Musicality in Haiku Written
in Spanish: a Platonism?
Carlos
Fleitas
Uruguay, South America
"Give an illustration," I said. She answered me as follows:
"There is poetry, which, as you know, is complex; and manifold. All
creation or passage of non-being into being is poetry or making, and the
processes of all art are creative; and the masters of Arts are all poets or
makers." "Very true." "Still," she said, "you know
that they are not called poets, but have other names; only that portion of the
art which is separated off from the rest, and is concerned with music and meter,
is termed poetry, and they who possess poetry in this sense of the word are
called poets." (1)
Rhythm in Music and Rhythm in
Poetry
I would like to make a personal confession. I have forgiven Plato. Truly.
Because although he finally expels poets from his ideal Republic as false
pedagogues, he puts in the mouth of Diotima, the above definitions. In short,
poetry is "the passage of non-being into being...and is concerned with
music and meter." At this point, one has two options: Leave these
envisioned thoughts to work by themselves in our minds without further comment,
or add a few unnecessary footnotes with the hope they will soon return to the
non-being. I will choose the latter because I have given my word to a lady that
I would write this small paper. Not keeping it is the kind of sin the gods would
never forgive.
What is the relation between music and poetry? The main fact is that music and
speech have an intimate relation, as Dr. Richard Hooker asserts: "all music
is based on two fundamental human activities: speech and movement. Speech is the
basis of music in its rhythms, tones, and cadences; music, in part, is an
exaggeration of basic tonal and rhythmical qualities of human speech." (2)
According to this idea, speech bears musical qualities by itself and it is the
origin of music. Music seems to have evolved from these qualities, and to have
become somehow independent, as instrumental music, inheriting the main issues of
speech mentioned above.
Rhythm then, is the common denominator of music and poetry. In music, rhythm can
be defined as "not only the fluency, the movable, but also the measure of
movement, the limitation of fluency. It rests on the differentiation of values
of duration shorter or longer, stressed and non-stressed, and weak or strong.
"(3) "Meter in music is: a) the rhythmic element as measured by
division into parts of equal time value. b) the unit of measurement, in terms of
number of beats, adopted for a given piece of music." (17)
Rhythm in poetry is given by recurrence of patterns; i.e. it is the reiteration
at regular intervals of some elements, (8) which are obviously related to the
rhythmic natural characteristics of the language in which it is written. Spanish
is a language of syllabic rhythm, characterized by the number of syllables in a
poetic line, instead of the number and qualities of the accents, as in English.
(7) English is a language of stressed rhythm, that is created by "the
recurrence of stress or emphasis within the words and syllables of the poetic
line" (4) and the rhythm in a line is measured by the meter. Some meters
are of a definite length; others are variable. (5) And meter in English poetry
is the pattern of a poem's rhythm/stresses; the unit of measure is called a
foot. (4) Spanish poetry (this is particularly true in traditional poetry) is
written to have a specific number of syllables per line. Although the rhythm of
Spanish poetry depends, in a minor way, on stresses, it is not so remarkable as
in English poetry, which is written to have a specific number of primary accents
in each line in spite of the number of syllables. (7)
Musicality in Spanish Poetry
Rhythm
and Musicality. Resources to establish musicality and rhythm in Spanish Poetry;
The 20th Century Revolution in Music and Poetry.
Strictly speaking then, the main factor that brings musicality to a poetry line
is rhythm. And rhythm in poetry is closely related to the rules of
prosody that encompass not only rhythm, but also meter and the melodic structure
of the poem. So, it is very important to keep in mind that rhythm is fully
appreciated when the poem is read out loud. This is due to the fact that poetry,
in its origin, was composed to be heard, not read. That is, to be spoken out
loud, or also sung. It is also important to keep in mind that when a "verse
is pronounced, accents occur at certain regular intervals; they, too determine
the rhythm of the poem." (15). Other resources, as soon we will see, bring
a musical secondary effect to poetic lines in some languages. In Western poetry,
the degree of musicality can be augmented by their use, apart from the
maintenance of a rhythmic pattern -- which is the essence of poetry and the one
that differentiates it (if it encompasses at least a certain meter) from other
literary genres such as prose. There are three main resources that have a
musical effect when applied to a poetic line, or to lines in Spanish: alliteration,
assonance and rhyme. I would like to emphasize the fact that they
produce a musical effect, but strictly speaking, they are not a musical issue in
the same way as is rhythm alone. However, in Spanish language, if properly used,
they can meaningfully contribute to the rhythm of a poem because of the
repetitive pattern they can create. A musical effect is possible, in that the
result of applying them to poetic lines brings euphonic sound(s) to the
listener.
