American Haiku, Eastern Philosophies, and Modernist Poetics
Format:Hardback
Publisher:Bloomsbury Publishing PLC
Published:29th Oct '20
Currently unavailable, and unfortunately no date known when it will be back
American Haiku, Eastern Philosophies, and Modernist Poetics traces the genesis and development of haiku in Japan as it transformed over the years and eventually made its way to the Western world. Yoshinobu Hakutani analyzes the prominent Eastern philosophies expressed through haiku, such as Confucianism and Zen, and the aesthetic principles of yugen, sabi, and wabi. Hakutani discusses several reinventions of haiku, from Matsuo Basho’s transformation of the classic haiku, to Masaoka Shiki’s modernist perspectives expressing subjective thoughts and feelings, and eventually to Yone Noguchi’s introduction of haiku to the Western world through W. B. Yeats and Ezra Pound. Hakutani argues that the adoption and transformation of haiku is one of the most popular East-West artistic, cultural, and literary exchanges to have taken place in modern and postmodern times.
This comprehensive study sheds new light on the development of modernism, especially in Japanese, American, and African American haiku poetry. Hakutani’s discussion of Yone Noguchi’s influence on Ezra Pound significantly revises our understanding of how Imagism emerged, and he persuasively demonstrates Richard Wright’s engagement with classic haiku poets as well as modernists such as Masaoka Shiki and T. S. Eliot. Hakutani’s deep knowledge of Buddhist and Confucian philosophies, and of the aesthetics of haiku, the blues, and jazz, makes him an indispensable guide to the cross-cultural poetic achievements of W. B. Yeats, Jack Kerouac, Sonia Sanchez, James Emanuel, and others. -- Anita Patterson, Boston University
ISBN: 9781793634504
Dimensions: 228mm x 161mm x 25mm
Weight: 531g
236 pages