THE DARK HALF-CENTURY IV

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THE DARK HALF-CENTURY IV

The white heron -
if it were not for its cry,
it would be rounded-snow.

Ichihara Tayo-Jo 市原多代女


So circa 1830, at the height of the tsukinami poets, a woman poet eloquently gives a counter example to shasei theory. Then in the autumn of 1934, in Vienna, Popper’s Logik der Forschung deals shasei theory the last fatal blow.


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Some Shiki scholars consider Masaoka Shiki’s haiku poems fall into five historical periods. For example, Susumu Takiguchi defines these five periods:

Tsukinami (banal) [1885 - 1887]
Influence of Ohara Kiju [1887 - 1891]
Study of Basho and old haiku [1891 - 1894]
Fusetsu and shasei [1894 - 1897]
Buson and shasei [1897 - 1902]

Takiguchi claims “ By general consent, Shiki’s haiku poems during the first two stages are regarded as mediocre.”

It seems that until 1891 Shiki was himself a tsukinami poet, at first motivated by youthful enthusiam, and then advised and influenced by his uncle Ohara Kiju, himself a recognised and admired haikai poet. So does the Dark Half-Century run from the death of Issa 1827 to Shiki’s finding the old masters in 1891, supposedly 64 years? A little reflection will show that there is something wrong with this view.

Shiki made a close study of chronological bibliography of hokku and had collected a mass of material for Haiku Bunrui by 1892. In 1928 - 1929, the Arusu edition of Haiku Bunrui ran to 12 volumes. This suggests that Shiki had a first hand knowledge of most hokku poets and
practioners of haikai no renga. While we are strugglijng to find out about Imaizumi Sogetsu - Ni [今泉素月尼｝ and Ichihara Tayo-Jo [市原多代女（いちはらたよじょ）], and many others, Shiki no doubt had excellent knowledge of their work.

He certainly did not “find” Bashô in 1891.
Shiki could write and compose in Classical Chinese. He would certainly have known the influence of the Chinese poets on Bashô and be quite familiar with the poet most respected by Japanese poets, Po Chu-i (772 - 846). No doubt, he knew very well Po Chu-i’s poem of Yang Kwei-Fei.
Of course, we will not find that name in his early haiku on this subject. In Japanese, the name is　Yôkihi　楊貴妃 .

Here is Shiki’s haiku from that “mediocre period.”

yôki -hi no neokigao naru botan kana

The haiku is extremely concise. Reading from right to left and moving upwards, the text says :

[This] peony becomes the rising from the sleep face of Yang Kuei Fei.

Of course Shiki is using a metaphor, as did Bashô, Chiyo-ni and Buson.
The poem looks nothing like the pretty, lyrical “chocolate-boxy” verbless image clusters of much modern haiku. The verb naru is essential to the poem. The beautiful flower, fresh and fragile, so easily crushed, symbolises the tragedy of Yôkihi. Shiki has refined it in his imagination to become an image of the most beautiful woman in Chinese history. Shiki is doing the very thing that he most admired in Buson.

This peony -
it is the rising from the sleep face
of Yang Kuei Fei.

[Translated by Hugh Bygott]

I do not regard this haiku as “mediocre” or “juvenile.” It is a fine philosophical poem with many layers of meaning and allusions and captures the story of the Jade Princess.
http://www.taleofgenji.org/yang_kwei-fei.html


I will now compare this with another “mediocre” metaphorical poem of 60 years before. Ichihara Tayo-Jo (1772 - 1865) uses a metaphor to describe a white heron.

shira-sagi no nakazuba yuki no hito maroge

The white heron -
if it were not for its cry,
it would be rounded-snow.

[Translated by Hugh Bygott]

The essential verb to cry [naku 6939] is in a conditional proposition.
I have translated this as a conditional subjunctive of the second form in English. I concede that this is taking a liberty, but it captures the poet’s intention. Some translators might object that in the third line I have ignored hito. I concede this and agree that I have not really used the verb maru. I am implying that a piece of rounded snow would be a single piece.

