Haiku
This article is about the poem form. See also: Haiku (operating system) or Haikou (disambiguation).
Haiku (jap. 俳句; plural: haiku, also: haikus) is a traditional Japanese poetic form that is now common throughout the world. The haiku (or haiku) is considered the shortest poem form in the world.
Among the most important haiku poets are Matsuo Bashō (1644-1694), Yosa Buson (1716-1783), Kobayashi Issa (1763-1827), and Masaoka Shiki (1867-1902). Bashō, with his students, renewed haikai poetry and enabled it to be recognized as serious literature. Shiki is considered the founder of modern haiku. It was he who coined the term haiku (as opposed to the older haikai or hokku).
Japanese haiku usually consist of three word groups of 5 - 7 - 5 syllables (more precisely: moren), where the words in the word groups are strung together vertically. However, there are critical voices about the distribution of syllables such as Vicente Haya or Jaime Lorente. An indispensable part of haiku is concreteness and the reference to the present. Especially traditional haiku indicate a season with the kigo. Another characteristic is the unfinished, open text, which is only completed in the reader's experience. Not everything is said in the text, feelings are rarely named. They should only be revealed through the concrete things listed and the context.
One part of the haijin (haiku authors) distinguishes the haiku from the Senryū. The other part sees haiku as the generic term. Formally, both are identical, since their characteristics are brevity, concreteness, presentness and openness. Accordingly, haiku that are more personal and emotional are called senryū.
In German, haiku are usually written in three lines. Until the turn of the millennium, the standard was 5-7-5 syllables. However, most German-speaking haijin have moved away from this. They point out that Japanese sound units are all the same length and carry less information than syllables in European languages. For example, "Stockholm" has two syllables but six moren. 17 Japanese phonetic units are roughly equivalent to the information content of 10-14 German syllables. Therefore, it has become common practice among many haiku writers of European languages to get by with less than 17 syllables without losing the content of the thought process or the image shown.
Modern haiku schools around the world are also questioning not only the traditional forms, but also some of the rules of text composition, and are trying to break new ground.
Haiku by Yosa Buson
Structure
Japanese poetry is not syllable-counting, but quantizing. A haiku according to the traditional model consists of a verse of three word groups with five, seven and five Japanese mors: 5-7-5. In translations or imitations in European languages, the haiku appears as a three-liner according to these word groups.
A Japanese syllable carries one mora if the vowel is short and the syllable sounds open. A long vowel carries two mora. An n at the end of a syllable or a doubled consonant (sokuon, literally "stressed sound") also carries a mora. Most pure Japanese words consist of syllables with one mora. Syllables with multiple mora are mostly of Sino-Japanese origin.
Example:
Nippon wa is the first line of a haiku and consists of five moren as follows:
| Hiragana | に | っ | ぽ | ん | |
| Rōmaji | Ni | p | po | n | wa |
Influence of Buddhism
Chan Buddhism (Zen Buddhism in Japan), which came to Japan from China, also influenced haiku poetry. Some haiku, which at first glance seem to describe only natural or everyday events, also reveal a religious meaning at second glance. A haiku by Ryōkan, for example, refers to Zen Buddhism in addition to the experience of a full moon night:
Blankets on the grass,
a night without a house -rich
only by the moon.
The moon (as a full moon) symbolically stands as an empty circle (Ensō) for Zen Buddhism and the dwelling without a house under the open sky indicates the so-called houseless state of a Buddhist monk. The influence of Wang Wei's poems, who had turned to Chan Buddhism, as a model for a haiku by Joseki is also clear.
I want to play it
now that the moon and I are all
alone.
By "her" is meant a large, thirteen-stringed Japanese zither called a koto. Here the moon is again a symbol of Zen Buddhism, where being alone is sitting in meditation (zazen). There is a very similar poem by Wang Wei with the same meaning:
Sitting lonely in the deep dark bamboo grove,Strumming
the zither with lilting song,
Around this deep forest men know not,
Only the full moon comes with its glow
Playing the zither has a meditative meaning for Chinese artists and offers a possibility of immersion and becoming one with the Dao.
Especially in the US haiku scene of the 1970s, haiku and Zen were often seen as inseparable. Richard Gilbert says about this in an interview with Udo Wenzel:
"I think the question of Zen in haiku, or meditation and poetry (and the arts) is a touchy one and slips into ethereal heights, losing its soul in the process. I don't think there is a 'Zen haiku' as such, only people who think it is what they are. Haiku exist that are directly related to the Zen experience, just as there are baseball haiku and tennis haiku. Nevertheless, there is a long and venerable history of Zen interpretation, or 'Zen reading' or 'Zen contemplation' of haiku, though generally not outside Zen institutions.
A somewhat similar interpretive approach can be found in R.H. Blyth, whose multi-volume work had a direct influence on the 'beat poets' (as described in Jack Kerouac's novel 'The Dharma Bums'.
Because of this interpretive focus, it seems that historically, at least in North America, a gesture resembling Zen has been overemphasized at times, to the point that the most important purpose, indeed, the grandeur of haiku as a literary art form has been suppressed and greatly misinterpreted. Blyth himself, regardless of his brilliance and knowledge of Zen, was not a Zen practitioner in the traditional Japanese sense, if by that we mean someone who practices meditation within a school and lineage, under the tutelage of a teacher who is generally recognized for having accomplished Zen practice. Neither do much of the Western commentators who applied Zen-like modes of interpretation to haiku."
Questions and Answers
Q: What is haiku?
A: Haiku is a type of poetry originating in Japan that traditionally follows a 5-7-5 syllable structure and includes a special season word to represent the time of year or nature.
Q: Who named haiku?
A: The Japanese writer Masaoka Shiki named haiku at the end of the 19th century.
Q: What is the traditional structure of a hokku?
A: The traditional hokku usually consisted of six verses or less, with a 5-7-5 syllable structure and following on-ji.
Q: What is a mora?
A: A mora is a phonetic unit in Japanese, similar but not identical to the syllable in English, represented by the Japanese word "cow".
Q: What is the purpose of a season word in haiku?
A: The purpose of a season word, or kigo, in haiku is to represent the season in which the poem is set or reference the natural world.
Q: What is kireji?
A: Kireji is a special break in haiku, usually placed at the end of the first five or second seven morae. In English haiku, kireji is often replaced with punctuation such as commas, hyphens, or breaks.
Q: How is haiku traditionally formatted in Japanese and English languages?
A: Japanese haiku are normally written in one line, while English language haiku are traditionally separated into three lines.
