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Word and image: death poem 1 - Episode 0
Jun. 21st, 2011 05:15 pm![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
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bugackt made some beautiful screencaps from the Episode 0 MV. These reminded me very strongly of some of the imagery in classic Japanese death poems.
Death poems? Since about 1200, you couldn't claim literary credibiity as a teacher or poet if you didn't hand down a decent death poem as your days drew to a close. Consequently, some great figures wrote their "death" poem years in advance!
Other people were pestered by their disciples for a death poem even as they battled with a last illness; a few strong and perverse characters made a point of refusing to write one, entirely to demonstrate that they were still in control, death or no!
The original poems - nearly always short (tanka, haiku) - depend heavily on understanding iconic allusions, which are really only of currency in Japan and in the Buddhist tradition (though they are perfectly explicable). One of the best collections of Japanese death poetry contains very detailed and revealing explanations (from the translator) of the significance of the images chosen, but, as explanations inevitably obstruct the poetry, I've preferred to make paraphrases of these poems which exhibit the meaning of the poem in reframed, more universal terms. I hope!
Here's the first one, using a screenshot from Episode 0:
bugackt made some beautiful screencaps from the Episode 0 MV. These reminded me very strongly of some of the imagery in classic Japanese death poems. Death poems? Since about 1200, you couldn't claim literary credibiity as a teacher or poet if you didn't hand down a decent death poem as your days drew to a close. Consequently, some great figures wrote their "death" poem years in advance!
Other people were pestered by their disciples for a death poem even as they battled with a last illness; a few strong and perverse characters made a point of refusing to write one, entirely to demonstrate that they were still in control, death or no!
The original poems - nearly always short (tanka, haiku) - depend heavily on understanding iconic allusions, which are really only of currency in Japan and in the Buddhist tradition (though they are perfectly explicable). One of the best collections of Japanese death poetry contains very detailed and revealing explanations (from the translator) of the significance of the images chosen, but, as explanations inevitably obstruct the poetry, I've preferred to make paraphrases of these poems which exhibit the meaning of the poem in reframed, more universal terms. I hope!
Here's the first one, using a screenshot from Episode 0:
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