Having recently travelled through Vermont, USA on a day of - 20 degrees celsius [Woostock] and seen mile after mile of undifferentiated snow, I can imagine the poet identifying the piece of snow as one lifeless thing, only to be surprised by the cry of a heron. Nine out of ten shasei poets saw a lump of snow, and identified “ the thing in itself ” as snow. How lucky the tenth poet was to get more chance information!


I regard Ichihara Tayo-Jo’s poem as both beautiful and as grasping something of great importance about the world. Very early in my career in philosophy I was greatly influenced by the great Dominican monk, the logician I.M.Bochenski:
“Do not say things are as you say they are.”

Hugh Bygott
Translating Haiku

... ... ...

Comment by Larry Bole, Simply Haiku

Dear Hugh,

If "circa 1830" was "the height of the tsukinami poets," then what were the decades between then and the 1890s when Shiki initiated his haiku reform? Did the tsukinami poets plateau, or was there a decline even among them?

Tayo-Jo's hokku is interesting. Here is another translation:

shira-sagi no nakazuba yuki no hito maroge

if the white heron
didn't cry...just a large
snowball

trans. William J. Higginson
http://handh-fromherepress.home.att.net/scrapbook_bd/contents.html

Here is a similar hokku by Chiyo-ni, written earlier I presume:

koe nakuba sagi ushinawan kesa no yuki

but for their voices
the herons would disappear--
this morning's snow

trans. Patricia Donegan and Yoshie Ishibashi


"Cherry-picking" some hokku from what you call "the dark half- century" doesn't demonstrate anything about the OVERALL quality of what was being written during that time-period. SOME good poems are written in ANY era.

Please check your date on when Shiki's haiku was written. Janine Beichman says it was written in 1897, which would have it straddling Takiguchi's final two periods in Shiki's haiku-writing career, thus putting it squarely in his mature (but ever-evolving) style.

Here is her translation:

Yookihi no neokigao naru botan kana

the peony seems
to think itself Yookihi
as she awakes

trans. Beichman, in "Masaoka Shiki," Kodansha, paperback edition, 1986, p. 84. Of course, the book was reissued in 2002 I believe, so I don't know if the date given for the hokku has stayed the same.

Shiki may be influenced by Buson with this hokku, but it puts me in mind of Basho's:

kisigata ya ame ni seishi ga nebu no hana

Kisigata--
in the rain, Xi Shi asleep,
silk tree blossoms

trans. David Barnhill

This is from the darker, moodier, second-half of Basho's journey he wrote about in "Narrow Road to the Deep North." Xi Shi (Hsi Shih) was a famous beauty (one of China's four great beauties) who was sent into exile when she was given to an enemy king for the express
purpose of debauching him. She was always sad after that, but it was said that she was so beautiful, that when she frowned, or was in the rain, or tears were in her eyes, she was even more beautiful than when she was smiling. Silk tree blossoms have a pronounced eyelash-
like fringe of stamen that close up in the flower at night.
Kisigata, when Basho was there, was, according to Haruo Shirane ("Traces of Dreams") a "rain-shrouded, emotionally dark bay."

As I have pointed out in a previous response to you in this series, according to Makoto Ueda, by way of Lee Gurga, Shiki felt that shasei was a good place for beginners in haiku composition to start. As they gained experience, they could move beyond that into the realm of imagination, although still utilizing shasei technique even with those haiku.

One reason, but not the only reason, that Shiki advocated shasei, was to allow ordinary people to write haiku, who weren't well-versed in ancient (and ancient-foreign) history, or ancient Chinese and/or Japanese poetry, or classical allusions of any sort. And although the use of shasei technique was part of Shiki's reform, it was by no means the only part of Shiki's reform. Shiki's reform was, by necessity, broader and more sweeping than that!

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... ... ... Hugh Bygott

Dear Larry

Your comparisons of the various translations has raised some serious problems.

I am always conscious of the the need for a kireji cut in a haiku composition since I believe that it is one of the necessary conditions. I set about deliberately to make the break after a noun phrase.

The white heron -
if it were not for its cry,
it would be rounded-snow.

