CopyRight YANABU Akira
CopyRight YANABU Akira
TD ๖ค iren'ai, lovej
| Kitamura Tokoku and the destiny of ren'ai
What is ren'ai ? It is to love man and woman each other, or other definitions and explanations, but I will describe it here, ren'ai is an idea imported from abroad. It is necessary, I believe, to think of ren'ai from such a viewpoint. Why? Because ren'ai is the same as bi and kindai, a translating word. Through this translating word we once knew ren'ai about a century ago. Before that time, thereby there had never been ren'ai in Japan.
But men and women had existed, and they must have loved each other, the love poems of Manyoshu * were composed, such sort of objections
ought to be anticipated. That is true, they were told with words such as koi, ai, jyou or iro * in our country, not with ren'ai.
In 1890, Iwamoto Zenji wrote in "Jyogaku zasshi (girl students' magazine)" which he edited, an essay criticizing the translation of "Red Star Lily in the Valley" and said as follows:
Criticizing the translation, I say nothing but its writing style. I will say still more what is impressive and what I cannot approve, that is, the skill of the translator who rendered most purely and rightly the feeling of 'rabu * (ren'ai )', through which
he agreeably used this Japanese popular word which has associated with dirty feeling. For instance:
My life has been sustained by this love, love is my life and nothing is pleasure or hope for me but love.c You have truly cut a man's intestines in pieces. You have ruined my life.
Such as above, there is the proper expression in English, however so far Japanese men have done ren'ai only superficially, they have never loved deeply with their souls, hence there have been little examples using such a word seriously.
Here appeared the word 'rabu (ren'ai )' and the writer thought it to be different from 'Japanese popular word which had associated with dirty feeling' like 'koi' and so on. Love and 'Japanese popular' koi were different, the new word must have been created thereby, that was the word ren'ai .
Being based on ren'ai , it was superior to koi 'with dirty feeling', ren'ai was thought to be higher grade and higher valued. The difference was resulted from that ren'ai had the meaning of 'purely and rightly' 'loved deeply with their souls'. And the fact which love-ren'ai meant was thought to have existed of course in the West, but not, or hardly in Japan. In the end, ren'ai was higher valued but the fact this word meant did not existed in Japan, thus the advanced intellectual of the day, Iwamoto Zenji believed.
This ren'ai view of Iwamoto Zenji was, I believe, fairly reasonable in a sense. That the meaning content communicated by ren'ai did not existed in Japan is reasonable, because ren'ai was a coinage of that time hence there had never been the meaning to this word. The same is true that before knowing the word shakai there had not been its meaning and not the meaning of bi either.
And then, that ren'ai was higher valued and koi etc. were lower valued is, calmly thinking, of course not right. This is however, the error which we have often committed when the things of the advanced culture were received through the translating words. Nevertheless that ren'ai and koi are different not because of being higher valued or lower valued, but being different at any rate is right. And as Iwamoto explained on this difference that ren'ai was 'loved deeply with their souls' can be thought to be fairly reasonable.
In English there is a word closely akin to love, that is 'romance'.
A romance is a love tale, the origin of which derived from the tales of knighthood in the Middle Ages. "Knights of the Round Table" is a type of this kind. A knight passed by a castle, of which balcony over there appeared a beautiful lady. She threw a scarf. The knight received it, then started on an excursion for adventure. On the way in the wood, he encountered a giant and fought a duel with him. The knight defeated the giant, but did not kill him. Having made him surrender, the knight ordered him to go to the lady reporting his message to her. The above was the pattern of such tales.
At first a beautiful lady existed. She appeared from faraway. A man would not approach her, but went away, besides, at the risk of his life. Soon he would return to the beauty in the end of his adventure, I will pay attention however to the beginning form of the tale especially. At the background of such tales, there had been basically the worship for the Virgin Mary and Crusade, namely, Christianity.
'The eternal feminine' is, as Goethe told in "Faust", the being that leads a man from faraway. The leading being not exist near by. A man admire her because she is faraway, even she is nearby however, he want to put her far-off. A man wish to put his love close by, hence only however, never have begun the type of Western love. The knight started for adventure from the castle the lady lived, thus dared to create the faraway lady. Even if soon physical love would begin, apart from it, love of 'soul' admiring the faraway lady existed.
