English
Yano Fumio, out of the proceeds of the sale of his Kezkoku Bidan (a novel of Theban life, with Epaminondas for the hero), was able to treat himself to a tour in Europe, and to build a fine house with the balance. The art of writing history has not made much pro. gress in recent years. Modern methods of investiga- 1 The Zajétakon, of five hundred pages, with PAY sage is published at about 1s. 6d, of our money. 392 JAPANESE LITERATURE ; tion and principles of historical criticism are known and accepted ; but a great sifting of the existing hetero- geneous material must be done before history, as we understand it, can be written. Nobody has yet made any serious attempt to distinguish the true from the false in the old Japanese annals, though it is pretty generally acknowledged that this process is indispensable. Philo- sophical history is still in its infancy. The numerous” historical works which have appeared during the last twenty years are chiefly uncritical epitomes of Japanese, Corean, Chinese, and European history, and simple mémotres pour servir. Shimada Saburo’s Katkoku Shi- matsu (1888) is one of the most important of the latter class. It is a collection of material bearing on the opening of Japan to foreign trade in 1859. The Shdrat no Nihon (“Japan of the Future”), by Tokutomi lichiro, is an attempt to forecast the future of Japan by an examination of its past history. Mr. W. Dening describes it as “more philosophical in concep- tion than most preceding publications of its class, and surpassed by none of them in point of style. This work, in the space of two years, ran through five editions, and competent Japanese critics pronounce it to be one of the most remarkable books of the age. The writer is a Christian.” Among other works of a serious kind may be men- tioned Marquis Ito’s Commentary on the Constitution, and a treatise by Ono Adzusa on the same subject. Mr. Dening gives high praise to Nose Yei’s Kydthkugaku, a work on education. The author’s aim is to adapt Western principles and ideas to the local requirements of Japan, and in this he has, according to Mr. Dening, achieved a high degree of success, _ RECENT POETRY 393 It can hardly be maintained that the Japanese nation has up to the present time produced much poetry of striking merit. The Naga-uta of the Manydshiu, not- withstanding its limited resources and confined scope, gave a promise which was not destined to be fulfilled, and the tiny Tanka which succeeded it in popular favour was precluded by its very form from being a vehicle for the utterance of any but the merest atoms of poetical thought or sentiment. Again, the poetical element to be found in the No and Joéruri drama is so disfigured by ornament of questionable taste, and so imperfectly freed from prosaic dross, that we can only allow it a very modest place in the history of the art. Its importance lies rather in its keeping alive the national taste for imaginative writing than in any intrinsic merit which it possesses. The conditions of the present day are more favour- able than those of any previous time to the production of good poetry in Japan. The ordinary language, by the more thorough assimilation of its Chinese element, has gained considerably in fitness for poetical purposes, and its phonetic capabilities are now appreciably greater than in the time of the MWanydshiu. Still more im- portant considerations are the great stimulus which the national life has received from the introduction of European ideas, and the attention which has been recently directed to the poetry of Europe, especially of England. The credit of being the first to recognise the advan- tages which the Japanese poet might derive from a study of European models belongs to TOYAMA MASAKAZU, a Professor of the Imperial University, Yatabe Riokichi and Inouye Tetsujiro, whose joint publication, entitled 394 JAPANESE LITERATURE Shintaishisho' or “Poetry of New Form” (1882), marks an epoch in the history of poetry in Japan. It is a bold attempt to revolutionise the art. The writers ignore the Tanka altogether, and set an example of a kind of Naga- uta adapted to modern conditions. The old principle of the alternation of phrases of five and seven syllables is re- tained, the seven-syllable phrases, however, being usually put first. A decided improvement is the division into verses or stanzas of equal length. But it is chiefly in the language employed that the new style is distinguished from the old. Toyama and his colleagues, finding the ancient classical language unequal to the expression of the new ideas, and largely unintelligible to a modern public, frankly adopted the ordinary written language of the day, which had hitherto been only used for popular poetry of