Japanese literature

“ Distinctive Japanese literature is, I imagine, a thing of the past, and I fear it will be less and less studied as time goes on. Young Japan is a “hustler,” to use a modern word, and it has no time and mayhap not much inclination for what it perhaps regards as somewhat effete matter. It thinks hurriedly and acts rapidly, and it, accordingly, aspires to express its thoughts and ideas through a medium which shall do so concisely and effectively. ”

“ Sum total: what Japanese literature most lacks is genius. It lacks thought, logical grasp, depth, breadth, and many-sidedness, it is too timorous, too narrow to compass great things. Perhaps the Court atmosphere and predominantly feminine influence in which it was nursed for the first few centuries of its existence stifled it, or else the fault may have lain with the Chinese formalism in which it grew up. ”

“ In the past seventy years or more Japanese literature has been intimately affected by all European trends and, in fact, may be regarded in effect as forming a part of the modern movement in Western literature. ”

“ Japanese literature has about as long a history as English literature, and contains works in as wide a variety of genres as may be found in any country. It includes some of the world’s longest novels and shortest poems, plays which are miracles of muted suggestion and others filled with the most extravagant bombast. It is, in short, a rich literature which deserves better understanding and recognition. ”

“ Allied to this polite reserve of the courtly poets of Japan is the simplicity of their style, which is, doubtless, in a large measure, due to the meagre range of spiritual faculties which characterize the Japanese mind. This intellectual poverty manifests itself in the absence of all personification and reference to abstract ideas. The narrow world of the poet is here a concrete and literal sphere of experience. He never rises on wings above the earth his feet are treading, and the things around him that his fingers touch. ”

“ Japanese literature of the old régime was written partly in classical Chinese, partly in pure Japanese, and comprised mostly mythology, history, law, poetry, romance, drama, and Buddhist and Confucian philosophy. As we cannot go into details on this subject, so tempting, we shall confine ourselves to a few comments on Japanese poetry, which is more original and less Chinese than prose. The Japanese are very much addicted to writing poetry; like Silas Wegg, they drop off into poetry on every possible occasion. ”

“ The drama and fiction of modern Japan are full of stories of revenge (kataki-uchi) , and this passion occupies the same place of honour with their novelists that love does in European fiction.
In presence of the obligations imposed by loyalty and filial duty, life was regarded as of no account. When we remember the humane Buddhist influences to which Japan was so long subjected, and the ancient national character reflected in the mildly sentimental Heian literature, the disregard of human life which pervades history and fiction alike during the Yedo period is not a little remarkable. ”

“ If we consider that no kind of Japanese literature in its own mother tongue could be committed to writing, save only in Chinese ideographs, the influence of the Chinese literature, which flourished so rampantly at that time in Japan, cannot be estimated too highly. No wonder that, parallel to the compilation of the Chinese poems, a collection of Japanese poems, beginning with that of the Emperor Yûryaku in the latter half of the fifth century, was also undertaken. ”

“ The Japanese artist goes a step further: he paints the feelings evoked by the memory of the scenes, the feelings when one is between waking and dreaming. He is altogether an idealist, and this at both ends of the scale, the beautiful and the grotesque. Were he able to work on a large canvas, a very great ideal art might have been the result. But in art, as in literature, his nation seems lacking in the genius, the breadth of view, necessary for making grand combinations. ”

“ What is the value of this Japanese literature—so ancient, so voluminous, locked up in so recondite a written character? We repeat what we have already said of the "Collection of a Myriad Leaves,"—that it is invaluable to the philologist, the archaeologist, the historian, the student of curious manners which have disappeared or are fast disappearing. ”

“ What draws most of us to Japanese poetry is not the polish of a perfectly turned verse on the red maple leaves floating on blue waves but the living voice of a poet talking about love, death, and the few other themes common to all men. ”

“ In every branch of Japanese aesthetics a multitude of conventions, evolved from infinitely painstaking study of nature's methods, and stamped with the cachet of great masters in bygone times, have passed into a revelation from which no one ventures to take away an alpha or an omega. Intelligent sympathy with the spirit that dictated these conventions cannot survive slavish obedience to their laws, and it may not be denied that some of these dwarfed trees and shrubs show the mechanics of the art without its genius. ”

“ There is no want of ability. Plenty of genuine wit and humour is to be discovered by those who know where to look for it. True pathos is to be met with in works otherwise highly objectionable; excellent moral advice is only too abundant; there are graphic descriptions of real life, prodigious fertility of invention, a style frequently not devoid of elegance, and generally a far wider range of thought in political and social matters than the hedonist literature of ancient Japan could boast. ”

“ In any case, what was new enough to need saying for Western readers in 1930 had been voiced in one form or another by Japanese authors for centuries. In Japanese literature the unexpressed is as carefully considered as the expressed, as in a Japanese painting the empty spaces are made to have as strong an evocative power as the carefully delineated mountains and pines. There always seems to be an instinctive reluctance to say the obvious words, whether they are “I am so happy” or “It is so sad”. Seldom has it been desired to present the whole of any sight or experience. ”

“ Such a study confirms the impression that the emotional life is fundamental in the Japanese temperament. Japan is a nation of hero-worshipers. This is no exaggeration. Not only is the primitive religion, Shintoism, systematic hero-worship, but every hero known to history is deified, and has a shrine or temple. These heroes, too, are all men of conspicuous valor or strength, famed for mighty deeds of daring. They are men of passion. The most popular story in Japanese literature is that of "The Forty-seven Ronin," who avenged the death of their liege-lord after years of waiting and plotting. ”

