English
With its rich system of terminations and particles, it was a pliant instrument in the writer’s hands, and the vocabulary was varied and copious to a degree which is astonishing when we remember that it was drawn almost exclusively from native sources. The few words of Chinese origin which it contains seem to have found their way in through the spoken language, and are not taken straight from Chinese books, as at a later stage when Japanese authors loaded their periods with alien vocables to an extent for which our most Johnsonian English affords a feeble parallel. The literature of the Heian period reflects the plea- sure-loving and effeminate, but cultured and refined character of the class of Japanese who produced it. It has no serious, masculine qualities. History, theology, scicnce, law—in short, all learned and thoughtful works were composed in the Chinese language, and were of poor literary quality. The native literature may be de- scribed in one word as belles-lettres. It consists of poetry, fiction, diaries, and essays of a desultory kind, called by the Japanese Zuihitsu, or “following the pen,” the only exceptions being a few works of a more HEIAN PERIOD i yee or less historical character which appeared towards the close of the period. The lower classes of the people had no share in the literary activity of this time. Culture had not as yet penetrated beyond a very narrow circle. Both writers and readers belonged exclusively to the official caste. The people from time to time showed their dissatis- faction with oppression and misgovernment, but their discontent found no expression in literature. It took the form of outbreaks and rebellions, robbery and _ *—piracy. It is a remarkable and, I believe, unexampled fact, that a very large and important part of the best literature which Japan has produced was written by women. We have seen that a good share of the Nara poetry is of feminine authorship. In the Heian period the women _took a still more conspicuous part in maintaining the honour of the native literature. The two greatest _works which have come down to us from this time are both by women. This was no doubt partly due to the absorption of the masculine intellect in Chinese studies, and to the contempt of the stronger sex for such frivolous pursuits as the writing of poetry and romances. But there was still a more effective cause. The position of women in ancient Japan was very different from what it afterwards became when Chinese ideas were in the ascendant. The Japanese of this early period did not share the feeling common to most Eastern countries, that women should be kept in subjection, and, as far as possible, in seclusion. Feminine chieftains are frequently -mentioned in the old histories, and several even of the Mikados were women. Indeed the Chinese seem to have thought that the “monstrous regiment of women” was 56 JAPANESE LITERATURE the rulein Japan at this time; at least they often styled it the “Queen-country.” Many instances might be quoted of Japanese women exercising an influence and main- taining an independence of conduct quite at variance with our preconceived notions of the position of women in the East. It is this which gives their literary work an air of freedom and originality which it would be vain to expect in the writings of inmates of a harem. The fact that the Heian literature was largely the work of women no doubt accounts partly for its gentle, domestic character. It abounds in descriptions of scenes of home and court life, and of amours and sentimental or romantic incidents. Though the morality which it reveals is anything but strait-laced, the language is uniformly refined and decent, in this respect resembling the best literature of China, upon which the Japanese taste was formed, and contrasting strongly with the pornographic school of popular fiction which disgraced Japan in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. The Heian period witnessed an important advance in the art of writing, the invention of the phonetic script known as Kana. The ancient Japanese had no writing. When they began to write their own language phonetically they had no alternative but to use Chinese ideographs for the purpose. This system was open to two objections. A Chinese character is a complicated contrivance, consisting of numerous strokes, and as a complete character was required for each syllable of the polysyliabic Japanese words, an intolerable cumbersome- ness was the result. The second objection was that a given Japanese syllable might be represented by any one of several Chinese characters. Some hundreds were actually in use to write the forty-seven syllables of which PHONETIC WRITING 57 the language consists. It was no easy matter to remem- ber so many, either in reading or in writing. To meet these difficulties the Japanese did