On the other side, in Japan there have never been such type of tales. The love poems of Manyoshuu, nearly all of them expressed the pleasure or sorrow after couples had plighted. For a lover in Manyoshuu, his love was not faraway, she was not the being of only 'soul' apart from her body. There were seldom even in Manyoshuu, some poems which admired girls whom men had met only one time, having read them attentively however, 'met' seemed to mean to have had intercourse. On the thinking of Iwamoto in which love was understood as 'loved deeply with their souls', I never fail to think these circumstances. Love is not the matter of soul only, there is the thinking way however, to distinguish soul from body, there. It is contrastive to our Japanese traditional koi and ai which have treated heart and body as one matter. It may be natural that there was a ren'ai view which emphasized in particular soul only.
Since when the word ren'ai has been used? I will look back upon the history of translation of love and other equivalent Western words.
In various Eika jiten (English-Chinese dictionary) used well since the beginning of modern times, the word ren'ai appeared. But it was the translation of love as verb, not as noun. In "Eika jiten" by Medhurst (1847-48), translation of 'to love' was ค (to have affection), D (to like), คษ (to regret), ๖ค etc., translation of love as noun was ค๎ (affection), (favor), m (benevolence), and no ๖ค. "Eika jiten" by Lobsheid (1866-69) was nearly the same as the above too.
In Japanese dictionaries, in "Oranda jii (Dutch vocabulary)", the translation of liefde was chouai # (favor), aikei # (respect), jin # . In "Futsugo meiyo (French elucidation)", amour was koi, ai, koigami # (god of love). In "Eiwa taiyaku shuuchin jisho (English- Japanese portable dictionary)", love was ai, koi, zaiho # (treasure). The first when in Japanese dictionary ren'ai have appeared may have been in "Futsuwa jirin (French-Japanese dictionary)" by Futstgakujuku (1887),amour was ren'ai, shouai # (loving deeply), kouai # (liking), ai etc.
The real example of the translating word ren'ai was rare before the instance of Iwamoto Zenji mentioned above. Maybe the first example was in "Saigoku risshi hen $" translated by Nakamura Masanao from
S.Smiles: Self-help (1859), there was written as follows:
Lee once saw a girl in the village, and loved her deeply,
In the source text, the corresponding phrase was:
to have fallen deeply in love with a young lady of the village,
'Love' is a noun here, but in the translation above, this word was rendered as a verb, which must have been influenced by "Eika jiten" mentioned above. ren'ai introduced by Iwamoto was, following its genealogy, seemed to be influenced by "Eika jiten" too.
But ren'ai by Iwamoto was epoch-making in the history of our ren'ai. At first, he affirmed ren'ai directly, which was in particular in the background of that time epoch-making.
ren'ai is especially the theme of novels. Since the end of the Tokugawa era till the beginning of the Meiji era, many Western books were translated and introduced however, novels were not so many. Though some novels were translated, they were adventure novels like "Robinson Crusoe" or political novels. In short, it was the time of men. For the men who were busy in founding a nation, novels or ren'ai were being put aside. Even ren'ai in "Saigoku risshihen", which appeared only once in the book, was used in such a way as the boy Lee did ren'ai, however a girl did not accepted him being busy in her job knitting socks, then he made up his mind to invent the automatic machine of knitting socks.
Iwamoto Zenji's "Jogaku zasshi (Girl students' magazine)" was making the base of resistance as hard as possible in the time of men.
ren'ai became the central theme about after the introduction of ren'ai mentioned above, being lead and supported by Iwamoto, the contributions of ren'ai argument were frequently carried, which Kitamura Tokoku succeeded, and soon the time of romanticism flourished in Japan.
Well then, the issue here is the translating word ren'ai, namely the question of language. The thinking and the feature of ren'ai which had succeeded from Iwamoto and Tokoku to the Japanese literature in a period has been usually studied from the viewpoint of literature or history, which is of course important. On the other hand however, I would research it from the viewpoint of the translating word.
