Equinoxe
Not a pod person
- Joined
- Jan 9, 2005
- Posts
- 13,356
Ki no Tsurayuki said:
As I may have mentioned at some point in the past, I am inordinately fond of East Asian poetry in general and tanka is one of my absolute favourite forms. So, I was more than happy to agree to participate in this series—and today the week of tanka begins. Tanka is a deceptively simple form, with many complexities beyond its simple structural requirements. The essence of tanka is a complex æsthetic rooted in Japanese culture and this makes the task of translating the form into English an extraordinarily difficult one. It is not an easy form to characterise, because many elements of it are nebulous—it is much easier to say what tanka is not than to say what it is—but I will try to give some impression of the form. This will, no doubt, be quite lengthy, but I hope that you will bear with me and find tanka as wondrous as I do.
Tanka is, of course, a Japanese form of poetry. Indeed, in many respects, it may be said to be the Japanese form of poetry. It is a particular form within the greater framework of waka, which refers to native Japanese poetry as opposed to imported Chinese poetic forms. Waka, in its earliest formal variants, like many aspects of Japanese culture, came to be relatively set in its structure in the Asuka period—this is the time in which the Japanese state had centralised around the Yamato clan (the extended Imperial Family) and contact with China and Korea began to introduce new ideas, such as Buddhism. By the Heian period (794), tanka became the quintessential Japanese poetic form amongst the nobility and Imperial Court; Imperial anthologies were compiled and it was even a custom amongst nobles to write letters to each other in tanka. The Heian period produced many of the greatest poets in Japanese history: Ono no Komachi, Lady Ise, Ariwara no Narihara, Ki no Tsurayuki, and many others. The early Kamakura period poet Fujiwara no Sadaie is traditionally considered the greatest poet of waka.
Tanka is quite simple in structure in Japanese: a line of five on (morae), followed by a line of seven on, then another five, another seven, and a final line of seven. It is, however, a difficult form to import into English in a strict way. The nature of the English and Japanese languages is quite different and, as a result, the formal requirements of Japanese poetry do not make their way into English well. This leaves the would be English tanka poet, like the would be English haiku poet, in the precarious position of having to rely on her intuitions as to how the structure should flow—or to invent various tricks to try to emulate its formal structure in Japanese. Most tanka poets in English, and most translations of tanka into English, do not concern themselves with the five-seven pattern. In fact, most tanka poets in English and most translations of tanka into English don't even really concern themselves with a pattern of long and short lines; in structure, tanka becomes simply a five line poem. There is, however, much more to tanka than that.
Fujiwara no Sadaie said:
Tanka, as with all Japanese poetry, does not, and moreover should not, rhyme. Rhyme is considered a defect in Japanese poetry, in part because there is nearly a 1 in 5 chance that any two lines will rhyme purely by accident. Thus, rhyme is to be avoided. Much as with a number poetic forms, there is generally a shift or pivot in tanka; this usually occurs in the third line, although sometimes it occurs in the forth line. This pivot is often an element which relates two main themes of the poem—its imagery and concrete elements and the abstract elements of the poet's emotion—and in the best tanka, this pivot is seamless, with the line often working on two levels and possessing two meanings. As mentioned earlier, tanka was a courtly poetic form and not a rustic folk art: it therefore uses elevated and formal language (even by Japanese standards, and I assure you that is saying something). In Japanese, there are a host of specific images and even phrases tanka poets have used which have been cultivated with myriad cultural meanings over centuries of poetic tradition. The ideal was to use traditional thoughts and language in new ways, to internalise the accepted and refined elements of the language used, by reading tanka and practising and reciting the images over and over, so that one could be spontaneous and original within the framework of the traditional—new thoughts and emotions expressed in old language and imagery.
Tanka aims for certain specific æsthetic ideals and embraces certain intellectual concepts, such as mysteriousness (yugen), transience (sabi), and otherworldly beauty (yoen); these same æsthetic ideals are also at the heart of Noh and Japanese architecture and design, amongst many other aspects of Japanese culture and art. Love is a common theme in classical tanka, but it was usually expressed in terms of loss and longing or praise of moments. Anthropomorphism is also quite common in tanka, and it is common for the poet to adopt a façade of naïveté. It is also worth noting that Zen does not traditionally play a role in tanka (many of the art's greatest exponents lived before Zen was even introduced to Japan), although Buddhism and Buddhist ideals such as the Three Marks of Existence can be seen throughout the whole of its history.
Although tanka is a short form, it should be a fluid form, which is emotional, yet subtle, personal and yet universal, original but traditional, imaginative and symbolic, elegant, lyrical, and about humanity and nature. It is traditionally high-minded, about beautiful and noble things, formal in language, embracing of certain philosophical ideas, and aiming for specific æsthetic ideals.
Ono no Komachi said:
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