Let me give some examples:
a) The second stanza of the XVII sonnet by Garcilaso de la Vega
El
ancho campo me parece estrecho,
la noche clara para mí es escura;
la dulce compañía, amarga y dura,
y duro campo de batalla el lecho.
This
sonnet, like the majority of sonnets in Spanish language, has its rhythm based
in syllable count (11), natural pauses, rhyme, assonance
and certain alliteration. Assonance, rhyme and alliteration give euphonic
sonority to the poem.
b) Federico García Lorca's Romancero Sonámbulo is written without a
strict syllable number per line as in the sonnet, but the use of assonance, i.e.
open vowels, gives an extraordinary musicality to the poem. However, the use of
assonance in this case is intimately related with the meaning of the poem, or
better, with a contrast of atmospheres such as life and death which Lorca
displays in this jewel of lyricism and depth.
Verde
que te quiero verde,
Verde viento. Verdes ramas.
El barco sobre la mar
y el caballo en la montaña
Con la sombra en su cintura
ella sueña en su baranda,
verde carne, pelo verde
Con ojos de fria plata...
This
may seem at first strange, but if we think of words also as sounds, then we can
be aware that poetry is also an organization of sounds -- sonority, as in music.
This issue usually stays in the background because we are more interested in the
meaning of words than in the musicality of them. But musicality is always there,
and we realize it as soon as an unpleasant sonority, lack of fluency or rhythm
breaks in a poem line becomes clearly noticeable. As a matter of fact,
throughout history there has been a major contention between those who support
and those who condemn the use of music and musicality in text and poetry, not
only in the West, but in the East also. One particular case concerns religious
music.
To summarize: Rhythm is part of the structure of music and poetry. It is
always present, at least until the major changes that would affect the
traditional meaning of rhythm in the 20th century in the West, both in music and
in poetry. Alliteration, assonance and rhyme are mainly sonority
resources which bring musical effects to the verses or poetic lines, creating euphony,
although in Spanish language, they can also contribute to the rhythm of the
poem. Therefore, they deal with the sounds, not with the meaning, although, as
we will see, they can, if used properly, add or reinforce a previous meaning
which is present in the poem, or in an extreme case, eclipse meaning. In
"non traditional verse," "non-metrical poetry" or "free
verse," they can be main resources to create a reiterated pattern -- that
is, a rhythm not based on the number of syllables or on a particular meter. But
in free-verse, in absence of assonance or alliteration, the rhythm must still be
kept by the cadence. We must also mention the "blank verses" that have
no rhythm but which keep to a metrical pattern.
In Western music, the scales and laws of euphony condition sounds and their
combination: That is, pleasant or unpleasant sounds. The predominant Western
scale of music, until last century, is called diatonic scale, and the rules and
laws of composition were set on the XVII century. Therefore, the euphonic of
sounds is conditioned to a particular scale along with its criterion of pleasant
sounds or combination of sounds. This is why when the criterion changes, some
people may find new sonorities quite annoying to the ear. Because poetry also is
conditioned to the sonority of the language in which it has been written, what
is euphonic to a certain culture may be dissonant to the ears of people from
another. It may well become a matter of contention between generations in the
same culture. Elders, many times judge the new generation's music, as
"unpleasant noises". Spanish listeners find the German sounds
non-euphonic and quite harsh. This is because the phonemic roots of German are
non-Romanic, and therefore their sonority is rather unfamiliar to Spanish people
who have a Romanic origin of language-root phonemes. This makes Bach's Cantatas,
to non-trained Spanish listeners, have a non-euphonic sound in its choruses.
Other
features which contribute to rhythm (therefore degrees of musicality)
apart from the use of the number of syllables, rhyme, and distribution of
accents in Spanish poetry include:
a) The use of pauses, the most important pause being that which is
produced at the end of each verse. This is especially true whenever the pause
coincides with the natural pauses of the language as we speak, or when we have
completed an idea, or a syntactic structure (see Garcilaso's sonnet and next
example). If we end the line with a noun and start the next line with an
adjective, we break the natural end of the idea and the natural pause.
b)
The anaphora or the repetition of one or more words at the
beginning of each verse:
Esta
luz, éste fuego que me devora.
