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Chapter 1 Chapter 2 Notes Chapter 1 1. The translations of this verse and other Japanese poems quoted in this book, unless otherwise noted, are by Hakutani. 2. Donald Keene notes, “The humor in Chikuba Kyǀgin Shnj has been characterized as ‘tepid.’ The same might be said of the haikai poetry composed by Arakida Moritake (1473–1549), a Sinto priest from the Great Shrine at Ise who turned from serious to comic renga late in life, and has been customarily styled (together with Sǀkan) as a founder of haikai no renga” (Keene 13–14). 3. A certain group of poets, including Ito Shintoku (1634–98) and Ikeni- shi Gonsui (1650–1722) of the Teitoku school, and Uejima Onitsura (1661–1738), Konishi Raizan (1654–1716), and Shiinomoto Saimaro (1656–1738), of the Danrin school, each contributed to refining Basho’s style (Keene 56–57). 4. A detailed historical account of haikai poetry is given in Keene 337–57. 5. The original of “A Morning Glory” is quoted from Fujio Akimoto, Haiku Nyumon 23. 6. The original of “Were My Wife Alive” is quoted from Akimoto (200). 7. The original of “The Harvest Moon” is quoted from “Meigetsu | ya | tatami-no | ue | ni | matsu-no-kage” (Henderson 58). 8. Waley further shows with Zeami’s works that the aesthetic principle of yugen originated from Zen Buddhism. “It is obvious,” Whaley writes, “that Seami [Zeami] was deeply imbued with the teachings of Zen, in which cult Yoshimitsu may have been his master” (Nǀ Plays of Japan 21–22). 9. See Max Loehr, The Great Paintings of China 216. 10. The originals of both haiku are quoted from Henderson 160. 11. The original is quoted from Henderson 164. 12. The original is quoted from Akimoto 222. 13. The original is quoted from Blyth, History 2: 322. Chapter 2 1. The translation of this haiku is by Noguchi, in Selected English Writings of Yone Noguchi 2: 73–74. Translations of other haiku quoted in this chapter are by R. H. Blyth unless otherwise noted. 160 Notes 2. The original is quoted from Henderson 49. The translation of this haiku, “How Cool It Is!” is by Hakutani. 3. Quoted and translated by Keene 93. 4. Haruo Shirane notes, “Bashǀ worked to assimilate the Chinese and Japa- nese poetic traditions into haikai and to appropriate the authority and aura of the ancients—whose importance grew in the late seventeenth century, as exemplified by the ancient studies of Confucian texts by Itǀ Jinsai (1627–1705) and the ancient studies of the Man’yǀshnj by Keichnj (1640–1701). As we have seen, Bashǀ incorporated orthodox Neo-Con- fucian thought into haikai poetics, hoping to raise the status of haikai, give it a spiritual and cosmological backbone, and make it part of the larger poetic and cultural tradition” (289). 5. This analects is remindful of John Keats’s line “Beauty is truth, truth beauty” in “Ode on a Grecian Urn” (1819). Emily Dickinson personi- fies beauty and truth in her poem “I Died for Beauty—but Was Scarce.” Dickinson sees Beauty and Truth united in life and death: He questioned softly, “Why I failed”? “For Beauty”, I replied— “And I—for Truth—Themself are One— We Brethren, are”, He said— And so, as Kinsmen, met a Night— We talked between the Rooms— Until the Moss had reached our lips— And covered up—our names— (Complete Poems 216) 6. As his first book, A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers (1849), indicates, Thoreau was fascinated with Buddhism. “It is necessary not to be Christian,” Thoreau argued, “to appreciate the beauty and significance of the life of Christ. I know that some will have hard thoughts of me, when they hear their Christ named beside my Buddha, yet I am sure that I am willing they should love their Christ more than my Buddha” (A Week 67). 7. Walt Whitman, who was also influenced by Buddhism, wrote in “Song of Myself”: I am the poet of the Body and I am the poet of the Soul, The pleasures of heaven are with me and the pains of hell are with me, . I am the poet of the woman the same as the man. (Complete Poetry 39) Notes 161 8. As noted earlier, wabi underlies the uniquely human perception of beauty derived from poverty. Referring to Basho’s aesthetic principle, R. H. Blyth observes, “Without contact with the things, with cold and hunger, real poetry is impossible. Further, Bashǀ was a missionary spirit and knew that all over Japan were people capable of treading the Way of Haiku. But beyond this, just as with Christ, Bashǀ’s heart was turned towards poverty and simplicity; it was his fate, his lot, his destiny as a poet” (Haiku 296). 