Strange to say, altho I’ve lived in Japan more years than I lived in my native Britain, I’m not a great enthusiast of Japanese “culture”: I don’t read the literature, I don’t study tea, calligraphy or flower arrangement. But I do have a soft spot for haiku. They seem to me to embody a key element of all poetic art: the ability to conjure up images, feelings, memories, longings, in words. In this case, in words that add up to 17 syllables. No more, no less. Do click on the link and visit “Calligraphy in the Landscape”s excellent photos of wisteria.
くたびれて 宿かるころや 藤の花 正岡 子規 1867 – 1902 tired and get inn wisteria flowers Masaoka Shiki 1867 – 1902
#1 by haricotbean on June 13, 2011 - 12:36 pm
Shiki passed away at the age of thirty five, though when we appreciate his works, Haiku, Tanka and his essays, we hardly believe that he wrote them when he was so young, As you wrote about Byron in your previous post, Shiki’s works sometimes seem to be ones in his fifties or sixties. There is time difference of almost one century between the term of Byron and of Shiki, yet we can find they are so matured compared to modern people.
#2 by sheffner on June 13, 2011 - 11:33 pm
I wonder if other people also feel this way – that people in former times were more mature at a younger age, than modern people? If so, I wonder why?
#3 by haricotbean on June 14, 2011 - 12:30 am
It was not appropriate that I wrote “we” insted of “I”, because I generalized people in former times and those in recent times.
Once I heard an opinion of a Haiku writer that he thought that Shiki would not be understood if he passed away at his age, though if he wrote his works at his sixties its quite undersatndable.He mentioned how Shiki was matured but he did not say why. And, I do not know why.