tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-786207835641480928.post7985737238108311625..comments2024-03-27T11:10:57.384-04:00Comments on NeverEnding Story: To the Lighthouse: Take “I, me, my, mine” out of the picture.?Chen-ou Liu, 劉鎮歐http://www.blogger.com/profile/06235248170011255532noreply@blogger.comBlogger2125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-786207835641480928.post-17118395231245212812014-08-01T17:12:09.786-04:002014-08-01T17:12:09.786-04:00Hi! Harley King:
Thanks for your close reading an...Hi! Harley King:<br /><br />Thanks for your close reading and for sharing your thought. I've learned something new.<br /><br />Shiki's haiku was written in the last summer of his life (1902) and was translated by Burton Watson ("Masaoka Shiki: Selected Poems by Shiki Masaoka," p. 86)<br /><br />Here is a relevant excerpt from Daniel Gallimore's article, "Dew on the Grass : Translating the Masters," which was first published in World Haiku review, 1:3, November 2001:<br /><br />Bara wo kiru<br />Hasami no oto ya<br />Satsukibare<br /><br />The sound of scissors<br />Clipping roses -<br />A clear spell in May<br /><br />Knowing that Shiki was confined to his sickbed with tuberculosis, we realise the poignancy of this image of this dying man grabbing whatever opportunity he could to bring a little beauty into his life, but what I would like to consider here is how the image is constructed. Shiki’s poem does not, at first reading, seem a particularly musical or onomatopoeic poem. It is true that the succession of seven open a vowels give the poem a certain unity but apart from that there is nothing very meaningful to catch the eye or ear. Actually, there is, as the open, graceful bara (‘rose’) and the clear-cut kiru (‘cut’) are combined within one word in the final phrase, satsukibare. This is what cut roses and fine weather in May mean to each other at this moment in Shiki’s life: the sounds are almost identical to the picture so that when the two work together like this the logic works very fast indeed. ‘Death concentrates the mind wonderfully’, and it is not the clipping of scissors which is figured, as one might expect, but the beauty of those flowers; in other words, the sound values work in relation to the logic of the poem but are not subordinate.<br /><br />The translator, Burton Watson, similarly evokes this feeling that the poet is more interested in the significance of the clipping than the ominous sound itself. The word ‘clipping’ is separated by enjambment from ‘scissors’ such that this terse sound – with all its freshness and its transience – belongs as much to the roses as to the scissors, especially as it alliterates with ‘clear’ in the final line. The alliteration also accounts for the logical development of Watson’s version; as with the source, we seem to see, hear and experience it all at once. This phenomenon is surely what was meant by Yasuda’s term ‘crystallisation’: ‘a crystallised haiku is held together by the organic, emotional force of the experience’.<br /><br />Chen-ou LiuChen-ou Liu, 劉鎮歐https://www.blogger.com/profile/06235248170011255532noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-786207835641480928.post-11278721285416240662014-08-01T15:46:27.093-04:002014-08-01T15:46:27.093-04:00The last line in Shiki's haiku has several pos...The last line in Shiki's haiku has several possible interpretations. It could have been a very rainy spring and suddenly the rain clears up. Shiki was also very sick and depending on when the haiku was written it could also mean that his illness cleared up temporarily. Excellent article.hkinghttps://www.blogger.com/profile/16296312618266909443noreply@blogger.com