Este paisaje gris que me rodea.
Este dolor por una sola idea.
Esta angustia de cielo, mundo y hora.
Federico García Lorca. (9)
c)
The use of parallelism: that is the repetition of a syntactic
structure:
Suspiros
tristes, lagrimas cansadas
(Noun+adjective, noun+adjective)
Que lanza el corazón, los ojos llueven,
Los troncos bañan y las ramas mueven
(art. +noun+adj, art.+noun+adj)
Luis de Góngora (9)
d)
The use of refrain: repetition of words in the poetic line or
in different verses of the same poem.
Paso
un día y otro día,
Un mes y otro mes,
Un año y otro año.
(Anonymous)
Puente de mi soledad
por los ojos de mi muerte
tus aguas van hacia el mar,
al mar del que no se vuelve.
(Emilio Prados) (9)
e)
Finally the use of rhyme, that is: the repetition of sounds
from the last stressed vowel in each verse, can contribute to rhythm and
musicality of a poem. The rhyme may be, in Spanish, assonant or consonant, being
the last one -- the one that is used in the sonnet as a rule.
As we have stated, these resources which create rhythm in poetry changed
radically in the 20th Century in the West. The free verse or vers
libre, born in France by the end of the 19th Century, originated a
completely new way of poetic creation: "Free verse has no regular metrical
scheme. Its rhythms derive from the sounds, words, phrases, and stanzas. Some
free verse is so like casual speech that it is difficult to recognize as
poetry." (5) In English poetry, the works of Carl Sandburg, William
Carlos Williams, Marianne Moore and Wallace Stevens are
well known. Before them, Walt Whitman
stands as a major representative of free verse. In Spanish language, we
can mention the poetics of Ruben Darío, Leon Felipe, Cesar Vallejo, Nicanor
Parra, Jorge Luis Borges among many, many other great poets who use free verse.
Although the traditional rules of creating rhythm devices fell away, rhythm
continued to be a main issue, but now built with different features, as it is
mentioned above.
Music
was subjected to a "revolution" in the last century. Rules of
composition which were applied for almost four centuries were tossed away, if I
may say so. Igor Stravinsky, Arnold Schonberg and his disciples Alban Berg and
Anton Von Webern opened the gates for new rules and new sonorities in music.
Changes came very quickly. Soon new movements grew and developed, also affecting
vocal music. Rhythm suffered so many changes that it turned out to be, in
effect, non-recognizable. For example, the rhythm in Stravinsky is focused on
the sudden change of meter or on unusual meters. Free verse and free music also,
were a total revolution in the notion of rhythm. New ways of composing poetry
were in open contrast with the traditional rules. (3)
Musicality in Japanese Haiku
Does Japanese haiku have musicality? Is introducing musicality to haiku written
in Spanish a sort of heresy, or an artificial device, strange to the so called
"spirit of haiku"? The answer to this most important question will
bring light to us when we face the subject of musicality of haiku written in
Spanish. Let me start with some considerations on the structure and
characteristics of Japanese language in relation to haiku: "The sounds in
Japanese are simpler and less varied than those in English. They also have much
less accent, stress and intonation, giving a somewhat monotonous, soft and flat
impression. There are only five vowels, and in theory consonants are always
followed by a vowel. Certain English sounds are absent in Japanese, such as v,
f, di as in dim. Other English sounds, most notably r and l, are bundled
together in a single sound. The rest of the fifty plus one sounds, which form
all Japanese sounds, are created by adding these five vowels to consonants, k,
s, t, n, h, m, y, r/l, w. The last sound is a soft, nasal version of n."
(12)
"Japanese
has an open-syllable sound pattern, in that most syllables end in a vowel -- the
syllable may be composed solely of the vowel. Unlike English, which has stress
accent, Japanese has pitch accent, which means that after an accented syllable,
the pitch falls." (10) These characteristics make rhyme structure and
metric system not so prominent. Therefore, its principal resource is the
syllabic measurement. Syllables count primarily in Japanese poems as the main
rhythm resource. (11)
Rhythm:
"The main source of haiku rhythm is the 5 - 7- 5 syllable format It can be
grouped in one or other of two ways, i.e. either 5 + 12, or 12 + 5, but even
then there is a notional pause between 7 and 5, or 5 and 7 within the 12
syllables" (Takiguchi)
(12).