Higginson has made the break by ellipsis.



if the white heron
didn't cry...just a large
snowball

On the positive side both of us have recognized the conditional status indicated by -ba in the Japanese.
On the negative side, I have used the subjunctive mood and Higginson has produced a syntactically incomplete translation. Surely the translator must respect both languages.
Neither of us have effectively translated the third line.


Janine Beichman’s translation is seriously misleading.

Yookihi no neokigao naru botan kana

the peony seems
to think itself Yookihi
as she awakes

Shiki has deliberately used a metaphor. There is no question of the peony thinking. Beichman has not translated neoki gao or naru which are absolutely necessary. Is the use of metaphors consistent with pure objective shasei? I am puzzled by the date 1897. Is Shiki trying to copy Buson?

What is the non-Japanese reader to make of all this? If we cannot get satisfactory translations, how can the richness of the original poetry be preserved?

This charge of mediocrity both against Shiki and the Meiji hokku poets is increasingly looking like poor scholarship based on poor translations. We will all have to do a lot more work.

Hugh

................................

.......... Larry Bole

Dear Hugh,

I believe any good translator tries to respect both the source language and the target language, but his/her primary loyalty should be to the target language. As far as Higginson's translation
being "syntactically incomplete," playing with syntax is a basic tool of poetry, at least in Engish. Doing a cursory skim of internet sites which discuss this issue, I have found these quotable
observations: "In many cases the poet will use diction and syntax in unexpected or deviant ways..." and "Poetry in general seems to really stretch the syntax of a language... ."

From a poetic standpoint, there is absolutely nothing wrong with Higginson having left out of his translation the clearly implied phrase "then it would be:" "if the white heron / didn't cry...[then
it would be] just a large / snowball."

Regarding Beichman's having left out a few words of Shiki's haiku in translating it, I refer you to the entry "Translation," in the "Princeton Encyclopedia of Poetry and Poetics," Princeton,
Princeton University Press, enlarged edition, 1974. The whole entry is worth reading, but let me quote one little part of it: "the first mistake of the inept translator is unwillingness to leave anything out... ."


I have no idea if Shiki was trying to copy Buson. I'm sure he was influenced by Buson.

I am under the impression that shasei is a technique, not a theory.
Shiki wrote many haiku that wouldn't pass muster (or likely be published) today, in light of how English-language haiku poets and haiku rule-makers have interpreted (or misinterpreted) Shiki's shasei technique.

Shiki's introduction to shasei is frequently attributed to his friendship with the Japanese artist Fusetsu, but whether Shiki knew it or not, the concept of shasei in art had already been well-
established in Japanese art, due to earlier contact with the West, a well-known part of Japanese history.

A prime innovator of shasei technique in painting was the artist Maruyama Okyo (1733-1795). Do a google search on his name combined with shasei, and see what comes up. I will give one website as an example:

http://www.umich.edu/~hartspc/NEAAA/issue75/members/exhibitions/articles/asia/75japan_19.html


As I pointed out in a previous response, according to Donald Keene, Shiki didn't use the term shasei until 1898, in essays he wrote trying to reform tanka. Prior to that, according to Beichman, Shiki had used the terms 'ari no mama utsusu', "to depict as is," and 'shajitsu', "reality," to denote realism in poetry.

I have no idea if metaphor is consistent with "pure objective shasei." This concept was really invented by Kyoshi, who called it 'kyakkan shasei'. It seems to me that what the arbiters of English-language haiku are really talking about when they discuss shasei technique is not Shiki's original version, but Kyoshi's stricter version. We would have to study Kyoshi's haiku to see if he himself always practiced 'kyakkan shasei'.

Shiki was never against the use of imagination in writing haiku. I will quote again, from Donald Keene, what I quoted in a previous response:

"Shiki was at great pains, however, to make it clear that he did not propose using realism to the exclusion of the imagination; realistic techniques in poetry could be applied even to subjects that went beyond normal realistic expression." ("Dawn to the West," New York, Henry Holt and Co., paperback edition, 1987, p. 50)

I am willing to take Mr. Keene's word for it, because I'm willing to assume he has no reason to lie about this.

