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Masterworks of Asian literature in comparative perspective: a guide for teaching

Barbara Stoler Miller (ed.)

Miller, Barbara Stoler (ed.);

Masterworks of Asian literature in comparative perspective: a guide for teaching

M.E. Sharpe (Columbia project on Asia in the core curriculum), 1994, 583 pages

ISBN 1563242583, 9781563242588

topics: |  literature | sanskrit | japanese | chinese | stolermiller-b-1994_masterworks-asian-literature.epub

Legend of Kalidasa

Though details vary from version to version, the basic story remains
recognizable.

Once, the King of Banaras offers his daughter in marriage to a certain
Brahman pandit, but she refuses on the grounds that she is a greater
scholar than the pandit and cannot serve him.

Determined to trick her, the pandit finds a handsome cowherd whom he dressed
in the garb of a pandit and makes him memorize a Sanskrit greeting. Though
he tries to carry out these instructions, the cowherd only utters nonsense
syllables, but the pandit cleverly construes a benedictory verse to Siva out
of them and the princess is tricked. When she discovers that he is a fool,
she angrily assigns him to gather flowers. Each day he stops before
an image of the goddess Kali and offers a few flowers to her with
reverence.

One of the palace maids, in order to tease him, conceals herself behind the
image, chewing a ball of betel nut. When the cowherd finishes his usual
prayers, the maid puts the remnants of her chewing into his hand. He thinks
the goddess herself has presented it to him, so he swallows it. Instantly,
unlimited knowledge of logic and grammar dawns in him, and he becomes a
great poet, endowed with the power of speech. From his great reverence for
the goddess Kali, he came to be known as Kalidasa, the servant of
Kali. (p.59)


Haruo Shirane : The Poetry of Matsuo Basho

 		p.378

The modern haiku derives from the seventeen-syllable hokku (opening verse) of
a haikai no renga, or comic linked-verse sequence.  ... when Matsuo Basho*
(1644-94) began his career as a haikai poet, the hokku was regarded primarily
as the beginning of a linked-verse (renga) sequence. Basho* considered
himself to be, first and foremost, a comic linked-verse poet and was a haikai
teacher by profession, but he often composed independent hokku commonly
referred to by modern readers as haiku for which he is primarily known today
and which lie at the heart of his prose narratives.

Tropes in Japanese poetry

In a linked-verse session, the author of the hokku was required to include a
kigo (seasonal word), which functioned as a greeting... 
In the course of poetic history, the seasonal words used in classical poetry
(the thirty-one-syllable waka and later orthodox-linked verse, or renga) had
come to embody particular emotions, moods, and images. Thus, "spring rain"
(harusame), which always meant a soft, steady drizzle, brought sweet
thoughts; the endless, oppressive "summer rain" (samidare) connoted
depression; and the cold and sporadic "early winter showers" (shigure) were
associated with the uncertainty and impermanence of life. 

poems from the beginning and end of Basho's* The Narrow Road to the Deep
North (Oku no hosomichi), which describes his Journey of 1689:	


	yuku haru ya		The passing spring:	  
	tori naki uo no	Birds cry, and in the eyes
	me wa namida		Of fish are tears.	  


	hamaguri no		A clam being parted	
	futami ni wakare	From its shell at Futami
	yuku aki zo		The passing autumn.     


The two respective seasonal references, "the passing spring" (yuku haru)
and "the passing autumn" (yuku aki), indicate more than the temporal
dimensions of the poems; in the classical tradition they are strongly
associated with the sorrow of separation, particularly that caused by a
Journey. In the opening poem, [nature], represented by birds and fish
connotations of the seasons, also expresses Basho's sorrow at leaving behind
his friends. In the final poem, the departure of autumn (and implicitly that
of Basho) becomes as difficult and as painful as prying apart the shell of a
clam.  

On the surface, the two poems appear to depict only nature, but the seasonal
words, coupled with the larger context, underscore a recurrent theme of The
Narrow Road to the Deep North: the sorrow of the eternal traveler.

