Comme le haïku est un poème très court, il exige parfois des connaissances culturelles et historiques pour une bonne compréhension. Un des haïku les plus connus, "Herbes d'été" de Bashô est un bon exemple.
remains of our soldiers and the dream summer grass
なつく さやつ は もの ども が ゆめ の あと
Natsukusa tsuwamono-ya-domo-ga Yume no-ato
Herbs summer, traces of a dream warriors. The
hiragana are "correct" way.つ わ もの is writing after the reform (catastrophe) of 1945, which is not appropriate for the transcription of classical literature *.
First, we take a look at the phonetic character. Of these seventeen syllables there are six syllables with the vowel o , much has four u and a single e .
The first five syllables are dominated by a vowel , seven are characterized by the following o constant, and the last five are working the mouth with four different vowels. The absence of i is noticed. If the consonant
acute ts appears twice in the beginning, the second half is rather marked by nasal consonants (m the the n and g , delivered ng ). We can say that the tone of this haiku is very soft ( a, o, m, n ).
And then, some attention is applied to the vocabulary used.
The word " tsuwamono " really means the "warriors", mostly because of the use of Chinese character 兵, but the word itself means "strong and powerful man." We could choose the kanji 强者 for the same word.
" Domo" is a suffix that indicates the plural, which is not required to Japanese grammar; He said the large number of warriors.
" Yume" is a dream and a dream at a time, and this is a project ever undertaken in vain.
The word "atomic " is the most problematic of this haiku. I must emphasize especially because this kind of pseudo-disambiguation is not French. In Japanese, the same word is often referred to by different kanji , to distinguish several meanings. Sometimes we write sometimes 后 迹 (or 痕) for the word "atomic " but they are not different words. That is why we must say that these are pseudo-homonyms. The kanji
used here means "trace, impression, trace," but the other character 后 means "later time, back behind." We must say that a Japanese word has several senses, and the distinction is shown by the use of different characters.
Basho wrote this haiku in Hiraizumi in the Tohoku region (which means "Northeast"). This region was de facto independent Central Policy until the end of the twelfth century, although the first "big army chief winner of the barbarians" ( Seiya-tai-shogun ) of Japanese history, Sakanoue Tamuramaro-no, is the conquered in the early nineteenth century. The twelfth century saw the end of the empire whose capital was Kyoto, and the first shogunate in the history was founded in Kamakura in 1192. The shogun, who was previously the head of the army (as opposed to the emperor and aristocrats), is seen now in the seat of the head of state, whose title is Seiya-tai-shogun . (The word shogun mean precisely the army chief.) Minamoto-no Yoritomo
, who became the first shogun head of state in history, wanted to drive before setting up his shogunate's first rival was none other than his own brother Yoshitsune, very popular among the people because of its graceful and cultivated character, unlike his elder in sanguine and cruel. Yoshitsune filed for protection from the lord of Hiraizumi Fujiwara, who bore the same name as the powerful aristocrats of Kyoto, which represent the golden age of the capital. (To distinguish Fujiwara of Kyoto, it is called Oshu-Fujiwara. Oshu [province deep] is the former name of the region. It is assumed that he had no kinship with the clan of Kyoto, even if it showed itself lord protector of the north to the same name.) At the time, Oshu-Fujiwara was very rich and powerful, especially with export of gold nuggets, while Kyoto fell into decay. (Some believe the image of Japan as a country described by Marco Polo Gold was inspired by the gold trade Oshu-Fujiwara.) It was the most powerful lordship of Japan at the time . Yoshitsune, which will be a favorite hero of popular fiction, committed suicide Hiraizumi, but Yoritomo who feared the power-Oshu Fujiwara destroyed the manor grounds that it had protected his brother Yoshitsune enemy. It's just after the fall of that Oshu Fujiwara-Yoritomo founded his shogunate in Kamakura. (I'm sorry that I always repeat the same story in this blog ...)