Regarding the similar haiku comparing snow and herons: this is a well-worn poetic motif. Even the Japanese Zen Master Doogen (1200-1253) wrote a waka on the subject of herons disappearing against a background of snow:

Worship:

A white heron
Hiding itself
In the snowy field,
Where even the winter grass
Cannot be seen.

http://www.empty-universe.com/zen/dogen_poetry.htm

I have no idea what Shiki would have thought about the two heron-and-snow haiku, but I know he was against using trite motifs. Point two of Shiki's manifesto published in the newspaper "Nippon" in 1896, as quoted in the Introduction to Ueda's "Modern Japanese Haiku:"

"We [Shiki and his group] abhor trite motifs. They [tsukinami poets] do not abhor trite motifs as much as we do. Between a trite motif and a fresh motif, they lean toward the former."

Yours, Larry

PS
Isn't the recognition that the observer has an effect on what is observed, that the act of observation changes what is observed, isn't it called the "Copenhagen Interpretation of Quantum Mechanics," as developed by Niels Bohr, Werner Heisenberg, et al., also commonly
referred to as the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle?

This concept has seeped into popular culture, and is used to describe a variety of situations in "soft" sciences as well as "hard" sciences, but it was first developed purely as a problem in Physics, having to do with the fact that when trying to observe particles at the atomic level, the photons of the light necessary to observe the particles will hit and affect the velocity of the paticles under observation, so that we can never know both the position and velocity of such a particle under observation with certainty.

Larry

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THE DARK HALF-CENTURY V
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/translatinghaiku/message/1724


I have chosen for the fifth poet a pupil of Issa. The subject of the poem is a baby. I have searched Shiki's haiku to find a poem about a baby; quite a rare thing. Shiki's poem is radically different. It may be that on linguistic grounds it is an early haiku. I am beginning to doubt the use of shasei technique as a satisfactory guide to Shiki's development.

I have chosen a pupil of Issa to see if the humour and choice of commonplace subjects which was Issa's method is apparent in his pupil as well.

osanago ya hana o misete mo kuchi o aku

A baby -
even if seeing a flower,
opens its mouth.

Kubota Seifu-Jo (1783 - 1848)

The subject is osanago, infant, baby. A very important word in the poem is the particle, mo. Most translators, including myself, come to grief over Japanese particles. I am taking mo to mean even if. [Kenkyusha New Japanese English Dictionary, 4th Edition, 1115, 5]

No doubt the Tempoo poets would have thought this too trivial a topic for serious hokku poetry. Perhaps Shiki also thought this, but he cannot be critical and accuse Seifu-Jo of being a tsukinami poet, because she could easily have had this experience nursing a baby. I think one very important aspect of this poem is the influence of Issa.

I searched for a while to find a Shiki haiku about a baby. The one I found is somewhat disturbing.

tsuki naraba
futsuka no tsuki to
akirame yo

We only have two key words, the adverb naraba, if, and the verb akirameru used in the imperative mood. There are nuances of meaning for this verb - be resigned, be at ease, accept your fate, or even, use philosophy. The final word is an imperative particle emphasing the
imperative mood. How is to, the kireji at the end of line 2, to be understood? I think that it is adverbial. [Kenkyusha, 1798,6]

Suppose the moon . . .
only the second day moon,
be resigned!

Without a headnote could any one understand this poem?

Certainly, Shiki is giving advice, perhaps asking the person to accept their fate, or even advising to take things philosophically. I have been in this position, and I can see the philosophical sense of Shiki's advice. Time heals pain and new cycles begin. It is a metaphysical poem. Was it included in the manuscript Kanzan Rakuboku or the manuscript Haiku Koo neither of which were published in Shik's lifetime?

I do not know the date of this haiku, but I am assuming early, as I did for Botan. There is a moral here. Both of these poems are like the later poems of the Meiji Period which Shiki is supposed to have reformed. If both of these Shiki haiku are late, as I suspect Larry Bole will say, then there really is a cat among the pidgeons.

Hugh Bygott

[The haiku is advice given by Shiki to a father whose baby had died shortly after birth. HB]



My Problem with
Kubota Seifu-Jo (1783 - 1848)


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