My hypothesis that there is some connection between “
ma” (space or pause),which has been considered important in classical Japanese literature and arts, and “
yūgen” (ethereal beauty), an often-discussed aesthetic principle thereof. To prove this hypothesis, I examined what interests the authors have in “
sukima”, a form of “
ma”, how effectively they express it, and what intentions they have, using waka poems,
karon (poetic treatises), and
monogatari (narratives) as examples. The works I cited are as follows:
waka poems from the
Man’yōshū,
waka poems composed by poets of the Heian period,
Genji monogatari (
The Tale of Genji),
Mumyōshō (a poetic treatise by Kamo no Chōmei),
Tsurezuregusa (
Essays in Idleness, a collection of essays by Yoshida Kenkō), and
Kosunoto (a
jiuta song of the Edo period).
Furthermore, I introduced the criticisms made by Masaoka Shiki in his
Utayomi ni atauru sho (
Letters to a Tanka Poet), and the examples of usage of the word “
yūgen” in Natsume Sōseki’s novel
Kusamakura. Also, I argued that there is a connection between “
yūgen” and “
iki”, an aesthetic principle of early-modern Japanese literature and arts advocated by philosopher Kuki Shūzō in his book “
Iki”
no kōzō (The Structure of “
Iki”), although the two notions appear to be quite distant from each other.
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