David
Lanoue has the same point of view: "As for rhythm, the Japanese haiku, of
course, has a built-in rhythm of 5-7-5 syllables (or, as Robin Gill calls them,
"syllabets"). There are two basic patterns to this structure:
long-short and short-long.
.....Long-short (12 + 5 syllabets):
te
no shiwa no hito ya ni miyuru / aki no ame
the night spent looking
at my wrinkled hands...
autumn rain
Issa
.....Short-long
(5 + 12 syllabets):
meigetsu
ya / yoko ni neru hito ogamu hito
harvest moon--
next to the sleeping man
a praying man
Issa (13)
Lanoue
also drives the attention to the fact that: "Issa likes to produce internal
rhythm with word repetition":
kyô
mo kyô mo tako hikkakaru enoki kana
today too, today too
the nettle tree snags
the kite
Issa
Here's
one that R. H. Blyth liked the sound of:
gege
mo gege gege no gegoku no suzushisa yo
it's a down, down
downtrodden land
but cool
Issa "(13)
According
to Blyth, states Lanoue, "the repetition of ge (which means down
as in downtrodden) sounds like hammering nails in the coffin of Issa's poverty.
But the wonderful shift to suzushisa yo, in the end, hints of emotional
release: poverty gives way to the freedom of nature: the wonderful cool air.
Issa also likes to use onomatopoeic double-words that are quite
common in Japanese, such as fuwa-fuwa (softly, softly):
daibutsu
ya hana yori kiri wa fuwa-fuwa to
from the great bronze
Buddha's nose mist...
softly, softly
Issa (13)"
"There
are hundreds of examples like the above in Issa's work", states Lanoue (13)
Rhyme: As we have seen above, the structure of Japanese language
make rhyme in haiku meaningless. As Susumu Takiguchi has stated: "Rhyming
in haiku is neither as prominent nor as important as in English poems. Its abuse
could even make a haiku gimmicky and artificial, but used well, it can help
create a sophisticated and dramatic haiku. Its position is not restricted to the
ends, but frequently found within the lines. In this sense, haiku rhyme is more
like refrain, explained in the next section, and perhaps should not be called
rhyme at all, in the sense used in English or Chinese poems." (12) This is
one of the many examples Takiguchi puts in his lesson:
Yama
mata yama yamazakura mata yamazakura
Mountain
after mountain
mountain cherry trees
after mountain cherry trees
Awano
Seiho (12)
Concerning
its use within the lines, David Lanoue has found in Issa's haiku quite a number
of internal rhymes: As for rhyme, he states: "Issa uses
internal rhyme within a phrase; hardly ever end rhyme." For example:
hito
areba hae ari hotoke ari ni keri
where there's people
there's flies
and Buddhas
Issa
Lanoue
has located 26 examples of the above pattern (-ri ni keri) in his
Issa's archive in his website." (13)
Alliteration and Assonace
"First,
let me comment on alliteration and assonance," continues Lanoue.
"These are VERY prevalent in the work of Issa. Here's one of my favorites:
yû
zuki ya nabe no naka nite naku tanishi
night moon--
pond snails crying
in the kettle
Issa
Note
the wonderful sound-play of "nabe no naka nite"! Usually the
alliteration and assonance are more subtle.
naki
nagara mushi no nagaruru ukigi kana
still singing
the insect drifts away...
floating branch
Issa
Note
how the "n" "a" "i" and "u" repeat
musically, creating an interlocking pattern. Alliteration and assonance are
ubiquitous in Issa." (13)
Refrain
The
use of refrain is a well known device to create a repetitive pattern that brings
rhythm and therefore, musicality to the poem. The following are examples that Takiguchi
brings in his WHC lesson
#3.
Yuki
naran sayo no Nakayama yoru naran
It
must be snowing
at Sayo no Nakayama,
it must be night.
Hekigodo
Uragaeshi
mata uragaeshi taiga haku
Sweeping
a big moth,
it turns one side up and then
the other side up.
