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UC Berkeley UC Berkeley Electronic Theses and Dissertations Title The Lyric Forms of the Literati Mind: Yosa Buson, Ema Saikō, Masaoka Shiki and Natsume Sōseki Permalink https://escholarship.org/uc/item/97g9d23n Author Mewhinney, Matthew Stanhope Publication Date 2018 Peer reviewed|Thesis/dissertation eScholarship.org Powered by the California Digital Library University of California The Lyric Forms of the Literati Mind: Yosa Buson, Ema Saikō, Masaoka Shiki and Natsume Sōseki By Matthew Stanhope Mewhinney A dissertation submitted in partial satisfaction of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in Japanese Language in the Graduate Division of the University of California, Berkeley Committee in charge: Professor Alan Tansman, Chair Professor H. Mack Horton Professor Daniel C. O’Neill Professor Anne-Lise François Summer 2018 © 2018 Matthew Stanhope Mewhinney All Rights Reserved Abstract The Lyric Forms of the Literati Mind: Yosa Buson, Ema Saikō, Masaoka Shiki and Natsume Sōseki by Matthew Stanhope Mewhinney Doctor of Philosophy in Japanese Language University of California, Berkeley Professor Alan Tansman, Chair This dissertation examines the transformation of lyric thinking in Japanese literati (bunjin) culture from the eighteenth century to the early twentieth century. I examine four poet- painters associated with the Japanese literati tradition in the Edo (1603-1867) and Meiji (1867- 1912) periods: Yosa Buson (1716-83), Ema Saikō (1787-1861), Masaoka Shiki (1867-1902) and Natsume Sōseki (1867-1916). Each artist fashions a lyric subjectivity constituted by the kinds of blending found in literati painting and poetry. I argue that each artist’s thoughts and feelings emerge in the tensions generated in the process of blending forms, genres, and the ideas (aesthetic, philosophical, social, cultural, and historical) that they carry with them. As poet- painters, Buson, Saikō, Shiki, and Sōseki blended these constitutive elements of literature like strokes of paint on a canvas. Through examinations of blending, I show the movement of thought and feeling, the dynamism of lyric thinking, in poetic form. Through such blending each artist evoked a heightened consciousness of the senses— sight, sound, smell, and touch. I examine how each artist thinks through sensual embodiment in poetic form, and show how the boundaries of lyric thinking expand by the Meiji period as traditional genres of poetry begin to overlap and blend with modern prose. Between the late eighteenth century and the Meiji period, new genres of writing emerge, yielding more possibilities for sensual embodiment in poetic form. Traditional genres such as haikai and kanshi also endure as antiquated and autonomous forms, and in vernacular prose as compounded forms that place ideas of the past and the present in dialectical motion. This dialectical motion appears in modern prose as constitutive elements of lyric thinking, and as obstructions to the linear movement of thought in narrative prose. The chapters are organized chronologically. In Chapter 1, I show how lyric thinking manifests as tensions in the perception of time and space in Buson’s haikai. In Chapter 2, I examine Saikō’s kanshi, and show how her lyric thinking manifests in a dialectical and ironic relationship with genre. In Chapter 3, I show how Shiki’s lyric thinking manifests as contradictions of thought in his artistic practice called shasei, or “representing life.” In Chapter 4, I examine lyric thinking in Sōseki’s modern prose. I show how his lyrical novel Kusamakura and prose-poem Omoidasu koto nado give form to grief through contradiction and irony. The dissertation shows what the lyric writings of Buson, Saikō, Shiki, and Sōseki can tell us about lyric thinking, subjectivity, and the philosophy of poetic form. 1 Table of Contents List of Images……………………………….…….……………………………………………...iii Acknowledgements………………………………………………………………………………iv Introduction: The Philosophy of Poetic Form…………...…….………………………………….1 Endnotes………………………………………………………………………………….10 Chapter 1: Tensions in Time and Space in the Poetry of Yosa Buson………………..……........15 Intertextuality and Representation of Place……………………………………………...16 Seeing and Imagining Color…………………………………………………………......23 White, Death, and Lyric Time…………………………………………………………...28 Repetition and Tautology…………………………………………………………….......33 Form and Longing………………………………………………………………………..35 Endnotes……………………………………………………………………………….....42 Chapter 2: Sense and Sensibility in the Poetry of Ema Saikō…………………………...............53 I Dwell in Possibility…………………………………………………………………….54 A Certain Slant of Light…………………………………………………………………63 There is No Frigate Like a Book………………………………………………………...69 A Formal Feeling Comes……………………………………………………………..