The heresy of meaning: Japanese Symbolist poetry

Article Abstract:

Japanese Symbolist poets were concerned with issues of language and meaning in response to the incomprehensibility of the modern world. Poets such as Kitahara Hakushu, Kanbara Ariake and Miki Rofu, writing near the turn of the 20th century, explored the tensions between transcendence and reflexivity. Their ambivalent attitudes toward dualism and transcendence were symbolized by themes of heresy and use of Christian imagery. For these poets, meaning no longer immediate in the world was recovered through the mediation of the ego.

Japan, Symbolism, Symbolism in literature, Japanese history, 1868-1912 (Meiji period)

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The Sanskrit origins of Recent Style prosody

Article Abstract:

The innovative tonal prosody of Chinese Recent Style poetry resulted from the influence of the Sanskrit theory of poetic defects. The difficulty of translating the meter of Sanskrit Buddhist texts into Chinese prompted the invention of tonal patterns. Beginning with the 'Four Tones and Eight Defects' of Shen Yueh in 488, two generations of experimental poets worked out the formal rules of tonal prosody. The division of tones into two categories of 'light' and 'heavy' and other features can be traced to Sanskrit influences.

Influence, Chinese poetry, Sanskrit literature

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Wasp waists and monkey tails: a study and translation of Hamanari's 'Uta no Shiki' ('The Code of Poetry,' 772), also known as 'Kakyo Hyoshiki' ('A Formulary for Verse Based on the Canons of Poetry')

Article Abstract:

'Uta no shiki,' composed in 772 by Fujiwara no Hamanari, is the oldest surviving text of Japanese poetic criticism and the earliest known critical collection of Japanese poems. Hamanari's 'seven defects of poetry' reflect a fairly superficial attempt to adapt Chinese prosodic rules. Although his work prompted others to formulate lists of defects, it soon became more of a historical curiosity than a practical influence on composition. After discussion, the text is translated and fully annotated for the first time.

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