Forum - View topicREVIEW: Hototogisu GNs 1-2
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shosakukan
Posts: 334 |
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Have you ever read Man'yōshū and Kokin Wakashū in the original? Your expression 'since' sounds as if the earliest Japanese literary example in which the bird hototogisu appeared had been the 81st poem of the Hyakunin Isshu. But actually, Man'yōshū has more than 150 poems in which hototogisu appears, and Kokin Wakashū has more than 40 poems in which hototogisu appears. The 81st poem of the Hyakunin Isshu might be a 'convenient' example when you talk to lower-middlebrow gaijin who have watched the Chihayafuru anime and whose meagre knowledge of Japanese classical poetry is limited to Hyakunin Isshu, but if you use the word 'since', it is better for you to check when Man'yōshū and Kokin Wakashū were compiled and when Tokudaiji Sanesada was born.
Hmm...you mean the 81st poem of the Hyakunin Isshu's having been quoted at the end of the Hototogisu manga and/or the Hototogisu novel? I have read the Hototogisu novel and the Hototogisu manga in the original, but it seems that the 81st poem of the Hyakunin Isshu have been not quoted at the ends of them, if I remember correctly. |
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Princess_Irene
ANN Associate Editor
 Posts: 2662 Location: The castle beyond the Goblin City |
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I'm sorry if I offended you with my use of "since;" the intention was to give an accessible example for a majority of readers, not to appeal to a "lower-middlebrow" understanding of classical Japanese poetry. In the context of where this review was being published, it did not seem wise to assume too much academic knowledge of a specific area of literature, regardless of what culture it originated in. |
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shosakukan
Posts: 334 |
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Thank you for the response. I'm sorry to say this, but writing a piece of discourse about Japanese literatrure in a way accessible to 'laymen' does not mean that the author is allowed to deliberately write something inaccurate about Japanese literature in the discourse in question. If you wanted to mention the 81st poem of the Hyakunin Isshu in your article, probably it was better for you to avoid the expression which was likely to make readers think that the 81st poem of the Hyakunin Isshu was the earliest Japanese literary example in which the bird hototogisu appeared. Your words seem to suggest that you tried to make your article not elite (or, to borrow Dwight Macdonald's words, you may have watered down the article), but if someone brings up a book like An Age of what-d'you-call-it published by Stanford University Press in her article about Japanese literature, actually, she is walking in an 'egghead zone'. If she writes about the earliest Japanese literary examples in which the bird hototogisu appears and she dares to walk in the egghead zone, she should mention Man'yōshū poems in which hototogisu appears. And though you said, 'Too much academic knowledge,' that Man'yōshū includes many poems by the Ōtomo no Yakamochi in which hototogisu appears is a piece of knowledge which even dilettanti have, in the first place. It is not esoteric academic knowledge which only scholars of Japanese literature have.
In the article supplementary to the 1969 Kadokawa-shoten edition of Hototogisu and in the article supplementary to the 1970 Chikuma-shobō edition of Hototogisu, scholar Muramatsu Sadataka and critic Ara Masahito (respectively) have said that Hototogisu was translated by Shioya Sakae into English in the Meiji period and the English edition was published by Bostonian publisher H. B. Turner in 1904. Its reissue edition seems to be still in print. https://www.amazon.com/dp/B01MFXJ5VZ/ As to the relation between the the title of the novel and the novel's content, the bird hototogisu represents Namiko. Since the colour of the inside of hototogisu's mouth is red, hototogisu came to be connected with the phrase 'Naite Chi-wo-Haku (singing and expectorating blood)', and then hototogisu also came to be connected with tuberculosis. So Hototogisu, which naite chi-wo-haku (sings and expectorates blood), is Namiko, who naite chi-wo-haku (cries and expectorates blood). The verb 鳴く /naku/ ((a bird's) singing) and the verb 泣く /naku/ (crying) have the same pronunciation, and Namiko is affected by tuberculosis. The reason why poet Masaoka Tsunenori chose his 'art' name Shiki 子規 was that he was affected by tuberculosis and expectorated blood. The kanji 子規 mean the bird hototogisu. The Dai Kan-Wa Jiten says:
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