One day, is quite warm
Someone left open the
Refrigerator
Pungent odor wafts
Panic! Household in crisis--
Spring unexpected.
***
Skies grey with tears
The awakening birds sing
Color returns
Color fades to grey
hopes for sunshine wash away
still have weeks to wait
***
Dry snow to moist slush
I can smell spring in the air
Memories awake
Yet I stay asleep
The grass still beneath the earth
Still hibernating
***
Puddles of rain sit
Formed by melted snow and mud
Weather is changing
Students trod to class
Drained from the winter's cold
Will it ever end?
***
Those were some examples of student haiku sequences, where it seemed to me that the second poem built with particular effectiveness on the first.
We're now embarking on a series of readings that center, in a variety of different ways, on journeys, both real and imagined. In class today I suggested that a central theme of Basho's journey (one that lends structure to the seemingly random combination of poetry, prose narrative, travelogue, and description it comprises) is eternity: both the effort to grapple with the concept of timelessness and an exploration of the idea of time as a way of organizing our understanding of the world.
What evidence do you find to support that interpretation? What other concepts or ideas might help to explain how this text functions? Cite some text to support your claims, or to support your collegial disagreement with a classmate.
Deadline: Friday (3/11), start of class.
12 comments:
Matsuo Basho begins Narrow Road to the Deep North by saying, “The months and days, the travelers of a hundred ages; the years that come and go, voyagers too…Many, too, are the ancients who perished on the road.” (Page 413). This sets the mood for the story which is about timelessness. “A hundred ages” and the reference to ancient travelers support the idea of eternity from the beginning of the text. Days, months, and years will travel into eternity. Just like travelers like always take journeys. These travelers will eventually die but the journey which is life itself will endure for all time.
Basho chooses to travel toward places that were considered noted poetic places. His destinations are noted with in Japans history, they aren't just random meanderings of an old poet, and by traveling to these places he is able to connect with the past and create a new perspective. His poetry intertwine the past and present of these sites. On page 412 it explains how he embarks on "an ascetic journey and a pilgrimage to sacred places". For example, on page 410 Basho refers to octopus traps, the octopus traps were a reference to the Heike clan who were massacred at that location (according to the annotations).
I don’t think Basho starts his journey with the intention of connecting with the idea of longevity and timelessness. Indeed, he leaves with few preconceived notions or expectations, saying, “I wanted to view those places that I had heard of but never seen and placed my faith in an uncertain future, not knowing if I would return alive” (415). He basically has a middle-age crisis at the end of his living, realizing he hasn’t traveled enough and fearing he won’t be able to see legendary monuments. He acknowledges he might not survive the trip, but he does not fear death. He accepts it as a fact that would not interfere with his travels, and does not think of his place in the eternity of time. His attitude, however, starts to change when he visits “a memorial of a thousand years” at Taga Castle which causes an unexpected reaction in him: “I was peering into the heart of the ancients. The virtues of travel, the joys of life, forgetting the weariness of travel, I shed only tears” (418). For the first time Basho juxtaposes his own mortality against the longevity of time. He can never meet the ancients, yet thousands of years later he can still understand their emotions, their “heart.” The realization of the impossibility of a physical connection while having such a strong emotional connection is too much for Basho and he breaks down crying. Thus his journey appears a marriage between elements romanticized and enlightened. His awakening of knowledge of the awareness of time causes emotional reactions in him – his crying here and his haikus throughout his narrative – so although his text is an enlightened journey he reacts with more emotional than rational responses.
I think Basho frames his journey in a way that strongly ties it to notions of eternity. He encounters many ancient places, weighted with history and meaning, but the timelessness of such memorials is innate, obvious to the reader after only an objective accounting by the narrator. Taking that into consideration, I think the evidence supporting a focus on eternity shows most strongly in his accounts of common, everyday occurrences. Yes, the Shinobu Mottling Rock reverberates with ageless significance, but the women its shadow, when described by Basho, also sow timelessness through their simple work. Their hands, planting seeds for a single harvest, one in a endless cycle, also craft cloths of longing (pg 418, footnote 3), their toil culminating into a respectful sorrow for the process that inexorably links them to an endless sense of time, and its weight upon them. It is in such simplicity Basho conveys the fragile side eternity, its meaning pulsing even in the fleeting movements of human hands. In doing so, his poetry testifies to delicate beauty in the endless process of time. The rock monuments those hands have created stand as their own testaments, indelibly timeless without the aid of poetry.
I definitely agree with katiebug that his initial intention is not to explore timelessness. He simply seems bored with his life and desperate to see and explore the world, hopefully to inspire his poetic expression. Yet, as he travels and is inspired by the things he sees, his thoughts do indeed turn to the concepts of eternity and his own mortality. He is exploring places that will survive long past his own death, and he is suddenly aware that his own existence is so small compared to all of the beautiful parts of nature he is experiencing.
Some of these thoughts can be seen in his haikus as the story progresses: "summer grasses- the traces of dreams of ancient warriors." He is reflecting on lives long past, other people who have stood in the same place as he does.
The journey gives him an opportunity to experience and accept his own mortality, and it is a deeply moving experience for him.
Basho seems to be visiting a lot of places that each contain certain aspects summer. He visits Black Hair Mountain at the end of Spring while preparing for Summer on p. 416. His haiku, "shaving my head / at Black Hair Mountain— / time for summer clothes" indicates a new beginning with the new season and embodies a sense of renewal and refreshment, which comes with every year. He could be indicating that every year there is that sense of renewal to look forward to.