“ There is a full repertory of Japanese love-poetry, whether protestations of passion, aubades by parting lovers, laments over faithlessness, or any of the other possibilities in so highly developed a medium. The importance of poetry as a go-between in love-affairs arose from the to us rather strange manner of courtship of the Japanese aristocracy in the ninth, tenth and eleventh centuries, when the techniques of their poetry were being formulated. ”

“ There are in the Genji pathos, humour, an abundant flow of pleasing sentiment, keen observation of men and manners, an appreciation of the charms of nature, and a supreme command of the resources of the Japanese language, which in her hands reached its highest point of excellence. Though never melodramatic, she gives us plenty of incident, and is seldom dull. ”

“ Otherwise the clash of India and China with old mythological Japan, of Buddhism with Shintō, of imperialism with feudalism, and of all with Catholicism in the sixteenth century and with Dutch ideas a little later, would have produced more important results. If Japan has given us no music, so also has she given us no immortal verse, neither do her authors atone for lack of substance by any special beauties of form. But Japanese literature has occasional graces, and is full of incidental scientific interest. ”

“ Because the Japanese have failed in the past to produce literature equal to the best of Western lands, we are not justified in asserting that she never will and that she is inherently deficient in literary imagination. In regard to certain forms of light fancy, all admit that Japanese poems are unsurpassed by those of other lands. Japanese amative poetry is noted for its delicate fancies and plays on words exceedingly difficult, if not impossible, of translation, or even of expression, to one unacquainted with the language. ”

“ To their minds things happen, rather than are done; the tides of fate are far more real to them than the strong will and the endeavour which wrestles with them. The significance of this fact in regard to the moral and psychological development of these races may be left to others to determine. It is sufficient here to note its influence on the literature, and especially on the poetry.
Some rhetorical devices which are peculiar to Japanese poetry require a brief notice. ”

“ After long years of internal warfare, the establishment of peace at the beginning of the century had led to a period of great prosperity and a brilliant flowering of the arts. It was natural that Japanese poetry, which had hitherto been marked chiefly by its sobriety and restraint, should become more cheerful and extravagant, and that the shift of the centre of creative activity from the court to the haunts of merchants should be reflected also in the tone. ”

“ What every intelligent foreigner dwelling in Japan must sooner or later perceive is, that the more the Japanese learn of our æsthetics and of our emotional character generally, the less favorably do they seem to be impressed thereby. The European or American who tries to talk to them about Western art, or literature, or metaphysics will feel for their sympathy in vain. ”

“ The good translations which do exist, notably those by Arthur Waley, have won their circle of admirers, but many Western readers remain reluctant to extend their interests in the direction of Japanese literature, if only because of a widespread belief that since the Japanese are a “race of imitators”, their literature can be no more than a pale reflection of the Chinese. ”

“ Closely connected with the moral advancement of Japan is its intellectual advancement. I have referred to the statement made by a writer that the Japan of to-day is addicted to reading the works of certain English philosophers, and that one of these books translated into Japanese had run through several editions. This fact is typical of the intellectual ferment, the thirst for knowledge of all kinds that exists in the country to-day. That craving is not for philosophical works alone; it extends to and embraces every form of literature of an instructive or enlightening character. ”

“ The Japanese have, it is true, evinced less appreciation of our literature. They esteem us whimsical for attaching so much importance as we do to poetry, to music, to religion, to speculative disquisitions. Our material greatness has completely dazzled them, as well it might. They know also well enough—for every Eastern nation knows it—that our Christian and humanitarian professions are really nothing but bunkum. ”

“ And, as the European impressionist painters create an illusion of reality in spite of the fact that their landscapes are composed of seemingly arbitrary splashes of green, orange, blue, and all the other colours, so the apparently disconnected incidents of a Japanese novel, blending into one another, leave us with an imprecise understanding of their life. ”

“ Is it not from its power of invoking from the recesses of the heart feelings and experiences to which the painter or sculptor can appeal only by accidental association? In Japan, however, poetry has so constantly and faithfully drawn its inspiration from nature's images, and has been so loyally content to limit itself to appreciated interpretations of their suggestions, that mere mention of a particular combination of natural beauties summons to Japanese sight a picture of concrete loveliness and to the Japanese mind a poem of abstract ideas. ”

“ Its brief melodious utterances are no inapt emblem of the national poetry. ↑ The Japanese have quite different associations with the cuckoo from ourselves. They hear in its cry the longings of unsatisfied love. It is true that it is not the same bird as ours, but an allied species with a different note. Its name (in Japanese, Hototogisu) is onomatopoetic. ↑ The sentiment of this poem is Buddhist. The transitoriness of life is a constant refrain all through Japanese literature. ”

“ One of the earliest and most famous statements on Japanese poetry was made in 905 A.D. by Ki no Tsurayuki in his preface to the Collection of Ancient and Modern Poetry. This begins:
“Japanese poetry has for its seed the human heart, and grows into countless leaves of words. In this life many things touch men: they seek then to express their feelings by images drawn from what they see or hear. Who among men does not compose poetry on hearing the song of the nightingale among the flowers, or the cries of the frog who lives in the water? ”

“ A gorgeous ritual, elaborate architecture, complex religious organism, letters and literature, all gave play to individual activity and development whether in manual, in mental, or in æsthetic lines. The hitherto cramped and primitive life of the Japanese responded to these appeals and opportunities with profound joy. The upper classes especially felt themselves growing in richness and fullness of life. They felt the stimulus in many directions. The reason, then, why Buddhism flourished so mightily, and at the same time caused the nation to bloom, was because it helped develop the individual. ”