Parodies of the classical


Haikai, or comic linked verse, deliberately employs contemporary language and
subject matter, which was forbidden in classical poetry.  Ichu, a haikai
theorist of the Danrin school, once stated that "a poem that draws on the
literary tradition and at the same time parodies it is haikal."  The same is
true of much of Basho's* poetry, though in a more subtle manner than in
earlier haikai. 

A good example is Basho's famous frog poem, which marks the beginning of his
mature poetry, in the so-called Basho-style:

	furuike ya		An ancient pond	   
	kawazu tobikomu		A frog leaps in,   
	mizu no oto		The sound of water.
						(1686)	           

Kawazu (frog), a seasonal word for spring, was a popular poetic topic,
appearing as early as the Manyoshu (Collection often Thousand Leaves, 759),
the first major anthology of Japanese poetry.

The following waka (vol. 10, no. 2165) appears in a section on frogs:	
		
	kami tsu se ni		On the upper rapids		    
	kawazu tsuma yobu	A frog calls for his lover.	    
	yu * sareba		Is it because,			    
	koromode sasumimi	His sleeves chilled by the evening, 
	tsuma makamu toka	He wants to share his pillow?	    

By the Heian period (late eighth to late twelfth c.), the kawazu was almost
exclusively associated with the blossoms of the yamabuki (kerria), the bright
yellow mountain rose, and with limpid mountain streams, as in the following
anonymous spring poem from the Kokinshu* (Collection of Old and New Poems,
908):	 
		
	kawazu naku		At Ide, where the frogs cry,	
	Ide no yamabuki		The yellow rose			
	chirinikeri		Has already scattered.		
	hana no sakari ni	If only I had come when		
	awamashi mono o		The flowers were in full bloom!	
		
In the medieval period, the poet was often required to compose on the poetic
essence (hon'i) of a given topic. By then, the hon'i of the kawazu had become
its beautiful voice. In a fashion typical of haikai, Basho's* poem on the
frog works against these traditional associations. 

In place of the plaintive voice of the frog singing in the rapids or calling
out for his lover, Basho* gives us the plop of the frog jumping into
water. And instead of the elegant image of a frog in a fresh mountain stream
beneath the bright yellow rose, the hokku presents a stagnant pond. One of
Basho's* disciples suggested that the first line be "A yellow rose" (yamabuki
ya), an image that would have remained within the associative bounds of
traditional poetry. Basho's* version, by contrast, provides a surprising and
witty twist on the classical perception of frogs.

As a seasonal word, the frog thus deepens the contrast or tension between the
first half of the poem, the image of an old pondthe atmosphere of long
silence and restand the second part, a moment in spring, when life and
vitality have suddenly (with a surprising plop) returned to the world. 

In Basho's time, the seasonal words in haikai formed a vast pyramid, capped
at the top by the key seasonal topics (kidai) of the classical
tradition - cherry blossoms (spring), the cuckoo (summer), the moon (autumn),
and the snow (winter) - that remained the most popular subjects even for early
Edo haikai poets. Spreading out from this narrow peak were the other seasonal
topics derived from classical poetry.  

Occupying the bottom and the widest area were the kigo, which by Basho's
day literally numbered in the thousands.  In contrast to the seasonal topics
at the peak, which were highly conventional and conceptual, those that formed
the base were drawn from and directly reflected contemporary life. Unlike the
elegant diction of the words at the top of the pyramid, the new words at the
ever-expanding base were earthy, sometimes vulgar, and drawn from a variety
of "tongues," particularly those of popular Edo culture and society.

It has often been noted that the effect of the frog poem derives from the
intersection of the momentary and the eternal, of movement and stillness. The
two parts of the poem interpenetrate: the sound of the frog accentuating the
stillness of the ancient pond and the quiet atmosphere highlighting the
momentary. A similar effect can be found in the following poem, also from The
Narrow Road to the Deep North:
		
	shizukasa ya		How still it is!      
	iwa ni shimiiru		Penetrating the rocks,
	semi no koe		The cicada's shrill.  
						(1689)		      
	
In this summer poem, the cries of the cicada, which seem to sink into the
surrounding rocks, intensify the profound feeling of silence. According to
Ogata Tsutomu, a modern commentator, the spirit of the speaker becomes one
with the voice of the cicada and penetrates the rock, arriving at a deep,
inner silence. 

