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Haiku
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', plural haiku, is a form of Japanese poetry, consisting of 17 morae (or on), in three metrical phrases of 5, 7 and 5 morae respectively. Haiku typically contain a kigo, or seasonal reference, and a kireji or verbal caesura. In Japanese, haiku are traditionally printed in a single vertical line, while haiku in English usually appear in three lines, to parallel the three metrical phrases of Japanese haiku.
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', plural haiku, is a form of Japanese poetry, consisting of 17 morae (or on), in three metrical phrases of 5, 7 and 5 morae respectively. Haiku typically contain a kigo, or seasonal reference, and a kireji or verbal caesura. In Japanese, haiku are traditionally printed in a single vertical line, while haiku in English usually appear in three lines, to parallel the three metrical phrases of Japanese haiku. Previously called hokku, haiku was given its current name by the Japanese writer Masaoka Shiki at the end of the 19th century.
Kireji and kigo
In Japanese haiku a kireji, or cutting word, typically appears at the end of one of the verse's three metrical phrases. While difficult to precisely define its function, a kireji lends the verse structural support, effectively allowing it to stand as an independent poem. Depending on which cutting word is chosen, and its position within the verse, it may briefly cut the stream of thought, suggesting a parallel between the preceding and following phrases, or it may provide a dignified ending, concluding the verse with a heightened sense of closure.
In English, since kireji has no direct equivalent, poets sometimes use punctuation such as a dash or ellipse, or an implied break, to divide a haiku into two grammatical and imagistic parts. The purpose is to create a juxtaposition, prompting the reader to reflect on the relationship between the two parts.
A haiku traditionally contains a kigo, a defined word or phrase which symbolizes or implies the season referenced in the poem.
Among traditionalist Japanese haiku writers, kireji and kigo are considered requirements; yet, as noted above, kireji are not used in English. Kigo are not always included by modern writers of Japanese "free-form" haiku and some non-Japanese haiku.
Syllables or "on" in haiku
In contrast to English verse which is typically characterized by meter, Japanese verse counts sound units (morae), known as "on". The word on is often translated as "syllable", but there are subtle differences between an "on" and an English-language "syllable". Traditional haiku consist of 17 on, in three metrical phrases of 5, 7, and 5 on respectively.
The word onji (??; "sound symbol") is sometimes used in referring to Japanese sound units in English although this word is archaic and no longer current in Japanese. In Japanese, the on corresponds very closely to the kana character count (closely enough that moji (or "character symbol") is also sometimes used as the count unit).
One on is counted for a short syllable, an additional one for an elongated vowel, diphthong, or doubled consonant, and one for an "n" at the end of a syllable. Thus, the word "haibun", though two syllables in English, is counted as four on in Japanese (ha-i-bu-n).
Most writers of literary haiku in English use about ten to fourteen syllables, with no formal pattern.
Examples
- Possibly the best known Japanese haiku is Basho's "old pond" haiku:
- This separates into on as:
furuike ya
-
5
kawazu tobikomu
-
7
mizu no oto
-
5
- Roughly translated:
old pond
a frog jumps
the sound of water
- Another example of classic hokku by Matsuo Basho:
- fuji no kaze ya oogi ni nosete Edo miyage
- the wind of Mt. Fuji
- I've brought on my fan!
- a gift from Edo
- And yet another Basho classic:
- hatsu shigure saru mo komino wo hoshige nari
- the first cold shower
- even the monkey seems to want
- a little coat of straw
(At that time, Japanese rain-gear consisted of a large, round cap and a shaggy straw cloak.)
Origin and development
From renga to renku to haiku
Hokku is the opening stanza of an orthodox collaborative linked poem, or renga, and of its later derivative, renku (or haikai no renga). By the time of Matsuo Basho (1644–1694), the hokku had begun to appear as an independent poem, and was also incorporated in haibun (a combination of prose and hokku), and haiga (a combination of painting with hokku). In the late 19th century, Masaoka Shiki (1867-1902) renamed the standalone hokku to haiku. The latter term is now generally applied retrospectively to all hokku appearing independently of renku or renga, irrespective of when they were written, and the use of the term hokku to describe a standalone poem is considered obsolete, although this approach has been challenged..
Basho and the appearance of independent hokku
In the 1600s, two masters arose who elevated haikai and gave it a new popularity. They were Matsuo Basho (1644–1694) and Ueshima Onitsura (1661–1738). Hokku is the first verse of the collaborative haikai or renku, but its position as the opening verse made it the most important, setting the tone for the whole composition. Even though hokku had sometimes appeared individually, they were always understood in the context of renku. The Basho school promoted standalone hokku by including many in their anthologies, thus giving birth to what is now called 'haiku'. Basho also used his hokku as torque points within his short prose sketches and longer travel diaries. This sub-genre of haikai is known as haibun. His best-known book, Oku no Hosomichi, or Narrow Roads to the Interior, is counted as one of the classics of Japanese literature and has been translated into English extensively.
