- 著者
-
川本 皓嗣
- 出版者
- 日本学士院
- 雑誌
- 日本學士院紀要 (ISSN:03880036)
- 巻号頁・発行日
- vol.78, no.1, pp.1-20, 2023 (Released:2023-11-22)
Of the many works of Earl Miner, former President of the International Comparative Literature Association, who died in 2004, the most important is Monkeyʼs Straw Raincoat (1981). It is a meticulous English translation of the whole of the Sarumino , a consummate anthology of haiku and linked poetry (haikai-renga) by Basho and his school, accompanied by Minerʼs extensive introduction and detailed interpretations.
Typically, a linked poem comprises thirty-six verses, which are composed at one sitting by three or more persons taking turns. “Long” verses of seventeen syllables alternate with “short” verses of fourteen syllables. The initial long verse, called hokku, should be a complete poem in its own right, with mandatory season-word and cutting-word. Often composed and appreciated by itself, hokku came to be called haiku in the nineteenth century, thus exempt from its original role as “starting” verse. The ensuing thirty-five verses, although semantically autonomous, cannot stand alone as poems. Each of them makes “poetic” sense only in conjunction with adjacent verses, either preceding or following it. (View PDF for the rest of the abstract.)