Basho* and his disciples speak broadly of two fundamental kinds of hokku: the
"single-topic" (ichimotsu shitate) hokku and the "combination" (toriawase)
hokku. Examples of "single-topic" hokku by Basho* are:	 
		
	kegoromo ni		In fur robes,		  
	tsutsumite nukushi	They are warmly wrapped	  
	kamo no ashi		The feet of the wild duck.
							(1693)	  
	
	bii to naku		Crying "Bee,"			   
	shirigoe kanashi	The sadness of the trailing voice  
	yoru no shika		A deer at night.		   
						(1694)             

The "combination" (toriawase), by contrast, combines two or more different
images in one hokku. Basho's * disciples further divide the "combination"
into two types: those "outside the circumference," which bring together two
(and sometimes more) images that traditionally are not found together, and
those "inside the circumference," which combine images that are associated
with each other in the classical tradition. Basho once said that
"combinations that emerge from within the circumference are rarely superior,
and all of them are old-fashioned." As we have seen, in classical poetry the
frog usually appeared in combination with fresh water and the yellow rose to
form an elegant and bright image. Basho's* poem effectively goes outside that
"circumference," but had Basho* used "A yellow rose" (yamabuki ya) instead of
"An ancient pond," as one of his disciples suggested, he would have stayed
within the "circumference."	

Sometimes a "combination" of distant, "extra-circumference" images are held
together by an intermediary image, as in the following poem by Basho*.
		
	aoyagi no		Branches of the willow		  
	doro ni shidaruru	Drooping down into the mud	  
	shiohi kana		The tide is out.		  
						(Sumidawara, 1694)

The gap between the two elements of the "combination," the willow (aoyagi)
and low tide (shiohi), two classical images never associated in the poetic
tradition, is bridged by the earthy, non-classical image of mud (doro). The
haikai element derives from the vernal, feminine image of the elegant willow,
admired for its gracefully drooping branches, being unexpectedly soiled by
the mud on the bay bottom.	

Basho's* distant "combinations" are closely associated with the "links by
scent" (nioi-zuke) that he regarded as an aesthetic and literary ideal in
haikai linked verse. The following example is from a thirty-six-link verse
sequence in Sarumino (The Monkey's Straw Raincoat, 1691).
		
	so* yaya samuku		A priest returning to a	
	tera ni kaeru ka	Temple as he grows cold?
						(Boncho)

	saruhiki no		A monkey trainer,		  
	saru to yo o furu	Passing through life with a monkey
	aki no tsuki		The moon of autumn.		  
							(Basho)

In the first verse a priest has come back from a chilly day of begging for
alms, and in the second verse a monkey trainer, fated to pass his days with a
monkey, is Juxtaposed with the autumn moon, an image of loneliness. The two
scenes are linked by a common mood, by the solitary and humble sadness of two
individuals who stand outside the warm embrace of society. The second verse
(by Basho*) probes the chilly atmosphere and loneliness of the previous verse
(by Boncho*) even as it stands apart. To use haikai terminology, the new
verse "lets go" (tsukihanasu) of the previous verse even as it catches its
"scent" (nioi).



Contents

Contents by country
Contents by Genre	 			xi
Preface	 xv
Guide to the Reader	 xvii
Principles of Transliteration and Pronunciation Guide	 xix
Introduction : Masterworks of Asian Literature in Comparative Perspective
	Barbara Stoler Miller	 xxv

I. The Worlds of Asian Literature

The Imaginative Universe of Indian Literature
	Barbara Stoler Miller	 3
A Note on Modern Indian Literature
	David Rubin	 15
The Imaginative Universe of Chinese Literature
	Pauline Yu and Theodore Huters	 21
The Imaginative Universe of Japanese Literature
	Haruo Shirane	 37
A Note on Modern Japanese Literature
	Paul Anderer	 51