Basho was deified by both the imperial government and Shinto religious headquarters one hundred years after his death because he raised the haikai genre from a playful game of wit to sublime poetry. He continues to be revered as a saint of poetry in Japan, and is the one name from classical Japanese literature that is familiar throughout the world.
Time of Buson
The next famous style of haikai to arise was that of Yosa Buson (1716–1783) and others such as Kito, called the Tenmei style after the Tenmei Era (1781–1789) in which it was created. Buson attempted to revive the values of Basho, and rescue haiku and renku from the stultified condition into which it had sunk since Basho's day.
Buson is recognised as one of the greatest masters of haiga (an art form where painting is combined with haiku or haikai prose). His affection for painting can be seen in the painterly style of his haiku.
Kobayashi Issa and a humanistic approach
No new popular style followed Buson. However, a very individualistic, and at the same time humanistic, approach to writing haiku was demonstrated by the poet Kobayashi Issa (1763–1827), whose miserable childhood, poverty, sad life, and devotion to the Pure Land sect of Buddhism are evident in his poetry. Issa made the genre immediately accessible to wider audiences.
Shiki's revisions
Masaoka Shiki (1867–1902) was a reformer and revisionist. A prolific writer, even though chronically ill during a significant part of his life, Shiki disliked the ‘stereotype’ haikai writers of the 19th century who were known by the deprecatory term tsukinami, meaning ‘monthly’, after the monthly or twice-monthly haikai gatherings of the end of the 18th century (in regard to this period of haikai, it came to mean ‘trite’ and ‘hackneyed’). Shiki also criticized Basho. Like the Japanese intellectual world in general at that time, Shiki was strongly influenced by Western culture. He favored the painterly style of Buson and particularly the European concept of plein-air painting, which he adapted to create a style of haiku as a kind of nature sketch in words, an approach called shasei, literally ‘sketching from life’. He popularized his views by verse columns and essays in newspapers.
Hokku up to the time of Shiki, even when appearing independently, were written in the context of renku. Shiki formally separated his new style of verse from the context of collaborative poetry. Being agnostic, he also separated it from the influence of Buddhism, with which hokku had very often been tinged. And finally, he discarded the term "hokku" and proposed the term haiku as an abbreviation of the phrase "haikai no ku" meaning a verse of haikai, although the term predates Shiki by some two centuries, when it was used to mean any verse of haikai. Since then, "haiku" has been the term usually applied in both Japanese and English to all independent haiku, irrespective of their date of composition. Shiki's revisionism dealt a severe blow to renku and surviving haikai schools. The term "hokku" is now used chiefly in its original sense of the opening verse of a renku, and rarely to distinguish haiku written before Shiki's time.
Senryu
Senryu is a poem that is written in a similar form and emphasizes irony, satire, humor, and human foibles rather than seasons; it may or may not contain a kigo and kireji.
Haibun
Haibun is a combination of prose and haiku, often autobiographical or written in the form of a travel journal.
Haiga
Haiga is a style of Japanese painting based on the aesthetics of haikai, and usually including a haiku. Haiga began as haiku added to paintings, but included the calligraphic painting of haiku via brushstrokes, with the calligraphy adding to the power of the haiku. Earlier haiku poets added haiku to their paintings, but Basho is noted for creating haiga paintings as simple as the haiku itself. Yosa Buson, a master painter, brought a more artistic approach to haiga. It was Buson who illustrated Basho's famous travel journal, Oku no Hosomichi (Narrow Road to the Interior). Today, haiga artists combine haiku with paintings, photographs and other art.
Kuhi
The carving of famous haiku on natural stone to make poem monuments known as kuhi has been a popular practice for many centuries. The city of Matsuyama has more than two hundred kuhi.
Haiku movement in the West
Although there were attempts outside Japan to imitate the "hokku" in the early 1900s, there was little understanding of its principles. Early Western scholars such as Basil Hall Chamberlain (1850–1935) and William George Aston were mostly dismissive of hokku's poetic value. One of the first advocates of English-language hokku was the Japanese poet Yone Noguchi. In "A Proposal to American Poets," published in the Reader magazine in February 1904, Noguchi gave a brief outline of the hokku and some of his own English efforts, ending with the exhortation, "Pray, you try Japanese Hokku, my American poets!" At about the same time the poet Sadakichi Hartmann was publishing original English-language hokku, as well as other Japanese forms in both English and French.
In France, haiku was introduced by Paul-Louis Couchoud around 1906. Couchoud's articles were read by early Imagist theoretician F. S. Flint, who passed on Couchoud's (somewhat idiosyncratic) ideas to other members of the proto-Imagist Poets' Club such as Ezra Pound. Amy Lowell made a trip to London to meet Pound and find out about haiku. She returned to the United States where she worked to interest others in this "new" form. Haiku subsequently had a considerable influence on Imagists in the 1910s, notably Pound's "In a Station of the Metro" of 1913, but, notwithstanding several efforts by Yone Noguchi to explain "the hokku spirit," there was as yet little understanding of the form and its history.