One month later after that essay of Iwamoto in "Jogaku zasshi", a contribution titled 'Philosophy of ren'ai " by named Aizansei who seemed young was carried, after arguing passionately, in the conclusion of which he wrote:
Oh ren'ai, thou revolutionize the spirit and the body of people!
Thou develop the new field of tastes and imagination! Oh ren'ai,
thou create heroes and great men, thou unite families and nation! I aspire to appear a great poet compose thee and make many little families stare in astonishment.
This was really abrupt and ludicrous, crying in postural and crude style such as 'ren'ai that creates heroes and great men,' etc. The logic was of course jumping, what did he think ren'ai.
Not only this man, but many Japanese of the day were, so to speak taught ren'ai that could be affirmed in a dignified attitude. It came as the word to begin with. At any rate it was precious thing, crucial matter, and with regard to its meaning, people had not know it yet, it was however crucial.
But there were some people who would think the Japanese word corresponding with love. For instance, about the same time as the above contribution, in 1891 in this magazine, there was a writing titled "Article on lust and love", in which was written as follows:
This is affection of man and woman as is commonly said, in which are two kinds. One is called love in English, and the other is called lust. Love is high class affection, and lust is low passion. In Japanese these are not divided clearly. I will call the one aijou * and the other shikijyou *, and will argue the difference of them.c People say iro * and koi * in slang expressions, which may
have not had so much vulgar meaning in old times as at present. I hear that some intellectuals recommended saying 'Taste iro.' or 'Do koi.' in those days. While today, we should not say such phrases which make people associate obscene meaning. c Today, the words iro, koi, or irokoi have at least in the populace some settled meaning. I aspire not to confuse these words with the holy word of aijo.
The fundamental logic was the same as that of Iwamoto, saying 'love is high class affection' and iro and koi had 'vulgar meaning', and 'make people associate obscene meaning.' Then, while Iwamoto took the new word ren'ai and would make it correspond with love, this writer said to apply aijou to love.
For expressing the new matter however, the new word seemed to be thought to be worthy. Soon after, ren'ai became rapidly spreading and popular among people centering on this magazine.
The fashion of ren'ai was first that of the word, and then the fashion of the behavior ren'ai became spreading among young people who were supported and encouraged by it. Many of the people who made it in fashion were intellectuals and their children, and were Christians and people around them. Intellectuals were usually apt to be affected by translating words, but the reason why ren'ai influenced with Christians may have been that ren'ai was understood mainly from its spiritual phase by the interpretation by Iwamoto and others.
The fashion of ren'ai, on the other side, caused antipathy to it, which is also common to the reaction to the translating words. ren'ai became being spoken and done stately, iro or koi had been ordinary matter but it should have been done secretly. Naturally conservative people had hatred for it, moreover the main faction of the elite who had lead the new times since the Restoration treated the fashion of ren'ai disagreeable. 1891, in "Kokumin no tomo (Friends of nation)" which was the representative of the publicists' circle of the day, Tokutomi Sohou who was the leader of this magazine wrote an essay titled 'Non-ren'ai', in which he impeached young men and women for being engrossed in ren'ai, saying 'ren'ai, what does it matter? What is companionship between man and woman? What is free marriage?' Soon next month, Iwamoto Zenji wrote "Denying non-ren'ai " in "Jogaku zasshi", and refuted saying: 'ren'ai is holy.'
We can imagine in such discussions the enthusiasm of young intellectuals in those days for ren'ai .
Kitamura Toukoku was recognized by Iwamoto Zenji, contributed frequently to "Jogaku zasshi", some of which were famous in the history of literature in Japan. In 1890, in his work which had brought him into prominence,"Figures of tides of the literary world these days" he wrote on a word airen # , as follows:
Now I will teach them through my great knowledge the way of humanity. I will let them know the philosophy of airen, which derived from ancient Greece and from the new ideas of the West.
Their ideas are as follows: c In the view of the world, nothing is more great than airen, to investigate thoroughly ought to be novelists' line. I don't believe however the novelists' line is restricted to it.
