars to assign them to Hitomaro's early period, and thecollection is also believed to have contained poems by the poet's family and friends. SeeSait6, III (Tokyo, 1939), 3-26.4 Man'yoshut 20, lines 31-45. The translation is fromNGS, pp. 46-47.


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524 BROWER AND MINERObohoshikuMachi ka kouranHashikitsuma-rawa.

The poem-writers nowat oncea publicfigure, poet,and a man; and therela-tion ofthepoettohis audiencehas becomeformalizedo the extent hat themostrenowned oetat thesomewhat ecadent ndofthetradition, akamochi, ome-times eemsalmostto be all poet and no man.46Time is nowan important heme, lthoughone treated n directresponse, sOkura's "Lament on the InstabilityofHuman Life" so eloquentlyproclaims.After ellingwhattimedoes to carefree irls nd bold lads, Okura concludes nhis envoy:Tokiwa-nasu How I yearnto beKaku shi moga moto UnalterablywhatonceI was,Omoedomo Immovableas a rock,Yo no koto areba But because belong o thisworldTodomi-kanetsuo. There s no stopto time.47

Nature s an even morecommon ubjectthantime,whether or tsbeautiesorits perils,but like time, t is treateddirectly; he response s one of objectivedescription. itomaro howshowsophisticatednd imaginative hisdescriptionmightbe whenheusesnatural mages as metaphors orothernatural mages.Ameno umi ni In theoceanofthe skyKumononamitachi Coursetheundulating louds,Tsuki nofune Risingby the moon-boatHoshinohayashini As it seemsto start tsrowingKogi-kakurumiyu. Through he forest fthe stars.48

In this lovely poem, externalnatureexists as something part fromhumannature.This separationbetweenthe poet and his materials-whethernature,time, rhuman ffairs-isnot alienationhere, t mustbe stressed, uta balancedrelationship etween hesubjective pectator oetand hisobject.The result s atone ofreposeand balance which s pre-eminentn thework of HitomaroandTabito, and common ven to the more eccentricOkura,the softer akamochi,and theotherpoetsof theperiod.At theend ofthe Nara periodand throughoutheearlierHeian period, on-temporaryxperiencend poeticexperimentationed to two mportant evelop-ments: hedefinition fthepoetictraditionn terms f thetanka, nd theemer-genceof a newsubjectivity. he newpoetic mportance f thesubject-the poethimself-builtupontheformalizingnd socializing f thepoet's role n thepre-46 See,for xample, he gallantexchanges etweenYakamochi ndvarious adies ofhisacquaintance Man'y6shfl14-720, 27-755, 62-785, 448-1452,460-1464). ome ofthesepoems retranslatedn NGS, pp. 134-138, 81.47Man'yoshua 04-805. translationfthechoka nda differentersion ftheenvoymaybe found nNGS, pp. 201-202.48Man'yoshu7 068. ora differentranslation,ee NGS,p. 52.


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JAPANESE POETIC TRADITION 525cedingperiod;upon the consciousness hata poetplayed a sufficientlyroteanrole nhisartthathemight venassume,as the earlier oetssometimes id,theposeorpersonalityf omeone uite differentrom imself;ndupontheconceptborrowed romChinesepoetry hatartmaydistort he detailsofsensory xperi-ence ntopatterns f ubjective nd seeminglyrrational ruth.Narihira reatesmomentaryewildermentnd a new realitywhenhe asks,

Tsukiya aranu Is thereno moon?Haru yamukashi o Can it be thissprings notthesameHaru naranu As thatrememberedpring?Wagamihitotsu a And thisalone,my mortalbody,Motonomini shite. Remainsas everwithout hange?49So intense s thisexperience f thepoet's subjectiveperceptionhatfor hemo-ment t transcends heforces fchangewhich nhere n all nature.A Hitomaromightwriteabout time-honoredraditions r the gloriesof the past, and anOkuramightbe concernedwiththeruinous ffects ftimeon golden ads andgirls, utto a greatpoetoftheninth rtenth entury,imeand nature-realityperhaps-have little xistence partfrom imself. his subjectivityed to poeticsubjectswhichweremoremetaphysical hantheprevailinglythicalonesofthepreceding ge. Such themes s themeaningof ove and thedifferenceetweenappearance nd reality re constant oncerns,s a readerofthatgreatspeculumamantis,heTale ofGenji,willrecall, nd as wecansee inKi noTomonori's fl. .890) visionof naturebecomeso subjective hat ikea person tmaygrowoutoftunewith tsown aws.

