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(★)(Titulo original : 徒然草[Tsurezure-gusa] 1.Between 1330 and 1332 the Buddhist priest Kenko, having, as he put it,´nothing better to do´, turned to his inkstone and brushes. He jotted down his thoughts, observations, and opinions ; anecdotes that he found interesting, amusing, or instructive; accounts of customs and ceremonies-- everything that seemed to him worthy of preservation. Donald Keene´s complete translation admirably presents this extraordinarily influential Japanese classic. The little essays-- none of them more than a few pages in length, and some consisting of but two or three sentences-- give us the self-portrait of a most engaging gentleman. He loves the past : every scrap of tradition is precious to him. He is haunted by transience, by the vanity of human desires and ambitions, by the inevitable approach of death. He values modesty and simplicity, even as he appreciates subtlety and formality. Sometimes he contradicts himself, as a journal keeper may so easily do, but these lapses are in themselves endearing. However, Kenko is consistent in his statement of the peculiarly Japanese aesthetic principle : beauty is intrinsically bound to its perishability. The imperfect, the irregular, the understated, beginnings and endings--these have a charm of their own which surpasses that of completion.´Essays in Idleness´has been, writes Professor Keene,´a central work in the development of Japanese taste. Though Kenko´s argument... often consists merely in a brief statement of perceptions, he succeeded in defining with great sensitivity aesthetic preferences that have been true of Japan ever since´. 2.Kenko also known as´Urabe no Kaneyoshi[卜部兼好]´or´Yoshida no Kaneyoshi[吉田兼好])´is believed to have lived from 1283 to 1350. The members of his family were hereditary Shinto priests of modest rank, but the youthful Kenko´s poetic abilities won him a place at the imperial court. He became a Buddhist priest in 1324 after the death of the retired Emperor Go-Uda, whom Kenko had served. Though Buddhist thought figures prominently in this book, Kenko was no secluded monk : remaining in Kyoto, he was as preoccupied with worldly gossip as he was with pious reflections.´Essays in Idleness´apparently was unknown to the public during Kenko´s lifetime, but he achieved a considerable reputation as a poet and as an expert on old traditions.) |
BASE de DATOS, Biblioteca del Centro Cultural de la Embajada de Japon
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