A Translation and Critical Exploration of Hagiwara Sakutarō's Zetsubō No Tōsō

University of Massachusetts Amherst ScholarWorks@UMass Amherst Masters Theses Dissertations and Theses July 2015 The Flight From Despair: A Translation and Critical Exploration of Hagiwara Sakutarō's Zetsubō no Tōsō Samik N. Sikand University of Massachusetts Amherst Follow this and additional works at: https://scholarworks.umass.edu/masters_theses_2 Part of the Comparative Literature Commons, Japanese Studies Commons, Modern Literature Commons, and the Other Philosophy Commons Recommended Citation Sikand, Samik N., "The Flight From Despair: A Translation and Critical Exploration of Hagiwara Sakutarō's Zetsubō no Tōsō" (2015). Masters Theses. 246. https://doi.org/10.7275/6888545 https://scholarworks.umass.edu/masters_theses_2/246 This Campus-Only Access for Five (5) Years is brought to you for free and open access by the Dissertations and Theses at ScholarWorks@UMass Amherst. It has been accepted for inclusion in Masters Theses by an authorized administrator of ScholarWorks@UMass Amherst. For more information, please contact [email protected]. THE FLIGHT FROM DESPAIR: A TRANSLATION AND CRITICAL EXPLORATION OF HAGIWARA SAKUTARŌ'S ZETSUBŌ NO TŌSŌ A Thesis Presented by SAMIK NEIL SIKAND Submitted to the Graduate School of the University of Massachusetts Amherst in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of MASTER OF ARTS May 2015 Japanese Language and Literature THE FLIGHT FROM DESPAIR: A TRANSLATION AND CRITICAL EXPLORATION OF HAGIWARA SAKUTARŌ'S ZETSUBŌ NO TŌSŌ A Thesis Presented by SAMIK NEIL SIKAND Approved as to style and content by: _______________________________________ Amanda C. Seaman, Chair _______________________________________ Stephen Miller, Member ______________________________________ Stephen Miller, Director Asian Languages and Literatures ______________________________________ William Moebius, Chair Languages, Literatures, and Cultures ABSTRACT THE FLIGHT FROM DESPAIR: A TRANSLATION AND CRITICAL EXPLORATION OF HAGIWARA SAKUTARŌ'S ZETSUBŌ NO TŌSŌ MAY 2015 SAMIK NEIL SIKAND, B.A., BOSTON UNIVERSITY M.A., UNIVERSITY OF MASSACHUSETTS AMHERST Directed by: Professor Amanda C. Seaman The text that I have translated below, and for which the paper that precedes it is a critical introduction, is Hagiwara Sakutarō's Zetsubō no Tōsō, a collection of 204 aphorisms which I have translated as The Flight from Despair. My introduction concentrates on Sakutarō's use of the aphoristic form in order to show how he both follows and subverts the genre's conventions. First, I concentrate on the author's goal to tackle the "everyday" matters of life through his text rather than intellectual abstractions. I also bring attention to the concision of Sakutarō's style and the protean nature of the aphorism, which occupies an ambiguous zone between poetry and philosophy. Finally, I demonstrate how The Flight from Despair is a modernist text, and that Sakutarō's brand of modernism reveals itself most distinctly through his use of irony and paradox. However, I also indicate that Sakutarō remained a maverick in the literary establishment, and that pigeonholing him into any particular literary movement is risky. iii TABLE OF CONTENTS Page ABSTRACT ....................................................................................................................... iii CHAPTER 1. CRITICAL INTRODUCTION ....................................................................................... 1 Introduction ..................................................................................................................... 1 The Everyday and the Aphorism ..................................................................................... 5 Brevity and the Aphorism ............................................................................................. 10 Literary Quality and the Aphorism ............................................................................... 14 Sakutarō: The Modernist Amanojaku ............................................................................ 19 Notes on the Translation ............................................................................................... 32 2. TRANSLATION OF THE FLIGHT FROM DESPAIR ................................................ 38 BIBLIOGRAPHY ........................................................................................................... 