Anastasia DUMITRU
In this essay we aim to identify a few landmarks, to find
some lyrical interference, a bridge between two cultures: the Japanese and
Romanian. ,,Japanese poetry is different from the European one: other
structures, another story,”says N. Manolescu the preface History of Japanese
Literature (from the origins to the present), written by Shuichi
Kato. Although the reknown Romanian critic recognizes the differences between
the two cultures, states that, “the lyricism is universal” and confesses that
he wanted to entitle the preface my Japan.
Among the peculiarities of the Japanese poetry, mentioned
at the beginning of the book of Shuichi Shuichi Kato, are: simplicity and
lyricism. The whole lyric is established “in a graphics of feeling ... the
Japanese draws its moods in relation to landscape. Amiel's formula - landscape,
state of mind - is valid for Japanese poetry as for any other”, considers
Nicolae Manolescu, recognizing the paradox of this lyrical. ,,The
sophistication (the Japanese is sophisticated) becomes the shape of the maximum
simplicity. But under the appearance of naturalness, is for exeample at Soseki,
a laborious fineness, a minute of the words’ sifting, a dramatic confrontation
of the limits of the expression”.
Although it is a long distance between the Romanian and the
Japanese literature and bridges are fragile, despite appearances, these bridges
allow the passage from a literature to another, even more, gradually creates a
strange sense of familiarity. N. Manolescu, a lover of wood civilization, as he
confesses in his autobiographical books Life and books, and in the
preface History of Japanese literature, relates a personal experience.
The critic finds similarities and notes that Maramures wooden churches or the
premises of the Neamt monastery resembles the Buddhist temples that he visited
in Japan
and made him feel at home. ,,The Wood Civilization links over time and space, Romania and Japan. One discovers the transience
air: wood does not last. The Zen Buddhism and the orthodoxy both created monks,
hermits and ascetics. Society stops at the gate of the temple or hermitage.” In
the same preface, N. Manolescu remembers that Japanese finance the repairing of
Moldovian churches. The most beautiful album of Romanian church architecture
was published in Tokyo.
The Westerners are more and more attracted to non-European
literatures. Identity is found in relation to otherness. M. Eliade aims to
generalize the Romanian cultural perspective. Among the first interested in the
oriental civilizations were M. Eminescu, B.P.Hasdeu, V. Parvan, L. Blaga, C.
Brancusi, and then ethnologists, the visionaries.
The Japanese literature has a history of nearly two
millennia. Although early works were heavily influenced by Chinese literature, Japan soon
developed its own literature. Shuichi Katō lists five basic factors that
distinguish the literatures: their role in the entire culture, the form of its
historical development, language and writing, social context and their own
conception of the world.
I noted that apparently, we identify common elements:
Japanese literature has a written tradition and the Romanian is based on Folk
literature; Japanese literature has extremely varied language and cultural
differences, the Japanese words and phrases are not so easy to translate. Oral
literature and Romanian folk objects, the sacred topos of our churches or of
the Buddhist temples, worldview, sensitivity about the elements of nature, of
the Japanese cherry blossom, of the green leaf or apple flower for Romanian. We
can find numerous links between Zen philosophy and Romanian folk, on the deity
or the unwritten law of hospitality.
Hajime Nakamura, prof. of Tokyo, in the book East and West. A
comparative history of ideas (Humanitas Publishing House, 1997) concludes,
“Although there are many differences, many parallels are still quite evident.
Common features reflect ways of thinking and common rules.” Hajime Nakamura
builds his argumentation from the theory of Nicolaus of Cusa coincidetia
oppositorum, which M.Eliade also developed. According to this concept, the
individual is identical with the universal, the divine essence. God is the
unity of all opposites, coincidentia oppositorum. God is the highest
(maximum) and also the lowest (minimum). ,,In Him there are not two opposite
essences, but one,” says the author of East and West.
Haiku lies in the paradox, sprang from the union of
opposites. If Uddālaka argues that the ultimate principle of the universe is
Being seen as the true spiritual principle, the philosophy of Miorita ballad is
the same: solving situation by identifying antithetic essence. Uddālaka
continues that during deep sleep and death, it is permitted to every human to
enter into Being, they get to the unity and do not realize that they penetrate
into Being.