II. Indian Texts

Lyric

Classical Sanskrit Lyric: Poetry of Love and Loss
	Barbara Stoler Miller	 55
Classical Tamil Poetry and Tamil Poetics
	Rajagopal Parthasarathy	 66
Devotional Poetry of Medieval North India
	John Stratton Hawley	 78
Lyric Text: Hindi
Lyric Poetry in Urdu: The Ghazal
	Shamsur Rahman Faruqi and Frances W. Pritchett	 94
Lyric Text: Urdu 104
The Poems and Stories of Rabindranath Tagore
	William Radice	 109

Narrative

The Mahabharata, Including the Bhagavad Gita
	Barbara Stoler Miller	 123
The Ramayana of Valmiki
	Robert P. Goldman	 133
Anita Desai: Fire on the Mountain and Games at Twilight
	Robin Jared Lewis	 149
R. K. Narayan's The Financial Expert
	Bharati Mukherjee	 157
The Short Stories of Premchand
	David Rubin	 167
Salman Rushdie: Midnight's Children
	Robin Jared Lewis	 178
Samskara: The Passing of the Brahman Tradition
	Rajagopal Parthasarathy	 189

p--Drama--
Two Classical Indian Plays: Kalidasa's Sakuntala and Sudraka's
Little Clay Cart
	Barbara Stoler Miller	 201

III. Chinese Texts


Lyric

The Book of Songs
	Pauline Yu	 211
The Poetry of Retreat
	Pauline Yu	 222
Tang Poetry: A Return to Basics
	Burton Watson	 232

Narrative

Chuang Tzu
	Shuen-fu Lin	 245
The Records of the Historian
	Joseph Roe Allen III	 259
The Journey to the West
	Andrew H. Plaks	 272
Cao Xueqin's Hongloumeng (Story of the Stone or Dream of the Red Chamber)
	Anthony C. Yu	 285
Liu E's The Travels of Lao Can
	C. T. Hsia	 299

The Stories of Lu Xun
	Theodore Huters	 309
Camel Xiangzi (Rickshaw) by Lao She
	David D. W. Wang	 321
Contemporary Chinese Lettres
	Theodore Huters	 330
Timeline of Significant Events in China, 1911-1987, in Relation to
		Contemporary Chinese Lettres 			       345

Drama

Story of the Western Wing (Xixiang ji) (Romance of the Western Chamber)
	Stephen H. West and Wilt L. Idema	 347

IV. Japanese Texts

Lyric

The Man'yoshu and Kokinshu Collections
	Donald Keene	 363
The Poetry of Matsuo Basho
	Haruo Shirane	 378

Narrative

The Tale of Genji
	Edward G. Seidensticker and Haruo Shirane	 390
A Book of One's Own: The Gossamer Years; the Pillow Book; and
the Confessions of Lady Nijo
	Barbara Ruch	 404
"An Account of My Hut"
	Paul Anderer	 420
Seven Japanese Tales
	Ken K. Ito	 428
Beyond Absolution: Enchi Fumiko's The Waiting Years and Masks
	Barbara Ruch	 439
The Woman in the Dunes
	John Whittier Treat	 457
Mishima Yukio, The Allegorist
	Richard Torrance	 470
Kawabata Yasunari's Snow Country
	Michael C. Brownstein	 481
Soseki's Kokoro
	Paul Anderer	 493

Drama

Three Plays of the Noh Theater
	Thomas Blenman Hare	 501
The Love Suicides at Sonezaki  http://www.yavanika.org/classes/reader/keene.pdf
	Donald Keene	 517

Postscript

East-West Literary Relations: The "Wisdom" of the "East"
	Lucien Miller	 526

Summaries of the Masterworks	 539
Historical Timelines	 553
Indian History	 555
Chinese History	 558
Japanese History	 561
Index	 563
Contributors


Stoler Miller died in 1993 while compiling this book, and the volume is dedicated to her. She was 53.

amitabha mukerjee (mukerjee [at-symbol] gmail) 2012 Sep 25