Haiku master
Matsuo Basho radically redefined the three-line, 17-syllable haiku poetic form from an entertaining pastime in 16th-century Japan to a major literary genre in the 17th century. An early Basho haiku provides an example of his meticulous and sensitive approach in selecting and arranging words and images to produce highly evocative allusions:
On a leafless bough
In the gathering autumn dusk:
A solitary crow!
Haiku emanates from the 31 syllable, five-line "tanka" (short poem) which was originally arranged in two parts, an opening triplet (hokku) and a couplet. The Haiku form was popularized during the Heian period (794-1185). At that time, it was customary for the educated elite of Japan to engage in writing, singing, and reciting poetry as forms of cultural entertainment. In addition, social customs of the day demanded that the aristocracy of the refined court society display both a sensitivity to nature in their poetic expression and an ability to discuss the poetic classics of Japanese and Chinese literature. Tanka, then, could express a wealth ...
The two poems that I have selected for the Analytic Paper are “Blue Light Lounge Sutra For The Performance Poets At Harold Park Hotel” and “Thanks” by Yusef Komunyakaa. The former was read and analyzed as part of a class discussion early on in the quarter while the latter is a piece never analyzed, but closely related to another that was examined for its content and stylistic techniques (“Facing It”, Penguin Anthology, page 441). Though both were written by the same author, there are specific discrepancies in rhythm and wording that create artistic differences that suit the subject of each piece.
Everett, Nicholas From The Oxford Companion to Twentieth-century Poetry in English. Ed. Ian Hamiltong. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1994. Copyright 1994 by Oxford University Press.
On Farting by Hiraga Gennai gives the reader a perspective into the world of various arts in the Edo Period. Not only are we shown what is meant to be a proper practicing of the arts through his satirical character, Crankshaw Stonington Esquire, but he counters this claim that the arts were then lacking in life, passion, and ingenuity. They had become boring and outdated without any creativity being brought forward. To prove this he sings his praises for a fart artist, and engages in a lively debate about what truly marks art as meaningful and how a change to the traditions would improve the civilization. However passionate, his argument may not be effective enough to change the minds and ways of those who revel in the traditional.
“One merit of poetry few persons will deny: it says more and in fewer words than prose.” Said by Voltaire can describe the two poems, Seventeen by Andrew Hudgins and Traveling through the Dark by William Stafford. Both poems are written in a prose fashion but mean so much more than the written words. At a glance, the poems both seem to be about the tragic deaths of animals; however, the poems differ in their themes of growing up in Seventeen and the intermixing of technology with man and nature in Traveling through the Dark.
10. "Book of Poetry : Minor Odes of the Kingdom : Decade Of Bei Shan : Bei Shan 2 - Chinese Text Project." Chinese Text Project. N.p., n.d. Web.
A metrical composition; a composition in verse written in certain measures, whether in blank verse or in rhyme, and characterized by imagination and poetic diction; contradistinguished from prose; as, the poems of Homer or of Milton. This is but one of Webster 's definitions of a poem. Using this definition of “poem,” this paper will compare and contrast three different poems written by three different poets; William Shakespeare 's Sonnets 116, George Herbert’s Easter Wings and Sir Thomas Wyatt’s Whoso List to Hunt.
The Heian period(794-1185), the so-called golden age of Japanese culture, produced some of the finest works of Japanese literature.1 The most well known work from this period, the Genji Monogatari, is considered to be the “oldest novel still recognized today as a major masterpiece.”2 It can also be said that the Genji Monogatari is proof of the ingenuity of the Japanese in assimilating Chinese culture and politics. As a monogatari, a style of narrative with poems interspersed within it, the characters and settings frequently allude to Chinese poems and stories. In addition to displaying the poetic prowess that the Japanese had attained by this time period, the Genji Monogatari also demonstrates how politics and gender ideals were adopted from the Chinese.
Boucquey, Thierry, gen. ed. “Luo Guanzhong.” Encyclopedia of World Writers, 14th through 18th Centuries. New York: Facts On File, Inc., 2005. Bloom’s Literature. Facts On File, Inc. Web. 14 May 2014
Matthew Gerber. “The Importance of Poetry in Japanese Heian-era Romantic Relationships”. 2007 May. 2011 June 3.
Keene, Donald. Anthology of Japanese literature, from the earliest era to the mid-nineteenth century. New York: Grove P, 1955.
---. “Typography.” Concrete Poetry: A World View. N.p.: Indiana University Press, 1968. Accessed 12 April 2009 < http://www.ubu.com/papers/solt/typo.html>.
Shirane Haruo. et al. Early Modern Japanese Literature: An Anthology 1600-1900. New York: Colombia University Press, 2002. Print.
The vocabulary of the poem is remarkable in several ways. First of all, about one-third of the vocabulary is compound words. For the concept of “the sea” there are 50 different compounds; likewise there are 50 compounds for the concept of “a battle;” and 30 words for “king” (Chickering 5). It is truly amazing that in this poem of about 3000 lines there are 4000 vocabulary entri...
Second, the terza rima scheme helps the narrator to express his thoughts. In A Defense of Poetry, Shelley states that there exists harmony between the language that poets employ and the sounds that are contained in each word because both sounds and thoughts are intertwined to convey the message that they attempt to represent (763). In other words, there exists a close proximity between the sense of words and their sound; it is the enchainment of both ideas and sounds that creates an effect of harmony. Thus, language and sound work in conjunction to create a stylized and harmonious message which comes to life each time the poem is either read or recited out loud. We mentioned earlier that the Ode to the West Wind is an ode that addresses, that
“The Divine Image” has five ballad stanzas that, with the use of repetition throughout each stanza and a meter that alternates between iambic tetrameter and iambic trimeter, has a hymn-like quality; making the poem seem very simplistic and natural. He pairs repetitive diction with a flowing syntax to charac...