Hisakatano On thisday in springHikarinodokeki Whenthe ambent ir suffusesHaru no hi ni Softtranquility,Shizu-gokoroaku Why houldcherry etalsflutterHana no chiru an. Withunsettledheartto earth?50As we might xpectofsuchan age, themost subjectiveof all normalhuman

experience,ove, s thegreattheme o which imeand natureare subordinated,and thepoet's usual audience s the beloved personto whomthe poemis ad-dressed. ut lovepoetry nd subjectivityan degeneratentomere onventionseasilyas anyotherkind, nd toward he endof the tenth enturyhesubjectivemodedid degenerate, lthoughnotwithout eaving ts permanentmarkon thetradition.f Hitomaro nd hisage had madeJapanesepoetry iterarynd madeit great,the earlierHeian poetsmade it modern nd self-conscious.he laterHeian andearlymedievalpoets nheritedhisrich raditionnan age ofwarsandsocial upheaval, and whilenarrativepoets mighthave celebrated he battles,thesepoetswere as alwayslyric, nd so werecast evenmoreupon themselves,tradition,eligion,ndnatureoncethestability fHeian societywas threatened.

49Kokinshii47.Thepoem lso appears n the3rd pisodeof he se monogatariBungakutaikei, I, 38).?0Kokinshuz 4.


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526 BROWER AND MINEROneof hethingswe noticefirstn someofthisnewpoetry s a quality nheritedby haiku:thepoet seems o be writing o no audience t all. It seems hat, n part,Heian subjectivitywas developed so far as to exclude any ostensible ddresseefor poem.But along with hisdevelopment, herewas a countertendencyhichwas veryun-Heian-the apparentwithdrawal f the personality f thepoet ntothebackground f the poem. We see both of thesealteredpoeticrelationshipsnShunzei'sfavorite oem,which s worth epeating ere.

As evening alls,From along the moors he autumnwindBlows chill nto the heart,And the quails raise theirplaintive ryIn the deep grass of secludedFukakusa.No one is addressed here, and there does not seem to be any speakerto thepoem-ostensiblythe scene simply xists. t is veryrevealing o know,however,that this highly mpersonal oem was criticized or eing oo overtly ersonal. twas said that the third ine (mi ni shimite)was too explicitly ersonal n a poemalreadyrich withemotional mplication.51 ctually,noneofthe greatpoets ofthe time-Saigyo, Shunzei,Teika, and therest-really excluded the subjectivepresence fthe poet. t is probably good thing hat theydid not, ince hevitaltension-the properbalance betweenpersonalism nd impersonalism-lay ntheeffort, ot n the success, o excludethe subjective elf.We have a right o ask, then,whattherelationwas between hepoet and hismaterials-nature and time. The poetry eems to be meredescription, ut ofcourse t is not. The scene described s usually nature,but a nature which ssymbolic fman-of human xperiencefbeauty, ransience,oss, alvation, ndso on. We discover descriptive ymbolism,s it maybe called,growing romthe Buddhist deal oftheoneness fa naturalorderwhich ncludesman.Perhapsit wouldbe best tosaythatthis deal is exploited, ecauseas we have seen,Shun-zei does notreally onvey Buddhistmonism; ut from he tensionbetween hemonistic deal andthedualistichumanism fpoetandnature, he ateHeian andearlymedievalpoets evolvedtheircontributiono the poetictradition.Thereseems to be a similar truggle o abolish or to transcend imein this period.Shunzei'scanon s richwithpoems engaged n the efforto assimilatepastwithpresent, resentwithfuture,nd the ike. The effortails, r at least we seemtobecomeall the moreconscious ftime,but the effects catalyticfor hepoetry.PerhapsTeika realizesthe ambition o harmonize he self withnatureand totranscend ime better han most ofthepoetsofhis age, as we can see from hispoem.

Haru noyono The bridgeofdreamsYumenouki-hashi Floatingonthe brief pring ight

51This was the opinion fthe poet-priest hun'e (fl. . 1160-80), ccording o hisdiscipleKamo noChomei,whoreportshemaster's iews ntheMumyosho. See Konishi,"Shunzei,"p. 13.


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JAPANESE POETIC TRADITION 527Todae-shite Soon collapsed:Mine ni wakaruru Then from mountaintop cloudYoko-gumo o sora. Took leave into the open sky."2

This styleof descriptive ymbolism ad the effect f stimulating new skillwithimagerywhichwas bequeathed to Basho and the haiku, as we can see even insuch a lesserpoet as Fujiwara no Sueyoshi 1152-1211):Sayo-chidori Toward Narumi BeachKoe koso hikaku The cries afar ofplovers n thedarkNarumi-gata Wingnearer hrough henight-Katabuku sukini Perhaps because the moon now sinksbeyond

Shioyamitsu an. And swelling ides racein upontheshore?"3The story fthedevelopment fthe tankatradition fthelate Heian and earlymedievalperiod ntotherenga ndhaiku n subsequent enturiess a story, ow-ever,which ies outsidethediscussionhere,exceptthat we may speculatethatthesame threebasic elementswhichformJapanesepoetry p to thispoint-theconstant, yclic, nd cumulative lements-continueto function n later cen-turies, ddingnewdevelopmentso one of the world'sgreatpoetictraditions.62Shinkokinshul8.63Shinkokinshul48.

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Formative Elements of the Japanese Poetic Tradition - Brower and Miner

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