Waka and general Japanese aesthetics.

Some helpful notes to the student of Japanese literature.

Fundamentally there are four primary roots of Japanese aesthetics (there are other works which go on to be immensely influential but ultimately they all derive from or owe much to these.)

These four are in order of influence

The Chinese classic of poetry, which defines and determines both in obedience and reaction the bulk of Japanese aesthetics. It is the head influence, though importing of further Chinese lit was a continual titanic influence, none can claim the supremacy that the book of odes has.

The Kokin Wakashū, a poetry collection, the first Consciously Japanese piece of literature, which has the first work of lit critique, concerning their origins in the Chinese classic of poetry, and where Japanese aesthetics differs in reaction.

The Man'yōshū (759 ad) the oldest and thus most archaic in aesthetic conception, neither consciously Japanese in a geographical ethnic/nationalist sense, nor having the added aesthetic regulations considered essential to latter ornamented Japanese works, while universally respected, conservative schools especially in the medieval period extol a return to its simplicity heavily. It and the next work are written in the earliest Japanese form called manyogana, named after, this work. Which is simply Japanese written using Chinese characters since Japanese didn’t yet develop a distinct alphabet. (Notice the common theme, Chinese as origin.)
The kojiki, which is the closest approximate to a unified Shinto Bible, containing history, documenting lineage, myths and collecting various worship hymns and rites, it is in fact the oldest piece of Japanese writing as a whole, only predating the manyo by 30-50 some years, its influence is gonna be felt above all else in contents of writing and mannerism, because it serves as the core document of what is Japan, what is the Japanese spirit in its most primitive available form.

These are the ultimate sources and prototypes for the core aesthetic types, to name various important aesthetic forms and discuss them a bit, we should begin with two very close almost twin conceptions.

Wabi sabi and mono no aware.

Mono no aware is the feeling of pathos, the deep melancholy feeling concerning the transience of things, but again, centered on specific transient objects, wabi sabi is identical but is this through the specific lens of the simplistic and rugged, seeing the transient simple garments, plain woods and other such, as being embodiments of the passing nature of things and the tenderness of these. The generation of pure mono no aware is broadly h the core of all great/deep Japanese aesthetics even as all of the other flavors of aesthetics and emotions may be used, the tale of genji is often the prototype of this but conjoint with the aristocratic sensibility, the manyo has many examples as well. This brings us to the question of our next aesthetic dichotomy.

Iki and miyabi,

Due to regulations set to regulate the merchant class and promote overall unity throughout Japan, various clothing and outer building regulations were put in place which opposed the merchants from flaunting their wealth and pretending to be nobility, this resulted in a sharp aesthetic contrast, where while at first glance the poor and rich merchants may look the same, in contrast to samurai and so forth in very rich and loud extravagant materials and buildings, upon closer inspection we find the merchants got around the restriction via subtle craftsmanship, refined materials but hidden, so that perhaps the robe you wear looks common, but its inside is made of the finest cloth and adorned with various images, a house that looks like a common shack, filled inside with all manner of precious and expensive materials and servants, this is the aesthetic known as “iki” which can be translated as “cool” “suave” “tasteful” (as contrasted to gaudy) and stylish/chic, such coolness slowly became an abstract ideal and non wealth related elements slowly were absorbed via association, so that the undying loyalty of a samurai is “iki” Drunken boxing for the spontaneous and seemingly mundane exterior is again “cool” in this conception. To use a modern piece to illustrate it, the character of Jack from samurai Jack is a constant hit over the head of iki ideals. So then if this is the aesthetics generated by commoners and merchants due to being unable to flaunt their wealth, in contrast miyabi was produced by those allowed to flaunt status, it is translated as courtliness, tenderness, or refined elegance, and the primary concern is the purgation of vulgar elements, vulgar not meaning gaudy, vulgar meaning lowly, rustic, common, or bitter/harshness. The stereotype of Japanese politeness and extreme adherence to social custom derives from this, to illustrate with a stereotypical image what it looks like and how it can still unify with mono no aware, consider a cherry blossom/Sakura, in itself is compared to other trees an image of delicate fineness, an image of rare clean beauty, the image of a cherry blossom dropping its petals is easily recognizable as an image of Japanese aesthetic embodied, and in it we see this rareness of high Value, and sadness in its passing, that it too is a dying thing, the pathos for the once-illustrious is a common tactic both in western and eastern art, such as poems concerning now abandoned temples, plays like king lear, or to illustrate the precise miyabi pathos in common media, the death scenes of O-Ren Ishii and bill from kill bill both present it pretty well. Fundamentally, if iki is the “suave-cool-stylish that is spontaneous” then miyabi is “baroque” the impulse towards mannered and ceremonial custom above all.

Iki being a down stream variant of wabi sabi ultimately, can be traced to Murata Juko the founder of the Japanese tea ceremony, and from his directly to his studies of variants of the Chinese tea ceremonies. So once again we may trace this to China, just as we can the ultimate concept of Japanese aesthetics.

Yugen

While not explicitly named until Study of Chinese materials, the center has always been this, the final brief glimpse of a mysteriousness, the brief grasp of a transcendental element hiding in the world, pervading everything if seen properly, if we conceptualize Japanese aesthetics as a material structure, the ground foundation is mono no aware, which reveals the myriad of things to be, the very roof of our structure, yugen. To define Yugen in itself is a complicated task, multiple aestheticians give the definition as “Magokoro” the true heart of man, the actual core experience qualia of a person, their actual identity, or the actual Buddha nature pervading reality as a whole, this yugen perception is contrasted to the highly ornamented surface of the rival Chinese poets, fundamentally whether you define it religiously or emotionally, the ultimate end is the experience of dark mystery pervading the common sphere of nature/life.