'Airen' used here did not look to be a translating word. It did not have the effect particular to the translating word. Airen was once used in Chinese classics, in which it meant the affection between man and woman.
Two months later, Toukoku wrote a writing "Impressions of the times", in which ren'ai was first used:
Why is that so? The society for which you should be stirred into action just exists in front of you. The explanation of ren'ai in detail has tired me out for long. How narrow view is it to speak eagerly requesting after trivial fame.
This ren'ai was however, the same as airen mentioned above, not a translating word, it had not that particular effect. Though it was an unusual instance in those days, but there was also a word renjo a little above this instance, this ren'ai seemed to be the same sort of using word. With regard to its meaning, 'The explanation of ren'ai in detail tired me out' namely, ren'ai is not so important, hence this ren'ai is entirely different from that Iwamoto's treatise on ren'ai which would be published seven months after this writing.
And in February 1892, Kitamura Toukoku wrote "Pessimistic poets and women" in "Jogaku zasshi", in its beginning he put:
ren'ai is the key of life. At first ren'ai, then exists life. Without ren'ai what taste do we get for life?
Kinoshita Naoe * once wrote about this article: 'With this phrase I
was like to be bombarded. The word engrossed in ren'ai so sincerely as this must be the first in our country.' This writing also greatly influenced Shimazaki Touson # and other poets who gathered around "Bungakkai (Literary world)", and was known as the important article
which set off the romanticism of the Meiji era. The point of this argument was nearly conversely different from his essay "Figures of tides of literary world these days" written two years before. At that time he pointed out rather the limit of ren'ai saying: 'c I don't believe however the novelists' line is restricted to it (ren'ai )', but this time he said 'At first ren'ai, then exists life.' In my view however, this is natural because that was airen, and this was ren'ai, which had been the translating word.
Toukoku spoke of ren'ai here as the translating word of love. In this writing love of Western poets and writers like Goethe, Byron, Shelley, Milton, Carlyle, Emerson, Swift and others were frequently argued, while instances in the East and Japan, that Buddha and Kouda Rohan $
had despised women and denied ren'ai at last were slightly spoken. Toukoku, who had taught English at girl's high school and was good at English, could see love just over ren'ai, by which a brilliant world was spoken.
ren'ai spoken by Toukoku however, was not equivalent to love yet. In "Pessimistic poets and women" Toukoku said:
That love begins at the same time as springtide is false and has been spoken by fake novelist who despised life and shrank with shabby idea. Love is not simple longing. The castle in which the defeated general of imagination shut himself up after the war between imagination and reality, is love.
This is a part which the central subject of this essay was spoken, which is, so to speak, the definition of love by Toukoku. I think however, 'That love begins at the same time as springtide is false' is not true, this is also true love, we cannot deny lots of fine pieces of literature described 'springtide' 'love'. Though he said 'Love is not simple longing.', love contains longing. Toukoku cut it off, and made only 'castle' of 'imagination' to be love.
In other words, Toukoku could not find the meaning of love only in 'imagination ''castle'. This suggested the characteristic feature of the translating word in our country.
Toukoku published essays one by one in this magazine thereafter, supported by the editor Iwamoto Zenji and young readers. Though the subjects of these essays were various, many of them dealt with love, which were gradually purified as the idea. In "Having read Utanenbutsu (songs of Buddhist prayer)", saying 'In general, ren'ai is the beginning of all affections', he would found human affections of 'parents and children', 'friends', and 'Heaven' upon ren'ai, which was an idea far from even love. The translating word ren'ai was, in its meaning and function, different from traditional Japanese words, on the other side it was not the same as the original word of love either.
Thus ren'ai purified as the idea became difficult to get hold of in Japanese tradition or reality. ren'ai became to be therefore, not the meaning living in the ordinary life, but the criterion judging Japanese reality. This is the fatality of our translating word. And this fatality may have managed the short life of Toukoku, the people who were impressed with his ren'ai view, and the poets of the Meiji romanticism which was passionate and short-lived.
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