One Hundred Haijin part 2

WHR June 2015

ONE HUNDRED HAIJIN AFTER SHIKI

Susumu Takiguchi

PART TWO

Natsume Soseki (2)

Masaoka Shiki (1867-1902) famously predicted that haiku could become extinct by the end of the Meiji Era (1868-1912). How wrong he was! And how delighted we are that he was wrong, without being unkind to him! This is indeed a cause for celebration.

One way of celebrating it could be to choose at random one hundred Japanese haiku poets who have helped to prove him wrong. If we chose one hundred best the case would be strong. But if we chose randomly, and not necessarily the best, one hundred from among, say, about five hundred who have been leading figures in the modern history of haiku in Japan, the case would be even stronger.

With this in mind, I would like to serialise my narratives in World Haiku Review about the one hundred Japanese haijin whom I shall choose at random and talk about. There is no particular reason why the number should be one hundred. It could be two hundred or fifty. Just over one hundred years have passed since the end of the Meiji Era, and a little bit longer since Shiki died. So, the number one hundred would not be bad. To write about more than one hundred haijin could be exhausting. If the number was fifty, the endeavour could be unsatisfactory and frustrating as more would surely be desired to be introduced. One thing which is certain is that it is not really intended to follow the fashion to use the number one hundred in haiku books, originally emanating from the ancient waka anthology Hyaku-Nin-Isshu (one poem each by one hundred poets). Being a heso-magari (contrarian) I would in fact have liked to avoid this cliché.

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Natsume Soseki (1867~1916) - 2

Two momentous things augmented the internal struggle of Natsume Soseki. One was the death of his best friend, Shiki, and the other was the end of the Meiji Era following the death of Meiji Emperor on 30 July 1912. Both had been his identity. Now he had to face up to the world without them. The former meant that he had to try and develop his haiku all by himself, having lost his mentor. The latter meant that he now had to redouble his effort to let it make sense of the modernisation process which Japan had been going through, and to find a solution this process had imposed on intelligentsia to the ethical and cultural dilemma between traditional Japanese values on the one hand and modern and mostly Western values on the other. It was essentially the same challenge as was faced by those ‘latecomer’ nations who would wish to catch up with the leading powers of the West.

白金に黄金に柩寒からず 1901

shirogane ni kogane ni hitsugi samu karazu

silver and gold…

the coffin cannot be

cold

Soseki composed a few haiku on the occasion of the state funeral on 2 February 1901 of Queen Victoria who died on 22 January. This marked the end of the glorious Victorian Era (1837~1901) which was an unmistakable symbol of the supremacy not only of Great Britain but also of the West in the world. So much was learnt from Victorian England by Japan as well as from Germany, France and Italy. Japan’s efforts in this regard were led by a number of very effective guiding principles such as fukoku kyohei (enrich the nation, strengthen her military prowess), wakon yosai (Japanese spirit, Western technology). In my opinion, the latter helped significantly to enable Japan to proceed with the wholesale Westernisation programme at top speed without loosing her identity and thus to avoid being colonised. Japan approached all big powers to learn from in different aspects of the Western civilisation, e.g. creating modern naval forces from Britain, building army from Prussia, civil law from France. This policy made it possible to set one Western power against another without relying on one particular power and running the risk of being overrun by it. It also made it possible for Japan to cherrypick the best from among the foremost technologies, academic achievements and arts and literature. Emperor Meiji positively led the nation in these endeavours. One of his waka, which was his favourite pastime, shows such national sentiment:

よきをとり あしきをすてて外国（とつくに）に おとらぬ国となすよしもがな

yoki wo tori/ashiki wo sute te totsu-kuni ni/otoranu kuni to/nasu yoshi mo gana

taking what’s good/and discarding what’s bad/we wish to become a nation/not inferior to foreign countries

Having been exposed to advanced Western civilisation by reopening the shores to the outside world in 1854, Japan developed what is called “seiyo comprekkusu” (inferior complex towards the West) which is still existent deep in the Japanese psyche. One of the tasks for Japan in order to become a “mature” nation on a par with Western powers was to reduce and ultimately eliminate this inferior complex. This explains a lot about Japan’s behaviour for the last 160 years, Pearl Harbour included. In its final analysis it has been the most delicate and fundamental question before the nation, i.e. the question of national identity, which not only exists unresolved to this day but has actually become a much more difficult and complex issue for the twenty-first century Japan. The Japanese spirit enshrined in the wakon yosai slogan lay in tatters in the Second World War and failed to be resurrected by the subsequent economic (i.e. materialistic) success, and now, with both military and economic excellence gone, it has gone into wilderness. The Japanese should look into cultural sphere in a broad sense for their new identity. This would be a new attempt in search of national identity not contaminated or dominated by military expansion, economic hegemony or blind nationalism. Emperor Meiji also wrote waka which goes:

しきしまの 大和心のをゝしさは ことある時ぞ あらはれにける

shikishima no/yamato-gokoro no/ooshisa wa/kotoaru toki zo/arawareni-keru

the magnificence/of Japanese spirit/at the time of needs/does appear

In the 21st century Japan, this poem sounds more like a wishful thinking but in the Meiji Era the nation was young, positive, energetic and full of hope with a clear purpose of building a respectable modern state. (to be continued)