He gives a lot of Summer-related Haikus on p. 420, talking about "summer grasses" and "summer rains" and also talks about "the traces of dreams / of ancient warriors." Usually dreams are associated with summer settings, where the mood is right for resting and enjoying the sun. Dreams are also associated with the idea of eternity because dreams can live on, just as those of the "ancient warriors," whose dreams are even recognized today (at the time Basho wrote this).
So in essence, I believe Basho is trying to capture Summer life through its pastoral settings where all of nature comes alive, and along with it, dreams also rekindle. And because Summer comes again every year, which is indicated by people's preparations for it (shaving one's head, wearing summer clothes), it is a timeless setting, which comes alive through memories and written poetry/pose such as Basho's. Summer creates such vivid memories that it can't do anything but be remembered for the rest of your life.
I'm not sure if it is eternity that Basho is exploring so much as the nature of time in its ever flowing, infinite, and infinitesimal nature. In a way it is an exploration of eternity but not exactly, I feel. When I think of eternity I think of the beginning of time and its continuation as well as things that exist outside of time, making them eternal. What comes to mind are like gods or like the Platonic realm of form and whatnot. Here however, Basho visits things, monuments, places and notes the effect of time has on them. For example, on page 418, the haiku on rice planting and such refers to the culture of the fern-rubbing-women which is now passed. Old culture leaves and new culture takes root like "rice seedlings." Basho does not forget the small measurements/steps through time either. On page 420, Basho is forced to stay put on a mountain, a "boring mountain." When we're bored, we want time to pass more quickly. Time seems to pass slowly. He slows down and is able to observe a "horse pass water by [his] pillow." This is kind of funny but I imagine him either lying down or just sitting on his sleeping pad and watching the horses urine trickle by. Slowly.
The idea of timelessness is clear near the end of Basho's story of his journey to the north, specifically within the haiku of the samurai helmet. This is the specific haiku:
"How pitiful"
beneath the warrior helmet
cries of a cricket
(page 425)
The cries of a cricket almost always imply the sound of nightfall (or the absence of laughter). Anyways, in this haiku, Basho is expressing his anguish at the idea of mortality and is mourning either himself, as he knows his end is near, or is simply expressing the idea of mourning in general.
Another thought is that Basho was mourning the ages past, as he said on page 425 leading into the haiku, "It was as if the past were appearing before my eyes." This could mean that Basho was watching and processing the death of another man long gone. Basho was relating his own "countdown", if you will, to another man's countdown that had already reached zero. Throughout the poem we might see this idea of timelessness and also mortality, but it is in this poem that we see the focus of the journey switch from history that Basho feel will always be, to the idea that we are temporary, and we need to cope with this realization.
Interesting enough I agree with the interpretation of eternity in this story. On page 416, Basho's journey seems to be one with a definite time, for instance when he reaches the Fourth Month. He embarks on Black Hair Mountain, and then goes into explaining mountains. From this section, there is a sense of time, I understand it as the speaker still having the sense of time and being able to relate it to the current situation. The different sacred places that he visits also relate to the sense of time. We understand that these locations represent timeless and essential key historical elements that can not have time placed upon theme. This aspect closely relate to eternity to me. After traveling for so long I see the speaker as losing his sense of time. On page 419, it said "The glory of three generations of Fujiwara vanished in the space of a dream; the remains of the Great Gate stood two miles in the distance." This line also relate to the timelessness of the story. It clearly sows the way that some things remain the same but other change with time.
I think that Basho has chose to travel places that aren't just oratory baroque gimcrack rebuttal intriguing to him but serve as a poetic and historical place for others. Throughout, his journeys I agree that it is "one that lends structure to the seemingly random combination of poetry, prose narrative, travelogue, and description it comprises." In the beginning and throughoutt this literature Basho has a strong reference to nature. For example on page 415,
Spring going--
birds crying and tears
in the eyes of the fish
I believe that his concept of using nature has alot to do with what actually occurs throughtout the story and depicts that nature is the sole foundation to everything that occurs in the life of a traveler. In the footnote, of this haiku it states that, "the birds and fish mourn the passing of spring and, by implication, the depature of the travelers" (p.415). Basho illustrates that this is an experience through eternity and the timelessness of it as well for the travelers.
The poem does seem to have time as one of its central theme. Basho states that "famous poetry has been collected and preserved; but mountains crumble, rivers shift, road change, rock are buried in dirt"(418). I believe that to mean that time goes on an things fade away, but by his collection of poetry he wishes to capture an ancient time which may not last forever. Like some of my classmates have pointed out, "Shaving my head/at Black Hair Mountain-/time for summer clothes" is probably on of the best examples that shows how time fits into the themes of the poems. This lines are meant to signify a new start. Basho realizes that not everything last for eternity, so I believe that in order to keep the memories of these things, he writes a haiku in order to perserve their history. Each of Basho's poems deal with different seasons and what he experience while on his journey, in a way I take this to mean that he wishes to say that time goes on seasons change etc. Yet it's not like we have to forget everything of the past, there are ways to perserve history and historical places and he wishes to do it through haikus
Timelessness and exploring the world are distinctly two main themes within Basho's poetry and writings. Nearly all of haikus center around either theme, or both themes.
"Cloud peaks/Crumbling one after anohter-/Moon Mountain" (422) for example represents the sky and how it constantly continues, just like his journies. It uses clouds continuously "crumbling" and forever continuing within the sky as a metaphor to explain how life always continues on, and that there is always something more out there in the world.
Basho also explains within his text how he he went about his travels vicariously- "I wanted to view those places that I had heard of but never seen adn placed my faith in an uncertain future, not knowing if I would return alive" (415). Basho realizes that as a human, we do not live forever, even though the world will continue on after us, so while living one should make the most of the little time he or she has and do what he or she wants to. Basho clearly wanted to travel, so travel he did.
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