Maeda
Fura (12)
To
summarize: In Japanese haiku, we can find musicality as a result of the proper
use of certain resources, such as internal rhyme, alliteration, assonance
and refrain. Its rhythm is given by syllable measurement
mainly, with two basic patterns: long-short (12-5) and short-long
(5-12). In the opinion of David Lanoue, "it is interesting that the
Japanese words for poem, uta, and for reciting a poem utau,
signify: song and to sing. Semantically, therefore, a poem is a
song in Japanese." (13)
This
semantic equivalence corresponds to a fact: that poetry in its origin is a song
-- in all cultures. In ancient Greece, poetry was often performed, accompanied
by the lyre. The term, lyrical poetry, specifically retains the common
denominator of poetry and music. Before haiku became independent from haikai-no-renga,
due to the mastery of Basho, there was a long tradition of chanting in the
Japanese Court and also of folk songs. "Before songs were written, the
syllabic pattern was 4 - 6 (or more) patterns. Once they were written and
recited in front of other people in the court, simply recited by heart -- or in
other words, once they began to form poems, it seems that the 5 - 7 syllabic
pattern became dominant. Perhaps none can explain exactly why. It could be that
this 5 - 7 syllable pattern became such because of Japanese language's
linguistic structure." (20) Again, Lanoue agrees that "even the length
of poetic lines may have a close historical relation with both court and folk
song". (13)
Finally, concerning the skills of Japanese high school students of English, a
study made by Mr. Brett Reynolds, Professor of English in Sakuragaoka Girls Jr.
& Sr. High School, Tokyo, Japan, shows that "it takes very little
instruction to get students to notice rhyming and alliteration. With Japanese
students, I have found this even easier than identifying English
syllables." (14) Our first impression is that Japanese people have a
natural and highly developed musical insight that enables them to a quick
recognition of musical devices in the English language; that is, they are used
to musicality in their native language. This research has not being made with
Spanish texts, as far as I know, but I believe, just as a hypothesis that the
results would be similar. To summarize, Japanese language has, as all languages
do, a great potential of musicality in its structure.
Musicality
in Haiku Written in Spanish
As we have seen, the Spanish language has a great number of resources by which
musicality may be brought to poetry. These resources can also be explored and
applied to haiku since they do not break the traditional patterns or essence of
Japanese haiku. The first condition is to use them in a quiet and natural
manner; that is, keeping the balance between musicality and meaning. If
musicality prevails and becomes the goal of a haiku, then it would bring
sophistication and artificiality to it, and the meaning would be lost. If no
degree of musicality appears, the poem may lose its euphonic essence, or the
natural cadence of speech; i.e. it would be only written to transmit an idea.
This would make a verse like any other written text, but not poetry.
Furthermore, if we consider that a minimum of rhythm is necessary to build a
poem, and that rhythm is a first degree of musicality, then it would lose one of
its main points. This is relevant when we have to examine the 5-7-5 pattern in
haiku written in Spanish.
Rhythm: In Spanish, due to its syllabic rhythmic structure, the
5-7-5 format fits, in that there is a poetic form called seguidilla
which has the same syllabic pattern as that of haiku. The main difference is
that it is a stanza of four verses and seven verses, and it always keeps an
assonant rhyme. The four verses called seguidilla simple have the
following pattern: 7-5a'-7-5a' with assonant rhyme in a'. The seven verses
called seguidilla compuesta has a 7-5a'-7-5a'-5b'-7-5b' with assonant
rhyme in a' and b'. It is easy to see that the three last verses of each are
5-7-5 syllables. So, the 5-7-5 haiku syllable format is not an unknown structure
in Spanish poetry, and haiku written in this language can perfectly follow this
rule. Let us see some examples of seguidillas:
seguidilla
simple
Un pajarito alegre 7.-
picó tu boca 5 a'
creyendo que tus labios 7.-
eran dos rosas. 5 a'
(anónimo-popular)
seguidilla compuesta
Una fiesta se hace 7.-
con tres personas: 5 a'
una baila, otra canta, 7.-
y la otra toca. 5 a'
Ya me olvidaba 5 b'
de los que dicen "¡ole!" 7.-
y tocan palmas. 5 b'
(Manuel Machado) (16)
Thus,
the 5-7-5 syllable pattern may be kept in Spanish as a rhythmic resource, in
that there is a traditional stanza poetic form and genre that makes use of it,
as well as the long tradition of meter in Spanish poetry. At the same time, I
must say that according to the haiku written by Ibero-American poets which I
have read, the 5-7-5 syllable pattern is not kept by the majority. Why is this
so? While I have no definite opinion, I do think that in the actual practice,
perhaps a free meter haiku is found by these poets to be more suitable
than the 5-7-5 pattern. The 5-7-5 format may, if kept rigorously, somehow force
the haiku, i.e. using words, somehow artificially, to keep the pattern. Yet it
could be seen as a lack of exercising haiku writing in 5-7-5 until it becomes a
more familiar form. We must also be aware that in the West, the metrical form of
poetry is more an exception than an everyday habit. In the last century, when
meter, as a requirement for writing poetry, was broken, free verse became the
writing technique which almost every poet adopted. Nowadays, when Western poets
write haiku, the paradigm is the one of free verse, not the one of traditional
meter. Anyway, the subject is currently open to debate and exploration.