An early translation of Basho's Oku no Hosomichi to Spanish was done by the Mexican poet and Nobel Prize winner Octavio Paz in collaboration with Eikichi Hayashiya.
Blyth
R.H. Blyth was an Englishman who lived in Japan. He produced a series of works on Zen, haiku, senryu, and on other forms of Japanese and Asian literature. In 1949, with the publication in Japan of the first volume of Haiku, the four-volume work by Blyth, haiku were introduced to the post-war world. This four-volume series (1949-52) described haiku from the pre-modern period up to and including Shiki. Blyth's History of Haiku (1964) in two volumes is regarded as a classical study of haiku. Today Blyth is best known as a major interpreter of haiku to English speakers. His works have stimulated the writing of haiku in English.
Yasuda
The Japanese-American scholar and translator Kenneth Yasuda published The Japanese Haiku: Its Essential Nature, History, and Possibilities in English, with Selected Examples in 1957. The book includes both translations from Japanese and original poems of his own in English, which had previously appeared in his book titled A Pepper-Pod: Classic Japanese Poems together with Original Haiku. In these books Yasuda presented a critical theory about haiku, to which he added comments on haiku poetry by early twentieth-century poets and critics. His translations apply a 5–7–5 syllable count in English, with the first and third lines end-rhymed. Yasuda's theory includes the concept of a "haiku moment" based in personal experience, and provides the motive for writing a haiku. His notion of the haiku moment has resonated with haiku writers in North America, even though the notion is not widely promoted in Japanese haiku.
Henderson
In 1958, An Introduction to Haiku: An Anthology of Poems and Poets from Bashô to Shiki by Harold G. Henderson was published by Doubleday Anchor Books. This book was a revision of Henderson's earlier book titled The Bamboo Broom (Houghton Mifflin, 1934). After World War Two, Henderson and Blyth worked for the American Occupation in Japan and for the Imperial Household, respectively, and their shared appreciation of haiku helped form a bond between the two.
Henderson translated every hokku and haiku into a rhymed tercet (a-b-a), whereas the Japanese originals never used rhyme. Unlike Yasuda, however, he recognized that seventeen syllables in English are generally longer than the seventeen morae of a traditional Japanese haiku. Because the normal modes of English poetry depend on accentual meter rather than on syllabics, Henderson chose to emphasize the order of events and images in the originals. Nevertheless, many of Henderson's translations were in the five-seven-five pattern.
Not as dogmatic as Blyth, Henderson insisted only that a haiku must be a poem, and that the development of haiku in English would be determined by the poets.
Contemporary English-language haiku
Today, haiku are written in many languages, but most poets outside of Japan are concentrated in the English-speaking countries.
It is impossible to single out any current style or format or subject matter as definitive. Some of the more common practices in English are:
- Use of three (or fewer) lines of 17 or fewer syllables;
- Use of a season word (kigo);
- Use of a cut (sometimes indicated by a punctuation mark) paralleling the Japanese use of kireji, to contrast and compare, implicitly, two events, images, or situations.
While traditional Japanese haiku has focused on nature and the place of humans in it, some modern haiku poets, both in Japan and the West, consider a broader range of subject matter suitable, including urban contexts. While pre-modern haiku avoided certain topics such as sex and overt violence, contemporary haiku sometimes deal with such themes.
The loosening of traditional standards has resulted in the term "haiku" being applied to brief English-language poems such as "mathemaku" and other kinds of pseudohaiku. Some sources claim that this is justified by the blurring of definitional boundaries in Japan.
Worldwide
In the early 21st century, there is a thriving community of haiku poets worldwide, mainly communicating through national and regional societies and journals in Japan, in the English-speaking countries (including India), in Northern Europe (mainly Sweden, Germany, France, Belgium and the Netherlands), in central and southeast Europe (mainly Croatia, Slovenia, Serbia, Bulgaria, and Romania), and in Russia.
India
In the early 20th century Nobel laureate Rabindranath Tagore composed haiku in Bengali. He also translated some from Japanese. In Gujarati, Zeenabhai Ratanji Desai 'Sneharashmi' popularized haiku and remains a popular haiku composer. In February 2008, the World Haiku Festival was held in Bangalore, gathering haikuists from all over India and Bangladesh, as well as from Europe and the US.
Indian languages that follow Indic (abugida) alphabetical system interpret 5-7-5 structures counting CV, CCV, CCCV or CCCCV clusters , irrespective of length of syllables. Urdu (which is written in abjad alphabetical system) interprets 5-7-5 structures counting long syllables.
Internet
Online journals that exclusively publish haiku poetry (see the list in Haiku in English) and haiku sites owned by various haiku writers can be found online, as well as scores of pseudo-haiku (also known as zappai).
Famous writers
Pre-Shiki period
Shiki and later
See also
External links
- Haiku definitions and guidelines, translations of Japanese haiku
- : Jane Reichhold's website with essays on and examples of haiku and related forms
- An ample database of season words (kigo) for haiku writing
- A site containing definitions and examples of the genres
- : Ideas and lesson plans for teaching haiku
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