Now to speak briefly on forms,

The center most form of waka/Japanese poetry is Tanka, which is in a quantitative meter of

5 morae
7 morae
5 morae
7 morae
7 morae

Morae being equivalent to just syllables in English since we do not regulate quantity. These stanzas can be divided into two stanzas called the upper portion and the lower portion, the upper portion being

5
7
5

And being defined by its “cutting word” which is a dignified group of 18 syllables which range from various exclamations to grammatical structures, while not required in the most traditional and conservative forms, they are important in the more ornamented forms. This upper portion is also called a hokku.

The lower portion is

7
7

And serve as “punchlines” to the prior 3 syllables.

Most of the important other forms of verse in waka are fundamentally just modifications of Tanka, either making it longer or shorter in some regard, the core elements of the tanka are the nucleus regardless and have been prior to the manyo, and the division of it into two stanzas is likewise as old. Leading to our next primitive form,

Renga;

From this division of two stanzas, inspired by the Chinese couplet games and basing themselves on what amounts to street freestyle competitions held in China called “renku” (played around 200 bc in China) we see from the kojiki the same sort of games played called renga (hundreds of years later with the earliest known example again being from the 700s) which by that period already had the common form of one writer writing the first 3 lines, and his friend writing the final two lines as a punchline, renga make no mistake were originally light hearted, fun, playful, not serious lit and even bawdy, the sexual and humorous and street elements of renga reach their highest level in the sub form of the Renku, which followed trends from the 1600-1700s of allowing slang, common mundane speech patterns and Chinese, in renku the common final lines would be all shock value, toilet humor, common mockery, eventually multiple authors tried to formulate serious renga and tried to elevate it to have dignity, the highest master of this is basho, who would often write the hokku while his friends write the final two lines, the common usage of the hokku alone without the final two lines began to appear commonly around this period, and basho capitalizing on this and finding he prefers only to write the opening 3 lines, more or less produces the haiku, which is simply the Hokku(starting verse) of the tanka with no follow up. To frame things properly time wise, Masaoka Shiki (born 1867) is the one who renamed the hokku to the name haiku, and basho who is basically the one who made dedicated focused serious haiku its own distinct art was born 1644, by 1600 samurai were already managers and largely no longer a strictly martial people, the image of traveling Ronin writing haiku is basically not real, they were however writing tanka. The renga continues to develop numerous linked structures even to the contemporary period. Before leaving this to say a final portion on haiku, its master basho considered his biggest influence and greatest master to be the Chinese poet dufu (born 712) Dufu being one of the three great representative poets of tang poetry, these three being Dufu, li bai and sang wei, for Confucianism, Taoism and Buddhism, though all three partake heavily of all three,
Basho’s high influence from Dufu is sensible due to dufu’s extreme influence over Zen Buddhism, “The first notable Japanese appreciator of Du Fu's poetry was Kokan Shiren (1278–1346), a Rinzai Zen patriarch and one of the most prominent authors of the literature of the Five Mountains;

he highly praised Du Fu and made a commentary on some poems of Du Fu from the perspective of a Zen priest in Vol. 11 of Saihokushū.[74] His student Chūgan Engetsu composed many kanshi which were clearly stated to be "influenced by Du Fu" in their prefaces.[75] Chūgan's student Gidō Shūshin had close connection with the Court and Ashikaga Shogunate and propagated Du Fu's poetry in the mundane world; one day Nijō Yoshimoto, the Kampaku regent of the Court and the highest authority of renga poetry, asked Gidō, Should I learn the poetry of Du Fu and Li Bai?" Gidō dared to reply, "Yes if you do have enough capability. No if do not."[76] Since then, there had been many seminars on Du Fu's poetry both in Zen temples and in the aristocratic society, and as a result his poetry was often cited in Japanese literature in the Muromachi period, e.g., Taiheiki, a historical epic in the late 14th century, and some nohplays such as Hyakuman, Bashō, and Shunkan.”

Plays and extravagant displays of skill.

To beat the dead horse a final time, the oldest variant of these is “sangaku” imported from China, which included Normal plays, stunts, juggling and the like, these are then refined to the proper noh form via various now gone archaic dance, performance and public recitation genres which culminate in the fathers of Noh, Kan'ami Kiyotsugu (born 1336 )and his son Zeami Motokiyo, whose study of Zen Buddhism, Chinese poetry, Japanese history, waka and archaic performance arts are all well attested, he is both a central writer of their plays and the first writer on drama in Japanese, having Written 21 books fundamentally laying down the law on how to write drama and poetry, mostly drawn from his studies of renga, the extent of noh and eventually kabuki formal requirements is beyond the extent of this essay, however the origin of these plays being in content the kojiki, folk legends, other literature and primarily being derived from court entertainments ensured the high fixation upon Miyabi and the complicated balancing act of trying to simultaneously be iki and miyabi, through zeami this is manifest in character action and qualities, along with modification of prior lit in his plays, whereas In the latter lower class preferred kabuki, miyabi is taken to such an excess that it itself becomes iki, to give an example of excess looping back to street savvy coolness, perhaps the animes TTGT, Mononoke and utena are all good examples of this loop.
Another time I’ll continue this write up elaborating specifically on prose, etoki, haibun, with special attention to izumi and Kawabata as emblematic writers

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