Rhyme
The
use of rhyme is one of the major ways of bringing musicality to a haiku. The two
standards are consonant and assonant rhyme. Consonant rhyme
in Spanish happens when the last accented vowel of the verse, and all vowels and
consonants that may follow it, are the same in all the rhymed words.(15)
La
playa sola
mecidas por las olas
las caracolas...
This
fine haiku, written by Malena Imas (Uruguay, South America) is a clear example
of consonant rhyme. The musicality here is brought, not only by means of the use
of the consonance, but also as its rhyme merges with the content of the haiku;
that is, the waves of the sea with its natural rhythm, and the landscape of a
seashore in which the conches are gently rocked, as if it where a lullaby...
Internal rhyme (rima interior): the use of a word in the interior
of a verse that rhymes with an other word of the verse.
en
este camino
solo el monótono trino
del teru-teru
Carlos Fleitas
Assonance
and Alliteration
The use of assonance and alliteration can be noticed in the following haiku:
luna
lunera
con su copla plañidera
el gitano te espera
Carlos Fleitas
The
first line uses a musical device resembling an Andalucía's and Lorca's poetical
mood. It stresses the melody of the haiku from the beginning with a reiteration
that is not an adjective by itself, but which plays the part of it. The haiku
also has a consonant rhyme.
alba
de abril
al abrir sus petalos
despierta la rosa
Carlos Fleitas
In
this example the assonance is based mainly, in the sound of an open vowel:
en
la glorieta
ramos de rosas rojas
rodean enamorados
Carlos Fleitas
The
assonance is quite clear in the above poem, especially in the second line.
Refrain
En
noches frías,
en frías noches de invierno
tu compañía.
This
fine haiku by Luis Corrales (Sevilla, España) uses refrain to create a
repetitive rhythmic pattern. Also the reiteration of noches frias, frias
noches reinforces the meaning, stressing not only the coldness of the night
but also the warmness of company. In this way the opposition between
loneliness = coldness and company = warmness is clearly noticeable.
Pauses
The
use of pauses in haiku, when they coincide with natural speech pauses -- or give
closure to an idea, can be a rhythmic resource. Pauses can be placed keeping the
5-7-5 or 12-5 or 5-12 formats depending on the particular haiku. If they
coincide with those mentioned above when using the latter formats, the haiku
will be fluent and natural.
Free-line haiku
In
free-line haiku, the
musicality lies in cadence.
Juan José Tablada or Euterpe goes to Mexico
If Juan José Tablada had written a manifest setting the principles of his haiku
Ars Poetica, certainly he would have paraphrased Shakespeare's Henry V, thus
saying: "Once more unto the lyre, dear friends, once more;" a fair
paraphrase, because Tablada uses an extraordinary range of musical resources in
his haiku. While he lived in Japan for ten months during the year, 1910, he
wrote a poem which is a manifest of his passionate love for Japan and its
culture (19). He wrote a book about Hiroshigue, and as O.Paz states, he was the
first Spanish poet to write haiku in Ibero-America. Paz also tells us that
Tablada called his haiku, haikai, and that he was right calling them so,
because his poems are not linked as in haikai-no-renga. Rather, they are
independent one from another, as haiku. Still, the content of his haiku-haikai
is similar to those of traditional haikai-no-renga -- a "witty mood,
irony and love for brilliant images." (18) Although Tablada does not keep
the 5-7-5 meter, he seems not to mind doing so. Paz presents an exception in the
following haiku:
Trozos
de barro
Por la senda en penumbra
Saltan los sapos. (18)
Paz
calls this haiku "a perfect matching between meter and real poetry"
(18). It is noticeable that, in the last line, alliteration is used by Tablada
with a minimum of assonance in the open sound of the vowel, a. The use of
open vowel sounds is somewhat a constant in a great number of his haiku.
