Session 05: Lyricism I (development of lyrical subjectivity in early Japanese poetry as seen in the Man'yōshū)

Topics

❖ Conceptual frameworks: Lyricism—the appearance of lyrical poetry in the 7th-8th c.
❖ Text: Anthology of Ten-thousand Leaves (Man'yōshū, mid-8th c.)
❖ Genre: the poetry forms tanka/waka and chōka
◊ Man'yōshū period poet: Nukata
❖ Man'yōshū period poet: Kakinomoto no Hitomaro
◊ Script: Manyogana
❖ Aesthetic terms: masurao, makoto
◊ Additional aesthetic term: taketakashi

Thoughts—read before class, revisit for tests

This session introduces a predisposition in early Japanese poetry towards nuanced emotional, subjective statements that bind closely to natural scenery. I have included in the "anthology" poems from various point in time to show how fully this tradition was embraced.

Lyricism as a concept is not the same type of concept as uchi-soto. The latter is a way of thinking about how narrative, ideas, choices, etc. migth be framed within a certain schema. It is a general, loose formulation that can be applied to cultural behavior and is useful for exploring literature as well. Lyricism is more specifically embedded in literature, butnot solely literature.

Two bSpace pdf files that begin "Manyo Kokin Shinkokin ..." cover the basic facts of the three major poetry collections we mention in class. A third PDF, Manyogana, gives some examples of the type of scripts used to write Japanese before the invention of onnade (woman's hand / hiragana). See also scripts.

Required—to be completed for today's session

Read the following first, to get an overview of the Man'yōshū and for Levy's argument on the development of lyricism —

✓ Manyo-Introduction (Levy) [bSpace, PDF]

Read the following next, for more poems Nukata, not broken up by critical commentary and by a different translator —

✓ Manyo-Nukata poem selection [bSpace, PDF]

Read the folowing next, for reasons similar to the above and because I think this set of poems in particular shows the power of Hitomaro's expression —

✓ Manyo-Hitomaro poem selection [bSpace, PDF]

Then, this final reading is from a collection of poems by a poet and, like the Aoki Shigeru visual interpretation of the Kojiki "love at first sight" scene, shows an artist's way of reading and appreciating literature of his country. I've selected poems with the common thread of being squarely about the composer's feelings while using natural imagery to make those emotions more subtle and nuanced. The short commentaries might help some students practice interpreting Japanese poems of this kind.

✓ Lyrical poems 9th-20th c [bSpace, PDF]

Multimedia notes

❖ Lyricism I (bSpace, PPT) was presented in class, with some slides skipped that are for reading on your onw.

◊ Gunma Prefecture, Tsumagoi ["Wife-loving"] Village (群馬県嬬恋村): "Call Out I Love You" event (NHKS news clip) (Not presented Fall 2012)

Links

⇢ None.

Other

For a study of Ōtomo Yakamochi (Man'yōshū poet) see Paula Doe, A warbler's song in the dusk, 1982.

Terms and such mentioned this day that are not otherwise in an obvious place on the web site, the powerpoints, the assinged reading, etc. (to help with capturing items mentioned, perhaps quickly, in class, not for test purposes)

Fall 2012: I mentioned all the terms listed at Fall 2011.

Fall 2011: chōka (long poem) 5-7(n), 5-7-7, tanka (short poem) also called waka ("Japanese" poem: 5-7-5-7-7), sōmon, love poems (相聞), banka, laments (挽歌) also, hanka, "envoys" (反歌) the tanka that follow long poems and restate something within them