The Upanishads
metaphysical thinkers have a tendency towards the Unity, as well as of the
Moldovian shepherd from the folk masterpiece, is simple, but essential. If we
were to analyze meaning of silence in Miorita or the Oriental
literatures, then we would find many similarities. ,,Those who speak know
nothing; / Those who know are silent”, writes poet Bai Juyi about Lao, quoted
in the book East and West. The Moldovian shepard’s desire is, “Not to
tell them" - the silence is part of initiation rites and mysteries of the
initiative, and Bashô, the practitioner of the artistic asceticism, writes in
1689, “Words-words / mauve lips/ autumn wind” or “Silent-e-re-e/ rocks pierced
by/ cricket song.” In many other poems, we identify the relationship between
silence and the crickets’song. For example, the haiku quoted by Aldous Huxley
is suggestive, “It's so much silence/ the voice of the cricket/ Penetrates-n/
the Rock” to understand the opposition between full and
empty, or to understand the theory of Nicolaus Cusanus on coincidentia
oppositorum. ,,Not the words, the silence gives voice to the word” writes
I. Pillat in Poetic Art, and for L.Blaga, “the word is a plague of
silence” for ,,non-word” pleades also N.Stănescu.
Famous verses of the Edo
period (1600-1868), written by masters like Matsuo Bashō, Yosa Buson and Kobayashi Issa are
generally known as Hokku and all call for harmony between micro and macrocosm.
“If you focus on your own emotions and if you put them in harmony with what
surrounds you, the essence of your own spirit and heart become haikai” said
Sanzōshi. The Moldovian shepherd found the way out of conflict, identified the
Superego as a sign of the reintegration into the Great All. The Absolute is the
Inner Order, the immortal, your Self. Everything else is pain” it is written in
Brhad.-Up, III, 7, 3. To touch the self, the superego means to exit the
diversity and to sense the Sacred.
According to the theory of Paul Diel, the superconscious is
evolving, it is manifested by the tendency of ordering all mental functions, to
harmonize and legalize them. The superconscious has imaginative and symbolic
function and it is possible through spiritualized introspective effort, to be
submitted to conscious control. Supreme Self knowledge or of the Superself is
supreme happiness of the human, and the fact of being separated from Self
without knowing it, was considered suffering. ,,You know the Inner Order which
arranges within this world, the other world and all beings, so they move like
puppets...“ (Brhad.-Up, III, 7, 1). This is the convergence point
between the mentality of the Moldavian shepherd and of the Oriental wise. The
verse “If I were to die” does not suggest resignation, but acceptance and
enlightenment, harmony between the Inner Order and the Superego. Plato and
Aristotle “urge us to contemplate” reminds us the Japanese researcher Hajime
Nakamura. The lack of action of the Mioritic hero has no other explanation than
an Eastern mentality oriented towards divinity. “Do not decide anything about
you. Let things be as they are, move like water, stay still as a mirror,
respond like an echo, pass quickly as the nonexistent and be as quiet as
purity... To become the world’s bed”. The meditative practices ended in
solitude because there was the belief that one person, when is totally cut off
from the outside world, gains a certain degree of holiness.
Even if the concept of missing someone is not translatable,
some Japanese poems range from metaphysical sadness, born from the nostalgia of
life passage. The poems in the anthology Kokinshu (a masterpiece of
Japanese literature) are based on nostalgia: “Years pass by -/ I reached old
age /But still, looking at a flower /I forget everything and all.” On the other
hand, both nations have found an easier way to drown sorrows. ,,Instead of
doing /Countless worries/ Which are of no help/ better drink a cup/ of
undistilled sake.” If the Japanese sings Praises to the sake cup, the
Romanian praises the glass of wine or brandy. In vino veritas, the Latin
says, “the bottom of the glass speaks the truth”, says the Romanian, and
Japanese writes: “One thing mostly wanted/ Also by the ancient seven/ most wise
men/ was in the old times/ the sake drink.”
Also, humor, the good mood from the jokes, riddles and
witty words shouted by the Romanian are common with those of the Japanese, who
sent love notes to impress his girlfriend. Western black humor we meet at Ariwara
no Narihira: “From a long time /About the last journey without money/
waiting to be told something/ The last ones I gave yesterday/ to the Priest who
reads Sutra.” Many funny stories are similar to the Romanian jokes. Here
is a story included in the History of Japanese Literature “A man goes to
a temple. He askes about the priest and he is told that he is not there. He
sees another priest plucking a goose. Confused, the priest tells him that if he
plucks it and puts the feathers in the pillow, it will do well for his gout.
Not being used to doing this, the plucking goes hard. “Oh, it's really easy.
