However, Japanese literature has an indissoluble bond with beauty from the beginning.
As the originator of storytelling, the story of Wude laid the foundation for later Japanese literature:
Once upon a time, there was a bamboo cutter who went up the mountain every day to cut bamboo and make all kinds of bamboo utensils for use. ..... One day, he found a piece of bamboo glowing, which surprised him. He stepped forward and saw the bamboo tube shining. On closer inspection, it turns out to be a golden tongue. The old man murmured, "You are hiding in the bamboo forest I met day and night. You should be my child. " So, he put the child in the palm of his hand and took it home for his wife to raise. She is beautiful, cute and small, so she is raised in a basket.
This is the source of Japanese literature. Later, The Tale of Genji turned this endless trickle into a vast river, which made Japanese literature have its own distinct and unbreakable tradition. Kawabata Yasunari talked about Tales of Genji and his blood relationship with Tales of Genji many times: "Genji literature has reached its peak." "Among the classical works, I like the Tale of Genji best." "It can be said that this is the best novel in Japan since ancient times. Even in modern times, there is no work in Japan that can match it ... "The Tale of Genji has given Kawabata Yasunari many natural things, one of which is The Beauty of Genji: The Beauty of the Dynasty. In the construction of this noble and elegant "beauty of dynasty", a rich and exquisite aesthetic system has been successfully and naturally generated. It doomed the future style of Japanese literature and Kawabata Yasunari's literary style.
In fact, few later Japanese novelists got rid of the infiltration and infection of The Tale of Genji and chose other ways to create their own aesthetic world. Compared with Yasunari Kawabata, who volunteered to devote himself to the aesthetic tradition of Japanese novels, Yukio Mishima, a controversial literary genius, always wanted to get rid of the aesthetic tradition of Japanese novels. However, the irresistible charm of the perfect aesthetic tradition of Japanese novels initiated by The Tale of Genji prevented Mishima from flying out of that traditional aesthetic space. Like Kawabata Yasunari, he is fascinated by all kinds of Japanese aesthetics. Different from Kawabata Yasunari, he only accepted this intoxicating shadow of individuality in the shadow of Tale of Genji. In his eyes, cruelty is beauty, firmness is beauty, and power is beauty ... beauty has become a huge laundry list, and everything can be put in as long as it is filtered by his mind. Even an ugly body is worth looking forward to and pleasing to the eye. When he was preparing to marry Yaozi, he even suggested that the wedding be held in the swimming pool, so that their relatives could raise their cups of blessing by the swimming pool, so as to directly witness his and Yaozi's bodies-he thought that this moment was the greatest aesthetic enjoyment in the world. The reason why this stubborn and ridiculous loyal minister of the Mikado system is so loyal to the Mikado system is that it is rooted in an aesthetic thought that seems strange but really has historical reasons: all Japanese aesthetics are rooted in the Mikado system; Emperor system belongs to the aesthetic category and is the source of Japanese beauty.
Kenzaburo Oe began his literary career with the thorough influence of western culture and aesthetics. He even publicly expressed that he didn't like The Tale of Genji. However, through the westernized appearance of his works, we can still see the aesthetic ghost of the Tale of Genji hovering between the lines.
Due to the worship of beauty and unrestrained indulgence, Mishima or Dajiang-even relatively classical Kawabata Yasunari-seems a bit surly to China people. They purify beauty and make it a mist and light cloud, which permeates everything in the world, as if everything is beautiful. Some of their appreciation and pleasure even make us feel really unbearable and incomprehensible.
? The Japanese are probably famous for their sentimentality. Watching Japanese movies and TV series, we are often not used to its ever-present sadness. Sunrise and sunset, every grass and tree, clusters of light smoke and rows of frost trees may all be reasons for sadness in the eyes of the Japanese. Sometimes it's really confusing: why are those people so sensitive and fragile in a country that preaches the spirit of Bushido, a country that launched a war to slaughter innocent neighbors and kill people like hemp?
Looking at Kawabata Yasunari's Snow Country, when reading the character Shimamura in the work, she saw two people who met by chance say goodbye at the station. The girl said, "We will meet again because of fate", but she couldn't help but burst into tears. When reading this paragraph, she was always a little puzzled: as for it? Japanese literature always lingers in these seemingly inexplicable sorrows. However, once you read Japanese literature for a long time, you will gradually get used to it and even slip into it unconsciously. At this time, you will find yourself in many beautiful realms, and you will have more appreciation of existence and everything around you, so you will gain a lot of meaning.
The Japanese call this spirit "mourning for things".
There are different opinions about the meaning of "mourning for things", because this word is a mysterious word and its meaning is difficult to determine. After reading the works of Yasunari Kawabata and others repeatedly, you will get a general understanding: people face the scenery in front of them, or they already have emotions such as sadness, sadness, sadness and depression in their hearts, or these emotions are induced by the posture, color, smell and decadent ups and downs of these scenery, thus producing an emotional flow of mutual growth, mutual elimination and interaction between things and me.
"Sorrow over things" and another related concept "elegance" strongly support the Japanese aesthetic palace. For Kawabata Yasunari, the word "mourning for things" has really melted into his blood. All his pen and ink just put the word "mourning for things" in scenes, in communication and in countless human stories. Of course, there are many kinds of sadness.
Black hair is messy and fluffy, which hurts.
I want to comb my hair. I want to think of you first.