9. According to R H. Blyth, Zen “means that state of mind in which we are not separated from other things, are indeed identical with them, and yet retain our own individuality and personal peculiarities‚ . it means a body of experience and practice begun by Daruma (who came to China 520 A. D.) as the practical application to living of Mahayana doctrines, and continued to the present day in Zen temples and Zen books of instruction” (Haiku 5). 10. While R. H. Blyth observed that an image in haiku does not function as a metaphor, Haruo Shirane argues that “haikai, like all poetry, is highly metaphorical: the essential difference, as we shall see, is that the meta- phorical function is implicit rather than stated and often encoded in a polysemous phrase or word” (Shirane 46). 11. As pointed out in the introduction, Yeats was a symbolist poet, whereas Pound took pride in being an Imagist poet. Yeats considered himself a symbolist poet since he was fascinated by the noh play, which displays on the stage a painted old pine tree, for example, as a symbol of eternity rather than a scene of landscape, an image of nature. Pound, on the other hand, advocated creation of images rather than symbols in composing poetry. Chapter 3 1. Much of Yone Noguchi’s biographical information is found in the auto- biographical essays written in English and in Japanese. The most useful is a collection of such essays titled The Story of Yone Noguchi Told by Himself (London: Chatto & Windus, 1914). 2. That Poe’s poems made a great impact on the aspiring poet from Japan is indicated by the close similarity in a certain part of “Lines,” one of Noguchi’s early poems in English, and Poe’s “Eulalie.” See “Lines,” in Pilgrimage 2: 79; and “Eulalie,” Poe, Complete Works of Poe 1: 12l–22. When Noguchi’s poems, including “Lines,” appeared in The Lark, The Chap Book, and The Philistine, in 1896, he was accused of plagiarism by some critics while he was defended by his friends. Noguchi later refuted it in Story of Yone Noguchi 18. About this controversy, see Don B. Gra- ham, “Yone Noguchi’s ‘Poe Mania.’” 3. The American Diary of a Japanese Girl was published by Frank Leslie Publishing House, New York, in 1901 and also by Frederick A. Stokes Company, New York, in 1902. Both editions are illustrated in color and black and white by Genjiro Yeto. This book was later expanded into a 162 Notes full novel under the same title. Cf. The American Diary of a Japanese Girl (Tokyo: Fuzanbo and London: Elkin Mathews, 1902). This novel has recently been republished: Yone Noguchi, The Diary of a Japanese Girl, ed. Edward Marx and Laura E. Franey, with original illustrations by Genjiro Yeto (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 2007). 4. The most comprehensive, though often inaccurate, bibliography of Yone Noguchi’s writings in Japanese and in English is included in Usaburo Toyama, ed., Essays on Yone Noguchi, vol. 1. 5. See Noguchi, Collected English Letters, ed. Ikuko Atsumi, 210–11. 6. Yone Noguchi had earlier met Yeats in London, where From the East- ern Sea was published in 1903. In a letter of February 24, 1903, to his wife, Leonie Gilmour, he wrote, “I made many a nice young, lovely, kind friend among literary geniuses (attention!). W. B. Yeats or Laurence Binyon, Moore and Bridges. They are so good; they invite me almost everyday. They are jolly companions. Their hairs are not long, I tell you” (Collected English Letters 106). 7. See Isamu Noguchi, A Sculptor’s World 31. 8. See Yone Noguchi, “The Invisible Night,” Seen and Unseen 21. The poem first appeared in The Lark. The poem is quoted from Selected Eng- lish Writings 1: 65. 9. See “At the Yuigahama Shore by Kamakura,” Pilgrimage 1: 34. The poem is reprinted in Noguchi’s travelogue Kamakura 38–39. 10. See Story of Noguchi 223–24. Noguchi discusses elsewhere what is to him the true meaning of realism: “While I admit the art of some artist which has the detail of beauty, I must tell him that reality, even when true, is not the whole thing; he should learn the art of escaping from it. That art is, in my opinion, the greatest of all arts; without it, art will never bring us the eternal and the mysterious” (Spirit of Japanese Art 103). 11. Quoted, in Noguchi’s translation, in Spirit of Japanese Poetry 38. 12. Quoted in Spirit of Japanese Poetry 37. This particular poem, however, cannot be found in any of Noguchi’s poetry collections. 13. Quoted, in Noguchi’s translation, in Noguchi, Through the Torii 132. 14. See “By the Engakuji Temple: Moon Night,” Pilgrimage 1: 5. The Engakuji Temple, located in Kamakura, an ancient capital of Japan, was founded in the thirteenth century by Tokimune Hojo, hero of the feudal government who was a great believer in Zen Buddhism.
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