Sometimes he gives the impression of being deeply interested, not only in the
meaning of words, but also in phonemes. Musicality, to him, is of great
importance for meaning and he employs it with an incredible mastery due to the
fact that it adds sparks and brilliancy to the witty contents of his haiku.
Recorriendo
su tela
Esta luna clarísima
Tiene a la araña en vela. (19)
This
haiku is full of serene humor. The use of rhyme and assonance is clearly
noticeable. Tablada does not keep the 5-7-5 format. Instead, he builds perfect
rhythm by using natural pauses of speech. The three moments of the haiku, as
marked by the pauses, are perfectly linked, and a natural, spontaneous fluency
takes command of the poem. Musicality and meaning join in perfect matrimony
here.
Tierno
saúz:
casi oro, casi ambar,
casi luz. (18)
In
this wonderful haiku, Tablada uses the word casi to make repetitive
sound, creating a musical rhythmic effect. The example could also be included as
a one which uses the anaphora, mentioned earlier. The musicality issues
from the repetition of phonemes for sonority in the word casi. For
reinforcement, he creates consonance with saúz and luz, so that
the haiku has a perfect resolution.
Tablada had a great affection for visual arts. He gathered more than a thousand
Japanese prints. This passion is somehow reflected in his haiku; the images are
lively, full of sensual impressions, they even seem to have a texture.
Sensibility yes, but also full of sensations.
Tablada
worked as a journalist and was "devoured by journalism," as O. Paz
states. (18). He died in 1945, and his work had an immense influence in the new
generations of poets. His legacy, as Paz tell us, is to set in his haiku, a
principle that poets sometimes forget: "the correspondence between what
words say, and what the eyes see" (18). Being so, his work is one of the
highest peaks in written Spanish poetry, enough to refresh once and again the
path of haiku …
References:
(1) SYMPOSIUM
by Plato translated by Benjamin Jowett.
Plato developed a high esteem for poets because in the Lysis he states:
"and see what the poets have to say; for they are to us in a manner the
fathers and authors of wisdom…" But finally in his last opus "The
Republic" he expels them from his ideal polis.
Lysis,
by Plato translated by Benjamin Jowett:
(2) Dr. Richard Hooker: Ancient Japan; The Earliest Japanese Music.
(3)
Translation from Musica
by Rudolf Stephan, Compañía General Fabril Editora Buenos Aires 1964.
(4) Terms
for Literary Study
(5) Encyclopedia Brittanica: Poetry
(6) Translation from Analysis
Poético 1
: "The term poetry generally describes written texts that follow a
rhyme, a rhythm or a meter in reiterated patterns that relate words by its sound
as well as by its meaning. And they are many rhyme and meter formats"
(7) Translation from El
Ritmo
(8) Translation from: Como
escribir un soneto
(9) Translation from: Rima
y estrofas
(10) Japanese
Language
(11) Octavio Paz, Tres
momentos de la Literatura Japonesa
(12) Takiguchi Susumu : Japanese
Traditional Haiku School Lesson 3, World Haiku Review Volume 1, Issue 1, May
2001
(13) This information was kindly given to me by the well-known scholar, Prof.
David Lanoue in reply to questions I asked him concerning this topic. Haiku
of Kobayashi Issa (website)
(14) Brett Reynolds, Phonological
Awareness in EFL Reading Acquisition, Sakuragaoka Girls Jr. &
Sr. High School, Tokyo, Japan
Although
not being a scholar in Japanese Literature, Prof Reynolds finds that: “Assonanace
does occur in poetry. It generally manifests itself in the repetition of
syllables like the ki in the following line: Ki o kiki ni kita. The first ki is
the word for tree. O is a grammatical marker which follows the object or patient
of the sentence. The third word is the nominalized form of the word kiku,
meaning to listen. Finally, kita is the past tense of the verb kuru, to come.
Thus, the line means: (I) came to listen to the tree(s)."
(15) Spanish
Prosody: A magnificent study of Spanish Prosody
(16) La
Poesía
(17) Meter
(18) Octavio Paz, Eikichi Hayashiya: Matsuo Basho. Sendas de Oku.Barral
Editores Barcelona 1970 pgs. 18 -26.
(19) To read an excellent selection of his haiku you can go to: Pagina
para honrar al gran poeta mexicano Juan Jose Tablada.
La
Poetas: A site
dedicated to Ibero American poets
(20) Hirano
Hideaki, Prof., Hosei University, Tokyo, Japan.
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