178 iv CHAPTER 1 CRITICAL INTRODUCTION Introduction "This is how I recognize an authentic poet: by frequenting him, living a long time in the intimacy of his work, something changes in myself: not so much my inclinations or my tastes as my very blood, as if a subtle disease had been injected to alter its course . For the poet is an agent of destruction, a virus, a disguised disease, and the gravest danger, though a wonderfully vague one, for our red corpuscles. To live around him is to feel your blood run thin, to dream a paradise of anemia, and to hear, in your veins, the rustle of tears."1 (E.M. Cioran) Hagiwara Sakutarō (1886-1942), whom Donald Keene calls "the chief figure of modern Japanese poetry," was born the son of Dr. Hagiwara Mitsuzō and Hagiwara Kei in Maebashi, capital of Gunma Prefecture, Japan.2 Sakutarō—the Japanese refer to him by his given name—grew up in prosperous circumstances. As the eldest son and heir, his parents tended to spoil him. Robert Epp, a translator of Sakutarō's poetry, suggests that this indulgence ironically impeded their son's growth, as it made him apt to avoid whatever made him unhappy: "[Sakutarō] sought ways to flee whatever made him feel 3 miserable. Avenues of escape included reading, writing, [and] music." The upshot of this 1 E.M. Cioran, A Short History of Decay, trans. Richard Howard (New York: Arcade Publishing, 2012), 99. 2 Donald Keene, Dawn to the West: Japanese Literature of the Modern Era (Poetry, Drama, Criticism) (New York: Holt, Rinehart, and Winston, 1984), 260. 3 Robert Epp, trans., Rats' Nests: The Collected Poetry of Hagiwara Sakutarō, 2nd ed. (Stanwood: Yakusha, 1999), 29. 1 is that it encouraged Sakutarō to develop a love of the arts from an early age: he exhibited a proclivity for music in particular, and in high school, his discovery of the poet Yosano Akiko inspired him to write tanka. Although Sakutarō survived his high school years relatively unscarred, unfortunately he was unable to cope with the transition to university. Between 1906 and 1911, Sakutarō shifted between schools in Tokyo, Kumamoto, and Okayama, only to end up dropping out of every one of them. In a letter to a friend following these setbacks, Sakutarō confessed to what he regarded as his remaining options: to attend medical school, to become a merchant, or to kill himself.4 Clearly none of these options appealed to him. Between 1912 and 1915, however, while studying music and shifting back and forth between Tokyo and Maebashi, Sakutarō made important contacts in the literary world: two of them—Kitahara Hakushū (1885-1942) and Murō Saisei (1889-1962)— became lifelong friends who encouraged him in his artistic endeavors. In 1917, after a spurt of artistic inspiration, Sakutarō published Tsuki ni hoeru (Howling at the Moon), which shocked the literary establishment with its haunting imagery and unprecedented mastery of the vernacular language.5 Although the critical evaluation of his subsequent collections of poetry are mixed, Sakutarō sealed his reputation as a poet with Howling at the Moon. Even well-informed readers, however, seem to forget that Sakutarō was a literary chameleon who could eloquently express himself through various prose forms as well. As an essayist and critic, for example, Sakutarō published notable works like Shi no genri (The Principles of Poetry, 1928) and Kyōshū no shijin Yosa Buson (Poet of Nostalgia: 4 Ibid., 263-264. 5 Ibid., 26. 2 Yosa Buson, 1936). In 1935, he even published a quirky novella called Nekomachi (Cat Town). Perhaps one of Sakutarō's most unusual contributions to 20th century Japanese letters, however, is his collections of aphorisms. Sakutarō published four volumes of aphorisms during his lifetime: 1. Atarashiki yokujō (Fresh Passions, 1922), 2. Kyomō no seigi (The Justice of Delusions, 1929), 3. Zetsubō no tōsō (The Flight from Despair, 1935), and 4. Minato ni te (In Port, 1940). Sakutarō specifically uses the imported word aforizumu (アフォリズム) to describe these works: "In Japan, people often use the word 'shingen' to describe aphorisms [aforizumu], but this is not an appropriate translation . [shingen] are overly intellectual, devoid of human strength or weakness . On the other hand, aphorisms [aforizumu] do not lack human warmth."6 Following the publication of The Flight from Despair, philosopher Tanikawa Tetsuzō observed that Sakutarō "is the most talented individual in our age when it comes to writing aphorisms."7 However, this quickly makes the new reader of these works ask—what exactly is an aphorism, and what is Sakutarō trying to accomplish with the form? The first problem that frequently arises with a discussion of the aphorism is that both scholars and general readers alike do not know or cannot agree what it is. Concerning the vagueness of the term "aphorism," literary critic Gary Saul Morson observes, "Aphorism, dictum, maxim, witticism, hypothesis, thought, and many other 6 Yoshizō Kawamori 河盛好蔵, "Hagiwara no aforizumu" 萩原のアフォリズム (The aphorisms of Hagiwara), Kenkyū nōto: Hagiwara Sakutarō zenshū dai go kan (furoku) 研究ノート: 萩原朔太郎全集第五巻 (付録) (1976): 2. 7 Tetsuzō Tanikawa 谷川徹三, Zetsubō no tōsō to sono chosha 『絶望の逃走」とその著者

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