two things: they restricted themselves to a limited number of characters for use as phonetic signs, and they wrote these in an abbreviated or cursive form. There are two varieties of the script thus produced, which are known as the Katakana and Hiragana. No exact date can be assigned for their introduction, but for the present purpose it is sufficient to know that both had come into use by the end of the ninth century. They simplified writing enor- mously. It is hardly too much to say that without them the labour of committing to paper the lengthy composi- tions of this period would have given pause to the most industrious scribes. CHAPTER Il POETRY—THE “ KOKINSHIU” For seventy or eighty years after the establishment of the capital at Heian or Kidto, Chinese learning mono- polised the attention of the nation. No prose writings of importance in the Japanese language have come down to us from this period. The native poetry also languished. Chinese verse composition was the fashion, Mikados and even princesses being numbered among the adepts in this accomplishment. The end of the ninth century, however, saw a revival of Japanese poetry. We now meet with the names of Yukihira, Narihira, Otomo no Kuronushi, and others, followed in the early part of the tenth by Ki no Tsurayuki, Oshi Koji, Henjé, and Ono no Komachi (a poetess). In A.D. gos the Mikado Daigo instructed a committee of officials of the Department of Japanese Poetry, con- sisting of Ki no Tsurayuki and other poets, to make a collection of the best pieces which had been produced during the previous one hundred and fifty years. The Anthology known as the Kokinshtu (Poems, Ancient and Modern) was the result of their labours. It was com- pleted about 922, and contains over eleven hundred poems, arranged under the headings of Spring, Summer, Autumn, Winter, Felicitations, Partings, Journeys, Names of Things, Love, Sorrow, and Miscellaneous. Only five of this number are in the longer metre called Naga-uta, the 58 KOKINSHIU 39 rest being Tanka of thirty-one syllables, with a few in somewhat similar short metres, The neglect of the Naga-uta for the Tanka which is indicated by these figures was no passing phase of Japan- ese poetry. It has continued up to our own day, with fatal consequences, and has been a bar to all real pro- gress in the poetic art. How a nation which possessed in the Naga-uta an instrument not unfitted, as there are examples to show, for the production of narrative, elegiac, and other poems, could practically confine itself for many centuries to a form of poetic expression within whose narrow limits nothing more substantial than aphorisms, epigrams, conceits, or brief exclamations can be contained, is a question which it is more easy to ask than to answer. Much of the poetry of this time was the outcome of poetical tournaments, at which themes were proposed to the competitors by judges who examined each phrase and word with the minutest critical care before pro- nouncing their verdict. As might be expected, the poetry produced under these circumstances is of a more or less artificial type, and is wanting in the spontaneous vigour of the earlier essays of the Japanese muse. Con- ceits, acrostics, and untranslatable word-plays hold much too prominent a place; but for perfection of form, the poems of this time are unrivalled. It 1s no doubt to this quality that the great popularity of this collection is due. Sei Shénagon, writing in the early years of the eleventh century, sums up a young lady’s education as consisting of writing, music, and the twenty volumes of the Kokin- shiu. Subsequent poetry is evidently modelled on it rather than on the more archaic poems of the Manyo- shiu. Even at the present day the Kokinshiu is the best 60 JAPANESE LITERATURE known and most universally studied of all the numerous anthologies of Japanese poetry. SOME TANKA FROM THE “KOKINSHIU ” “ Who could tt have been That first gave love This name ? ‘Dying? ts the plain word He might well have used.” Neatly rendered by Mr. Chamberlain :— “O love! who gave thee thy superfluous name ? Loving and dying—ts it not the same?” The personification of love, however, is hardly in the Japanese style. “ Do I forget thee Even for so brief a space As the ears of grain On the fields of autumn Are lit up by the lightning’s glare?” “fell asleep while thinking of thee; Perchance for this reason I saw thee in a dream! Had I only known tt to be one I would not have awaked.” “ Shall we call that only a dream Which we see While asleep: This vain world ttself L cannot regard as a reality.” “ 7 know that my life Has no assurance of to-morrow; But to-day, So long as darkness has not yet fallen, f will grieve for him who has passed away.” KOKINSHIU 61 “O thou cuckoo Of the ancient capital Of Iso no Kami! (Nara] Thy voice alone Ts all that ts left of the olden time.