Of all the ancient cultures and traditions, it is perhaps premodern Japanese culture of a thousand years ago which has the closest connection to nature. The role of nature is woven into the human experience making the natural world an extension of a person. There is a deep connection between interior states of Japanese poets and writers in their literature to be represented by the meteorological conditions and beauty of plant and animal life. To fully understand the depth of this connection between nature and life, literature and the ancient Japanese religion of Shintoism are a window into the animist beliefs which informed the literature and poetry of the time.
During the Heian period, there is a strong connection between the natural world and daily life. This connection, while it has changed in its expression over the centuries, has remained consistent in its enduring expression in the unique aesthetic sensibilities found within Japanese culture. The period of consideration for this essay is while the is the Heian Period. Theodore Barry writes of that time that the elements that defined it has not only persisted into modern times, but has traveled from the elite classes to all of the social classes. He writes, “The hackneyed imagery of Heian poetry—the falling of the cherry blossoms, the reddening of the autumn leaves, and the rest—has become very much a part of even the least aesthetic of Japanese” (Barry, 176).
The intense connection between natures went so far as to be a metric for judging a certain work. One of the literary critical terms at the time, aware, had deep connections to nature in its connotation. Since this was one of the leading lenses to critically analyze the work, how evocative fiction or poetry was of nostalgia for nature was how the work was ranked. Theodore Barry observes in “Sources of Japanese Tradition” that aware as a concept stemmed from the connection humans to the natural world. Barry cites a 763 AD inscription, which describes aware as the feeling one feels when seeing the spring rain.
The street in Japanese literature appears to go both ways. Humans’ interior state is profoundly affected by the natural world, and human’s interior state is reflected by the natural world. A study of the dominant religious tradition of the time, Shintoism, further elucidates this fact. Shintoism is a religious tradition, which can be traced back in Japan as long ago as 1000 BCE. The belief system believes spirits in the natural world, kamis, which exists in natural places like mountains, stones, plants, rivers, streams, and animals. Shintoism is not a set of belief that decode the world. Rather, it is prescriptive belief system, which lays down a set of standards that humans should follow for communicating with spirits in the natural world. Kami are not gods; they are spiritual creatures, which have an interest in the affairs of human beings. Revered properly, they can bestow benefits on people who revere them. But they can also inflict harm.
In the Pillow Book by Sei Shonagon, interior states of human beings can be ascertained by their describing of natural settings. The tradition of the Heian Period is similar in some ways to the Western Confessional poetry. The writer’s emotions are on their sleeves. There is also a deterministic undercurrent to Heian poetry and literature. The natural world does profoundly affect the state of humans. Forces outside of human control though govern the natural world. The result is that if the natural world bears on the interior mood of a human being, and if the natural world’s whims cannot be controlled, than neither can the emotions of human beings who must endure changing interior states like changing seasons.
In The Pillow Book’s section “In Spring It Is The Dawn” the speaker says, “In spring it is the dawn that is most beautiful. As the light creeps over the hills, their outlines are dyed a faint red and wisps of purplish could trails over them” (Shonagan, 21). Even though, this is only a description of hills at dawn, it opens a window into the interior state of the speaker. The speaker feels a joy at seeing the dawn in spring, and that joy is what makes the vision beautiful. This works both ways though, and there is delight as well as tragedy that Heian writers experience from their relation to the natural world.
A deep appreciation of the natural world in premodern Japanese writing explains why Japanese art, poetry and culture is still very much interwoven with a beauty in the natural world. For Japanese, the natural world is not something external to be observed, but something emotive and intimate, which shares part of their everyday life. This can be found in the religious tradition of Japan and also in its literary tradition, where the merits of a work is judged by its relationship to the natural world and the feelings it brings forth from it.
Works Cited
Barry, Theodore . Sources of Japanese Tradition. New York: Columbia University Press, 0. Print.
Moriss, Ivan . The Pillow Book of Sei Shonagon. New York : Colombia University Press, 1991. Print.
