Page:Japanese Literature (Keene).pdf/41

Rh the truth, taught him by an experience, nor even in what way it affected him. Thus, for example, the haiku by Bashō (1644–94): A Western poet would probably have added a personal conclusion, as did D. H. Lawrence in his Moonrise, where he tells us that the sight made him “sure that beauty is a thing beyond the grave, that perfect bright experience never falls to nothingness”. But this is what no Japanese poet would say explicitly; either his poem suggests it, or it fails. The verse of Bashō’s just quoted has clearly failed if the reader believes that the poet remained impassive before the spectacle he describes. Even for readers sensitive to the suggestive qualities of the poem, the nature of the truth perceived by Bashō in the sudden apparition of the moonlit mountain will vary considerably. Indeed, Bashō would have considered the poem faulty, if it suggested only one experience of truth. What Japanese poets have most often sought is to create with a few words, usually with a few sharp images, the outline of a work whose details must be supplied by the reader, as in a Japanese painting a few strokes of the brush must suggest a whole world.

It is partially because of this feature of suggestion that Japanese poetry is communicated rather inadequately into English. The Western reader is often in the position of the lover of Russian ballet who watches for the first time the delicate gesture-language of the Balinese dance—no leaps, no arabesques, no entrechats, nothing of the medium with which he is familiar save for the grace and the movement. The dance—or Japanese poetry—may appear over-refined, wanting in real vigour, monotonous,