Give it to me!” says the man to the priest, he plucks it and gives the feathers
to the priest. He hastily said to him, “Then you do not need the rest.” And he
leaves happy with the bird at home.” Even if Japanese literature has not the
name of Pacala and Tandala, the Japanese have their hero Tarōkaja, always with
his jokes. The common man is more agile than the priest, the children are more
alert than parents etc. The Japanese literature has ballads or sekkyōbushi,
which were accompanied with traditional tools. Sekkyōbushi transmits the
messages of the Romanian lamentation, their purpose being to make the listener
cry. We quote a passage from Karukaya, where it is described the son’s pain at
his mother's death, “Cried with hot tears, weeping, the one thought he will
give up his soul.”
We can identify many other motifs and similar themes in
those two literatures, for example, the cuckoo theme, often met in our poetry.
Nor of the Japanese poetry that symbol of solitude or of unshared love is
missing, “How much sorrow /To hear in the midnight / How the cuckoo sings/ In
a country without cuckoos/ I would walk the whole night”, confesses an
anonymous Japanese in the poem quoted. The same reason is presented in the
creation of Fujiwara no Sanesada (1139-1191) “Gazing/ towards the part
where/ A cuckoo sang/ I'm given to see only the moon/ From that morning.”
The cuckoo is the symbol of night and solitude and the skylark is a sign of
freedom and joy. To this regard, we quote a haiku of Basho, “Off the plain/
free, free/ the skylark sings.” The motif of the bird, in general, it is
similar in the two cultures. In the same anthology, Kokinshu we find a
tanka poem with the bird symbol, “The flowering branch/ Where it stopped to
sing/ Not finding it anywhere / Here the nightingale/ became sad at once.”
The leitmotif of the bird (cuckoo, skylark, nightingale,
etc.) is commonly met in our popular literature, being present in the creation
of Japanese poets. For example, Otomo no Tabito (665-731) referring to sadness
and to the communion man and nature, writes, “And my heart is sad,/ But in
the twilight dusk/ a bird starts singing ...” Yamabe no Akahito (first half
of the eighth century) writes everything about the song of birds, “There on
the top of trees /From Yoshimo, on the Kisa top,/ Sounds the bird’s voice.../
Ah, the perfect peace /stirred by scattered songs!”
Another element of nature, become symbol and emblem of Japan, is the
cherry blossom. Since ancient times, the Japanese have praised the beauty of
cherry blossoms or sakura as they call it. The text of Ariwara no Narihira is
the old waka, today’s tanka, “If in our world/ cherry flowers wouldn’t have
beeen/ how would we feel/ Spring with our heart/ Easy and free.”
The leitmotif of this flower is present in their lyrics for
over a thousand years. The cherry blossom is described in conjunction with the
snow, creating confusion between the two symbols, both denominating the
ephemeral, “The cherry blossoms/ flickering away on the mountain/ In the
beams of dawn…/ Have there been snowflakes?”, asks himself nostalgic the
monk Ton A (1293-1378).”
Plum or orange flowers are often invoked when they
symbolize the idea of beauty, but also the ephemeral
of life. They are opportunity for meditation for the poet born in 1114,
Fujiwara no Shunzei, suggesting memento mori. “In other century the
fragrance / Of these orange flowers/ Will luxuriate the same/ Any man thinking
of me / When I will be long gone?” Likewise, princess Shokushi writes about
the passage of life “...How many springs caught me/ crying after fallen
flowers!” The term Hanami meaning “the admiring of flowers”, is an ancient
custom, since the Heian period (794-1185) the nobility organized parties to
enjoy the sakura. The Japanese go in big number towards their favorite place to
enjoy the tranquility of the wealth of petals. Kida, kigo and kikan are three
concepts that designate the communion of man with nature.
Even though the Romanians have not a particular flower to
be popular symbol, the green leaf is the leitmotif of our popular
poetry. Flowers are praised for all holidays, especially on Palm Sunday, or
during the Christmas holidays, the apple blossoms. Eminescu's poetry and love
of nature has some common notes with the sensitivity of tanka poems. Eminescu's
Lake or Desire resemble
with an anonymous tanka poem. The lyrical ego is lonely, anxious to hide from
“curious eyes”, but choosing for a dreem meeting, “Give me a date in my
dream./ Noone to see me,/ To ask me some questions...” The poetic prose of
Alecu Russo, Vasile Alecsandri, Mihail Sadoveanu, Calistrat Hogaş etc. has many
similarities with the haibun. Romanian authors have the same sensitivity to
nature. M. Sadoveanu’s character is a good connoisseur and lover of nature,
like Basho Japanese pilgrim, retired to the mountains. There are many
similarities between our poets and the Japanese ones. “Around the top of the
mountain/ A handful of clouds floating”/ “missing the loved one/ Far away as
the sky” says Fujiwara No Teika (1114-1204). They, living in communion with
nature, understand the meaning of life, the cycles of the passing in a mythical
order.