Almost five centuries after the fall of Oshu-Fujiwara, Basho and escape the urban life of the capital Edo (old name of Tokyo), has wanted to find poetry in the region now wild and poor, who will never recover the prosperity of Oshu-Fujiwara. He visited the site only to find herbs of summer, which keeps nothing of legendary power. Summer is short like a dream in the northern region. Just as the golden age of Oshu-Fujiwara, who lasted less than a hundred years. The prosperity is like a dream, this dream was also a dream warriors, who believed qu'Ôshû remain a lordship of the most powerful of Japan, which could compete with the capital. But the area was dilapidated and abandoned by the central government at the time when the poet lived. The word "atomic " here means the "vestige of the city" but it would mean both that the poet is located on the site long after ( ato ) the fall of the city.
Even now, the Tohoku region (formerly Oshu) is the poorest of Japan, and the powers of the past remain a dream. However, Hiraizumi is a historic landmark and tourist attraction. Although the castle was destroyed by the Minamoto, temples (Motsu-ji-ji and Chuson) make us see the majesty of the time.
As an anecdote, I might add that the Aum sect, which has carried out a deadly attack in the Tokyo subway in 1995 was inspired by a most unlikely story of an independent country in this region of Tohoku (Aomori) who have prospered in the fourteenth century. It is a unique area in Japan that could inspire the rebels who rose against the central power **. (In saying this, I do not endorse any of the terrorists.)
If you want to talk about what haiku by Basho, one should not neglect the influence of the Chinese poet Du Fu (712-770) of the era Tang Dynasty, especially appreciated by the Japanese (who call To Ho). Here are the opening lines of his most famous poem in Japan.
defeated country in
City spring grass deep ***
States broke レ Te mountains and rivers in the リ
City Spring ニ シ Te deep vegetation シ
Kuni yaburété sanga ari.
Shiro haru-ni shité sômoku fukashi.
Le pays est ruiné, montagnes et fleuves subsistent.
La cité est au printemps, herbes et arbres sont touffus.
Bashô a fait rimer son haïku with this poem that the Japanese loved to recite, he was quoting sneaked into prose that preceded it. It borrows the idea of the great haiku poet Chinese who regretted his country battered by contemplating the ruin of the capital Xian. If this haiku is widely known and appreciated is that it represents the human nature of Basho, who lack other Haijin gifted to the description as Buson.
(Teaching of the Japanese language is divided into three parts in high school: Japanese modern, ancient Japanese and Chinese letters. These "Chinese letters" ( Kanbun ) are another discipline Chinese literature itself. This is a study of classical Chinese literature adopted by the Japanese, with all endorsements. No knowledge of Chinese language is required there, but you have to understand the system annotations ****. Whatever people say, I can say without hesitation that the Japanese know more contemporary Chinese poems by heart, but no western poem. This is perhaps true to say that many Japanese love the modern West and do not like China, but this preference is futile. They are always deeply and essentially imbued with Chinese culture.)
* If I use the modified Hepburn transcription in this blog, only not to confuse readers. The roma-ji Hepburn, the English phonetic transcription and grammatical way, nothing is totally appropriate. It seems that some think that the transcript Hepburn is "correct" but they need to know: The roma-ji Hepburn is not even the roma-ji that schoolchildren learn in education Japanese. They learn roma-ji called kunrei , which is more grammatical or more scientific Hepburn. The roma-ji Hepburn is that the transcript is used purely as a convention, unfortunately adopted by the Foreign Ministry for passports. It is true that the roma-ji Hepburn is also widely used in the field of cartography, but this does not mean that it is a good method of transcription. Transcription kunrei , much better than Hepburn, and better suited to learning Japanese, has no irregularities as ch, sh, ts, f, j . This
called Hepburn system of transcription is marked by time as well. Even as a phonetic transcription, he now faults. Do not be surprised if the Japanese do not pronounce the f when they pronounce the name of Mount Fuji ( Huzi , according to a transcript kunrei ). At the time of Hepburn, the Japanese still pronounced f before the vowel u , but the consonant has now disappeared. The f gradually transformed into h, and Hepburn attended the transition period. This letter f has no more reason than history, find themselves in the transcription of the Japanese language. (The phonetics would perhaps disagree with me.)
