Notes on 江戸文学の冒険 (Explorations in Edo Literature) that I mentioned in the post below.
I enjoyed this essay: 江戸時代文芸の新しさ…西鶴・芭蕉・近松を例に (The novelty of Edo-period literary arts: Saikaku, Bashô, Chikamatsu as examples) by 大輪靖宏 Ôwa Yasuhiro. My views about it might be a bit biased, though, by something I've been thinking about lately: the reflexive defensiveness some specialists in pre-modern literature have about the relevance of their interest to "people today," especially students. That, on the one hand, and the sense that I get from some specialists in modern literature that what we pre-modernists are interested in is somehow utterly alien and unrelated to what they do. I find it puzzling and a little sad. Perhaps in another post I might indulge in a genteel rant, but as I don't think it would be all that productive, I'll do something else first, which is write up my notes about Mr. Ôwa's essay.
The main point of the essay is that the Edo period was a time of experimentation in literature, particularly in the case of Saikaku, Bashô, and Chikamatsu. Saikaku depicted his characters with "naked" realism; Bashô's haiku has universal appeal because he included imagery like lice, fleas, and urine -- earthy stuff which you'd expect to find in modern poetry. Thus, compared with the literature of the classical period, Edo period writing has much freshness and novelty to it.
The part of the essay that stood out to me was his discussion of a comment about the modern haiku poet Hino Sōjō's 日野草城 Miyako Hotel ミヤコ・ホテル that is cited in Fukumoto Ichirô's 復本一郎 Hino Sōjō: Haiku o kaeta otoko 日野草城 俳句を変えた男 (Hino Sôjô: The man who changed haiku, Kadokawa Gakugei Shuppan, 2005). Fukumoto cites Murakami Fumihiko 村上文彦 saying, "I got interested in composing haiku after reading Hino Sôjô's series Miyako Hotel. Up until that point I knew no more haiku than Bashô's 'old pond' verse. I hadn't dreamed that haiku could have that kind of freshness to it." Ôwa says he doesn't want to talk about Hino Sôjô or Murakami Fumihiko, just that the comment uses Bashô's old pond verse as an example of the old-fashionedness of haiku.
However, Ôwa tells us, the old pond verse is actually an example of Bashô's edginess. The image of the frog jumping into the pond and making a noise with its splash is actually a deviation from the classical usage of the frog: the frog is supposed to chirp, calling out for a frog-lover. Splashing in like Bashô has it do is inelegant, revolutionary; likewise, the setting of an old pond is unclassical. What is an old pond, anyway? It's as difficult to imagine an old pond as it is imagine an old well--these are things that constantly fill with fresh water. So specifically choosing the image of an old well is calling attention to the fact that the place the frog is in is forgotten, unnoticed, silent, making its sudden movement and sound all the more breathtaking: life in a place that was apparently dead. So this is an example of the startling newness that Edo-period literature achieves.
Three more hokku that match the elegant with the vulgar:
鶯や餅に糞する縁の先
the warbler
defecates on a mochi cake
edge of the eaves
よくみれば薺はなさく垣ねかな
if you look closely
there, shepherds-purse is blooming
in the hedge
芋洗う女西行ならば歌読まん
woman washing potatoes
were Saigyô here
he'd write a poem
So, Ôwa says, while it was mandatory to include some haigon (non-poetic word) in haikai, and indeed the verses of Bashô's predecessors and contemporaries in the Teitoku and Danrin school did this, Bashô distinguished himself by making his verses actually poetic rather than trashy. He wasn't just an iconoclast, he was an original, in other words.
That originality makes his work (and likewise that of Saikaku and Chikamatsu -- I omit Ôwa's argument about them) interesting and "new," despite being old.