With gates opening of Japan to the West in the nineteenth
century, Japanese literature entered the western area, exerting a massive
influence on writers, continuing up to this day. Marius Chelaru, in the study Al.
T. Stamatiad and Japanese lyric, sustaines that, “one could discuss about
the concerns for the Japanese-inspired poetry for the second half of the
nineteenth century.” The critic mentions that King Charles I had received a
silk roll written in Japanese ideograms from a prince. When it was translated,
at the king’s request, B.P. Hasdeu would have observed some Japanese poems.
Other Romanian writers interested in Japanese literature were Gheorghe Asachi,
Alexandru Macedonski, Alexandru Vlahuţă and George Voevidca.
In 1911, Al. Vlahuţă Romanian showed to Romanian public
throught the book By the fireplace, a novelty at that time: Japanese
poetry and painting, where he wrote: Nobody understood as the Japanese how
much charm is in the seasons changing, how eternal rejuvenation, what endless
stream of poetry lies in the wide pace of life.” A prodigious researcher is
Ioan Timuş, who wrote two volumes about Japan:
Japan, life and
customs in Japan,
art, woman, social life, Publishing House of Schools, 1924-1925. Still I.
Timus is the author of Ogio-san, two editions (Cugetarea Publishing,
1938, and the second, reprinted in 1984, Dacia Publishing House, Cluj-Napoca) Japanese
Fairy Tales, Ed Cugetarea, 1940; Japan yesterday and Today, Universe
Publishing, Bucharest, 1942 awarded by the Romanian Academy in 1943; Characters
of Japanese civilization, 1942, awarded by the Society for International
Affairs in Tokyo Kokusai Bunka Shinkokai, The transcription into
Romanian of the Japanese phonethic system, the magazine Studia et Acta Orientalia
vol. II, 1959, Japanese poetry, study in the Twentieth century,
no 9, 1963.
The poetry of some Romanian poets has as base the thinking
of the revelatory metaphor. Blaga’s paradox, the antithesis between light and
darkness in the poem I did not crush the world's corolla of wonders
demonstrates the complexity of contradictions, of the unknown that deepens by
expanding to infinity. The shadow increases with the light. In the volume of
aphorisms, Stones for my temple, Bucharest,
Romanian Book, 1919, opinated that, “There are hidden parts of the soul easy as
the shadows: they disappear as soon as you try to put light on them. Darkness
does not need to have light on to be seen.” Florin Vasiliu and Brânduşa
Steiciuc claim that Lucian Blaga's aphorisms can be considered poems in one
verse. The researchers exemplified by the texts, “Day-what is it?/ Abundance
of light with which the sun covers its spots” or “Shadow – The shadow is
a reverence that light does to darkness.”
The Japanese koans are statements of paradoxical thinking.
By using them, spiritual solutions are found, unidentified than through
paradox. In Japan
there are over 1700 known Koans having its origins in Zen thinking, the
mentality throught which one can come intuitively, to “the third eye”, at the
essence of the world through waiting. Koan is the technique of putting into
crisis the rhetoric of the meaning. The techniques of Zen Mondo and koan will
initially be met into tanka and later into haiku.
Ion Pillat, Traian Chelariu and Al.T.Stamatiad contributed
enormously to our familiarization with tanka, haiku, but with some other
authors of the Archipelago. Ion Pillat the first to write Poems in one verse
(1935-1936) in the Romanian literature. In the book Seasons, we
mentioned that the author of the Calendar of life includes a selection
of texts, a synthesis of the modern and the traditional, respecting the
calendar, but also the popular name of the months. “Ion Pillat has information,
sensitivity for plastic finess” notes the critic George Calinescu and Şerban
Cioculescu said “Pillat read all old and new poets, from Antiquity until today,
from all over the world.”
Florentin Popescu confesses, referring to volume Leverage
and poetry Twins that he asked himself (if who knows?), V. Voiculescu would
have become a peerless author of short poems in the style of Japanese haiku.
The author of History of Romanian literature from its origins to the present,
G. Calinescu, fascinated by the beauty of oriental culture wrote Starry
mirror, the play called Sut, Mongolian myth or Undisturbed Way
(1940), I was in New China (1953), Joshiwara District. Nichita
Stănescu in The Epica Magna wrote some very suggestive micropoems, haiku
style, “Death is a child./ It suck as milk / the hourglass’ sand.” or
“Quiet/ silence ... / like I would be thought by a tree.” There are some
who texts remembering of koan or of the aphorisms of L. Blaga, “Darkening
darkness/ here you are/ the gates of light!” In a poem he even uses the
term haiku, “Haiku spirit / snowflakes that frozen the light/ and reviewing
the cold winter of words.” Marin Sorescu wrote and tri-verses, without
calling them haiku, in the books This way, The Clouds, The Road. For
example: Random “with me happens/ something/ a human life” is the
Japanese style. Concerns for the Japanese literary phenomenon are numerous.