…74 Poets Light But Lamps…………………………………………………………………..79 Endnotes…………………………………………………………………………………85 Chapter 3: Representing Life in the Prose Poems of Masaoka Shiki………………...………….97 Illness as Metaphor………………………………………………………………………98 Letting the Brush Go Where It Goes…………………………………………………...102 Mind and Landscape……………………………………………………………………106 Spilling Ink Across Time and Space……………………………………………………115 Wandering in the Enigma of Form……………………………………………………..124 Endnotes………………………………………………………………………………...134 Chapter 4: Lyric and Longing in Natsume Sōseki’s Kusamakura and Omoidasu koto nado…………………………………………………………………....140 The Lyrical Novel………………………………………………………………………142 Pathologies of Motion………………………………………………………………..…147 Nostalgia and Melancholy……………………………………………………………...153 i Poetry and Memory……………………………………………………………………..158 Sensual Renewal………………………………………………………………………..162 The Fate of Lyric……………………………………………………………………….167 Endnotes………………………………………………………………………………...174 Coda: Echoes in the Ether………………………..…………………………………………......185 Endnotes………………………………………………………………………………...189 Bibliography……………………………………………………………………………………192 ii List of Images Yosa Buson. Willow Leaves Scatter (Yanagi chiri); hanging scroll; ink and light color on paper; 58.6 x 36.7 cm; Itsuō Art Museum, Ikeda…………………………………….17 iii Acknowledgements This dissertation was completed with the support of many people. My deepest gratitude goes to the chair of my committee Alan Tansman for his commitment to provide thorough and critical feedback about my writing from the beginning to the end. I also thank my other committee members H. Mack Horton, Daniel O’Neill, and Anne-Lise François for their encouragement and intellectual support throughout the dissertation writing process. The years I spent at UC Berkeley gave me the opportunity to learn from many close readers of poetry. My reading and understanding of Chinese poetry blossomed after many conversations with Paula Varsano, Robert Ashmore, and Andrew Jones—under their guidance I became an informed reader of the Chinese tradition. I thank Kevis Goodman for inspiring an interest in eighteenth century English poetry and illuminating new ways to think about form and feeling. I also thank Robert Hass for writing his “little” book on form. My thoughts on the four artists under examination were informed by conferences and conversations with colleagues across disciplines: Nakajima Kunihiko, Ikezawa Ichirō, Satō Kōichi, Atsuko Sakaki, Matthew Fraleigh, Robert Tuck, Daniel Poch, Keith Vincent, Ken Ito, Andre Haag, Chris Lowy, Jeffrey Knott, Sonja Arntzen, Robert Tierney, Susan Matisoff, Robert Sharf, Mark Blum, Jonathan Zwicker, Xiaorong Li, Arthur Mitchell, Christina Yi, Brian Hurley, Tabe Tomoki, Nagata Kazuya, Dominic Steavu-Balint, Márton Farkas, and Michael Beckerman. I also thank my peers at Berkeley for their intellectual and emotional support: Sebastian Peel and Pedro Bassoe for commenting on early drafts, Kerry Shannon for reading the entire dissertation, Jon Pitt and Daryl Maude for their questions and suggestions, Nick Constantino for teaching me Zhuangzi, Chris Elford and Keru Cai for organizing a Chinese poetry reading group, Brendan Morley for loving kanbun, and Margi Burge for answering my questions about waka. My warmest gratitude goes to Matt Wild, whose friendship continues to fire my imagination and challenge my interpretations of poetry—I could not have asked for a better sparring partner of the mind. Research for the dissertation was generously supported by a fellowship from the Fulbright Association, which enabled me to study one year at Waseda University in Tokyo. I wrote early drafts in an office in the Central Library in the friendly company of my officemates Bo Tao and Andrew Campana. I also thank Kumi Hadler and Tessa Machida at the Center for Japanese Studies for their support, and Toshie Marra, Bruce Williams, Jianye He, and Deborah Rudolph at the C.V. Starr East Asian Library for opening my eyes to new treasures in the stacks. I also thank Grant Tompkins and Jan Johnson in the Department of East Asian Languages and Cultures for their correspondences and kind reminders during my years at Berkeley. John Nathan inspired me to pursue Japanese literature and has continued to provide a model for clear writing and beautiful translation. Robert Backus was a mentor and friend for many years. He passed away before I began this project. I dedicate this dissertation to him. Lastly, I would like to thank my family and friends at home for their love, support, and patience. iv Introduction: The Philosophy of Poetic Form 1 Do I contradict myself? Very well then . I contradict myself; I am large . I contain multitudes. —Walt Whitman, Leaves of Grass (1855)1 This dissertation examines the transformation of lyric thinking in Japanese literati (bunjin) culture from