We should have transcribed this consonant rather than by the pH f because it was not a labio-dental consonant but lip. The sound has changed in the p pm, via f ( ph). If the pronunciation of hiragana is ば ba is that は pa was originally. We had to reinvent ぱ ( pa), because the consonant p was lost because of this change. It is normal that this consonant is rare in the Japanese language, since it has gone once. I do
Nor that the roma-ji kunrei is the correct transcription. The correct transcription of the Japanese does not exist, just as for Arabic and Russian. There is no reason that the French respect the Hepburn method, invented by an English missionary. It is frankly ridiculous to me. To avoid the tragedy of the word kamikaze, he should at least change it cursed francophones roma-ji . If you write Pushkin thinking of the great Russian writer Pushkin, you have reason to prefer the strain sushi (the word is susi by roma-ji kunrei ). The apparent absurdity of this sentence is appropriate. It is nonsense to say that the Russian writer Pushkin called, but not Pushkin, while his real name is written in Cyrillic letters. For transcription of Japanese words is the same. If you really believe that the transcript gaijin is more correct than gaïdjin , you simply accept the Anglo-Saxon supremacy. The method kunrei that schoolchildren learn to elementary schools, is that the word be transcribed as gaizin . Why prefer Anglo-Saxon transcript to the policy of Japanese education? There are twenty
systems roma-ji , and attempts at improvement are not uncommon. That the transcript is the Hepburn roma-ji correct is very far from reality, and it's just a great contempt for the people who make efforts to find a better method of transcription. The reality is that only the gaijin that comply with the system Hepburn! You can still use the roma-ji Hepburn, but you must know that this is a convention. If you do not like it, you can invent a French system for transcription. In my opinion, it is necessary. What are you waiting for? ** It
could say that the Tohoku region ("Northeast") remained a more or less unyielding to the end of the sixteenth century. Hideyoshi, who was named winner of the great shogun barbarians "after one hundred years of civil war, boasted of having conquered the region in a letter. What attracts our attention in this writing is the name used to designate the Northeast. He talks about Hinomoto [" Finomoto " at the time], which means "Where the sun rises." This word is reading kun-yomi of kanji 日本 (Nihon [ Nifon ] or Nippon ), the name of the country. If you think about it a while, you can easily imagine that the name "Rising Sun" can be the name invented by a Japanese living in Japan. Indeed, the sun rises in the direction of Japan, if you are in China. But for the Japanese, the sun rises in the Pacific Ocean ... Thus one can think that at the time of Hideyoshi, the word Nihon [ Nifon ] or Nippon was far from being used as the name of the country and the rising sun just meant the North East for someone like Hideyoshi, a uneducated man in western Japan. I think that had he been of Chinese culture, he would not use the word Hinomoto ("Where the sun rises") to designate the North East.
(There are people who claim that the pronunciation Nippon is more correct than Nihon , because this one is older than this one. I do not understand the logic. In this case, is speak it better than the old Japanese modern Japanese? In my opinion, Nippon is simply a name that most patriotic Nihon .)
*** Here is the complete poem.
Spring Watch
defeated country in the spring of deep vegetation
City spent irrigation 涙
flu birds do not hate the flames with startling
March
Letters from home
bald Sao To numerous shorter
muddy hairpin
**** Les annotations des lettres chinoises sont toujours en katakana . On ne doit pas oublier que c'était l'emploi principal des katakana . Si vous croyez que les katakana ne sont pas important in learning the Japanese language is that you ignore the importance of Chinese letters in Japanese civilization.