the humblest pretensions. In their choice of themes, in the length of their poems, and in the general tone of thought, the influence of European models is plainly traceable. Some experiments in rhymed verse by poets of the new school confirm the opinion already expressed of the unsuitableness of the Japanese eke for this form of poetical ornament. The Shzntazshishé contains nineteen poems of no great length. Of these only five are original, the remainder being translations from English poets. Bloomfield is represented by “The Soldier’s Return,” Campbell by “The Mariners of England,’ and Tennyson by “The Charge of the Light Brigade,” of which two versions are given. The same compliment is paid to Gray’s 1 Dr. Florenz, Professor of Philology in the Imperial University of Tokio, has given an interesting account of this movement in a paper contributed ta the German Asiatic Society of Tokio, March 1892. RECENT POETRY 395 “Elegy” and Longfellow’s “Psalm of Life.” Shake- speare is represented by four extracts, and Charles Kingsley by his “Three Fishers.” The original poems include verses written before the colossal image of Buddha at Kamakura, an ode to the four seasons, and a war-song. Neither the original poems nor the translations have striking merit in themselves, but they attracted a large measure of public attention, and gave rise to a lively controversy between the adherents of the old and new styles. They also produced a school of imitators, among whom the novelist Yamada was one of the most eminent. More recently (1891) Toyama, the chief originator of the movement, brought out a poem on the great earth- quake of 1855, which has not only considerable merit in itself, but occupies a unique position in Japanese litera- ture as a descriptive poem of some length. Dr. Florenz, writing in 1892, says that 1888 may be taken as the culminating point of the favour shown to the new style of poetry. A reaction then set in, which, however, was of short duration. The last two or three years have produced a considerable quantity of verse more or less in the new form, of which all that can now be said is that, on a hasty examination, it reveals some promising features. Regularity of form is more carefully attended to—a great desideratum in the longer kinds of Japanese poetry. The day of Tanka and Haikai seems to have passed. These miniature forms of poetry are now the exception and not the rule. The following specimen, which may be taken as characteristic of the vague and dreamy style of most recent Japanese poetry, is translated from a little volume 396 JAPANESE LITERATURE of prose and verse by three authors, entitled Hana Momyt, or “Flower and Autumn Leaves” (1898) :— THE BAMBOO FLUTE BY THE SHORE I In the shade of the firs of the craggy cliff, To-night again a bamboo flute is heard: Is tt some fisher-boy, solacing his heart From the woes of a world bitter with salt and seaweed? Moonlight or dark, he little cares, Night after night he visits these fir-trees shade. In the music of his bamboo flute There may be heard cadences which tell of yearning love. A day had passed since the courtiers of the lord of the land Held night-long revel here, wandering forth upon the beach. While the bark of the autumn moon Pursued tts crystal course ; When the fishers flute was for the first time heard. A day had passed since the ladies of our lord, Mooring their gay pleasure-boat, held revel here, Attuning the music of their golden lutes To the song of the breeze through the fir-trees on the cliffs s When the fishers flute was for the first time heard. II On nights when the dew lay heavy on the reeds of the chilly shore, And the wind of the firs came in gusts down from the crags, fle never failed to come—this fisher-boy + His bamboo flute was heard in clear-sounding notes. On nights when the rattling of the hail was loud, And the ripples on the beach were changed to ice, He never failed to come—this fisher-boy : His bamboo flute was heard in subdued tones. RECENT POETRY 307 On nights when evening fell, wild with mountain blasts, And the sand was whirled up into the air, He never failed to come—this fisher-boy : fis bamboo flute was heard in confused notes. On nights of rain, when darkness came down with a sound of MOANING WAVES, , And the rocks were steeped in moisture, fe never failed to come—this fisher-boy : fis bamboo flute was heard, languid and faint. III To-night the autumn moon has changed, So long his yearning love has endured. Still his bamboo flute ts heard, Its tune and measure ever more entrancing. With the storm from the cliff it was troubled, With the echoes from the fir-trees it became clear, With the surges from the deep tt was frenzied, With the waves on the rocks tt became choked.