Truly fundamental are the books: Anthology of Japanese classical poetry,
by Ion Acsan and Dan Constantinescu, Mondero Publishing, Bucharest, 2002; Dictionary
of Japanese literature, written by Octavian Simu Albatros Publishing House,
1994; History of Japanese Literature, written by Shuichi Kato and
translated by Kazuko Diaconu and Paul Diaconu, Publishing Nippon, Bucharest,
1998; anthologies of Al. T. Stamatiad: The Japanese courtesans songs,
Bucharest, Weather, 1942 and Silk Scarves. Japanese anthology, Bucharest, Contemporary, 1943, over 250 pages; Anthology
- Japanese lyrics Bucharest:
Albatros, 1981, 5 volumes, contemporary Japanese poetry, 1984, composed by Emil
Eugen Pop.
Other newer studies that we will go in alphabetical order
are: Marius Chelaru Traian Chelariu and Japanese poetry, Ion Pillat
and one verse poem. Reception of yesterday and today and lyrical
perspective Japanese creators, Al. T. Stamatiad and Japanese
poetry, Science, Cultural Foundation Publishing Poetry, 2011; Florin
Grigoriu, Haiku Lessons, 366 lessons of Haiku, both occurring in
Bucharest, Twilight Sentimental, 1999, 2009, Florin Vasiliu and Brânduşa
Steiciuc, Lyrical Interference - Constellation Haiku, Dacia Publishing
House, Cluj, 1989, F. Vasiliu, Camelia Bastia, Japanese lyric poetry. Aesthetic
values, Haiku Publishing, Bucharest,
2000. Studies haiku tanka and renku theory, published by Master Şerban Codrin
the magazine previously Albatros and Orion/ Little Orion he
edited; the magazine Haiku and the new blogg Romanian Kukai coordinated
by Cornelius T. Atanasiu.
Through this study, we remembered the immemorial existence
of the Japanese culture, but also the Romanian folklore, of “our Asian age”, as
stated G. Călinescu, starting with that popular and ancient.
We
consider that in the cultural domain there are no conclusions, but open bridges
for deepening of research or for other studies reopenings. The Japanese poem is
a “new genre”, a genre that puts “too much reason on the value of the reader’s
collaboration”, as G. Călinescu observed.
The white of the page, Japanese “haukay” are, “some grains
of common sense spread on an area of silence,”
said F. Balpe. Poetry reminds us of Plato's cave myth, makes us look at life
differently from the other side of the hourglass, as stated in the preface of
the book Lyra song.
In contemporary society, which tends towards globalization,
every nation will come to the table of cultural dialogue with its most valuable
assets. Therefore, the task not only of the men of culture, but also of all is
to keep their identity, the given matrix. The search for meaning must begin by
identifying the poetical interferences.
References:
-
Acsan, Ion,
Constantinescu, Dan, Classical Japanese Poetry - Anthology, Bucharest, Mondero, 2002.
-
Chelaru, Marius, Traian
Chelariu and Japanese Poetry, Ion Pillat and a verse poem. Reception of
yesterday and today and Lyrical
Perspective Japanese Creators, Al. T. Stamatiad and Japanese Poetry,
Science, Cultural Foundation Publishing Poetry, 2011.
-
Diel, Paul, Divinity. Symbol and its meaning, trans.
By Michael Avadani, preface by Nicu Gabriel, Iasi, European Institute
Publishing, 2002.
-
Kato Shuichi, History
of Japanese Literature (from the
origins to the present), translated by Kazuko Diaconu and Paul Diaconu, Bucharest, Nippon, 1998
-
Kato Shuichi, Form,
Style, Tradition: Reflections on Japanese Art and Society, Berkeley,
University of California Press, 1971
-
Nakamura, Hajime, East and West. A comparative history of
ideas, trans. in English by Dinu Luca, Bucharest, Humanitas Publishing
House, 1997
-
Vasiliu, Florin,
Steiciuc, Brânduşa, Lyrical Interference - Constellation Haiku, Cluj, Dacia
Publishing House, 1989
-
Vasiliu, Florin, Basti, Camelia, Japanese Lyric Poetry. Aesthetic
Values, Bucharest,
Haiku, 2000