Kawabata Yasunari once made a detailed interpretation of the beauty of Japanese literature by analyzing this ancient Japanese poem. As a result of reading, he only found two words in the fog of literary history, one is "mourning for things" and the other is "elegance". But in his view, Japanese literature has these two words, which is enough to coquettish the world. In fact, Japanese literature also won by these two words.
The source of sorrow is still in the Tale of Genji.
"At this time, it coincides with the crisp autumn and people's hearts are full of sadness." This kind of thing is similar to mine, and it can be seen almost everywhere in the Tale of Genji. There are a number of poems in the source, which not only make it an elegant work, but also affect the elegant aesthetic style of later literature, and make "mourning things" a trend, which makes later literature want to get rid of it.
Qinghui does not change the autumn colors of the past,
The night scene is blurred, which makes people hate.
No, Lacrimosa,
Like ordinary autumn rain.
Flowers are in full bloom today because of luck.
In the summer rain.
The travel shirt is made by hand, and the tears are still wet.
I'm afraid it's too wet inside, so I won't wear it.
I was in tears when I went to Japan, and I was in tears when I came.
Pedestrians mistakenly think that this tear is a clear spring.
Nine times out of ten, the poems in the source are about this emotion.
Chuanduan wrote so many novels and essays, but he tossed and turned in those emotions.
After careful analysis, there may be a Japanese cherry blossom complex behind the mourning tradition in Japanese literature.
In the world, no plant can have such a far-reaching influence on a nation's survival belief, life interest and aesthetic style as cherry blossoms. Just because this plant is so unusual. People who have seen cherry blossoms and immersed themselves in them are probably hard not to be tempted by them. Every March, the spring is chilly, and cherry blossoms almost everywhere in the Japanese archipelago will bloom from south to north in the spring air from the south. If it is a lonely plant, it is difficult to be tempted. If it is a few, a dozen or even hundreds, it will form a trend and your impression will be profound. This plant is wonderful and sacred. Those little flowers, who are neither arrogant nor impetuous, seem to open silently, but they bloom on bare trees and have not yet grown a leaf bud. This tree is old and tall. They make you feel that you are in heaven, in a mythical world. The world is a flower. These flowers turned into pink clouds. They are petite and shivering in the cold wind. And when they were just about to show their elegance, they began to wither early. Cherry blossoms rain, England falls, and sadness is hard to suppress. However, it is really beautiful, sad and beautiful. In the cherry rain, those crows are flying like black elves, emitting lonely feathers. Faced with such a situation, your mood can't help but change quietly.
Cherry blossoms are more than just a plant. It created the Japanese mood.
The Japanese have been looking up at cherry blossoms in ancient times. In the Tale of Genji, I wrote about cherry blossoms many times, thinking that among all the flowers, cherry blossoms are the best: "What beautiful flowers! Other flowers are not comparable. " The book describes Wu's two little daughters vying to plant a cherry tree for them, which is very cute and shows the feelings of Japanese and cherry blossoms. It was these two little girls who, one night, saw the east wind blowing and the cherry blossoms were crying. They couldn't help sighing and singing poems with the servants. There are two sentences, which I think are the most wonderful:
If you want the cherry blossoms to stay alive,
I hate not having big sleeves to keep out the wind.
However, they are easy to open, easy to fall, and fleeting, so that they can't live on the branches for a long time, and then they float like wind and clouds in an instant. Cherry blossoms contain oracles. For thousands of years, Yamato people have stood under these strange trees every spring to listen to the Oracle.
The result of listening is that things are impermanent, and everything in the bones is empty, which eventually breeds "sorrow for things."
The extreme mourning for things leads to the calm attitude of Japanese writers including Yasunari Kawabata towards death, which is unique in the world. Akutagawa committed suicide. Yukio Mishima's abdominal incision was shocking and disgusting. However, in Mishima's view, "blood" plus "death" equals "beauty". When the sword was slashed with blood and flesh, I wanted to see him and see countless flowers falling from the air. He said several times that "abdominal incision" is an aesthetic behavior and an "artistic expression". Kawabata Yasunari also poeticized death for countless times in his works: "There is no higher art than death." Death is as beautiful as a bride, the world is as transparent as water and the sea is as smooth as a mirror. He enjoyed a picture: a white rabbit jumping in the red light of a prairie fire. In his view, perhaps this is the most beautiful scenery in the world. Similarly, he changed the painting in his novel Snow Country: Leaves Fall Gracefully from Tall Buildings. It's like a painting. The leaves have since become elves. The end of a life has reason to be praised: "some moths, which always seem to stick to the screen window, are actually dead." Shimamura took them in his hand and thought: How beautiful! " As far as how he views his life, he is very critical of Akutagawa's choice of suicide. However, he finally chose to commit suicide. On the day of suicide, it looked calm and there was no sign that he was going to commit suicide. He probably just felt that his road had come to an end and it was time to go, just like a long-distance traveler finally thought of going home.
He once said in "The Dying Eye" that all beautiful cities-and only appear in "The Dying Eye". Did he really see beauty in his dying eyes-great beauty, extreme beauty?
Kaii Higashiyama, who was traveling, saw a charming scenery through the window of Cao Tian Hotel at the moment when Kawabata committed suicide: the vast Caotian Beach, a thin first-quarter moon hanging low in the sky in the silent evening, and its shape was like a bowstring, which was very leisurely and quiet. There is an unusually bright star in the sky. Its flicker and generated brilliance even make people feel as if it will flow in the air in an instant, become transparent and then disappear completely. ...