Subject
Re: greatest novel of all is lost out there ... (correction on
extemporaneous haiku)
extemporaneous haiku)
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[This comment isn't really related to VN--except that he was, it is generally agreed, "a great novelist" as well as a prolific writer--but it sets the record straight in response to Johan Jaaffar's article, forwarded to the List the other day. -- SES]
'One Japanese writer, Ihara Saikaku (1642-93), wanted to be a great novelist. He was said to have destroyed his entire collection of haiku — thousands of them. He was the most prolific haiku composer of all time — penning an average of 17 a minute or a staggering 1,600 a day.'
This is somewhat sketchy, and confuses several distinct incidents. The anecdote relates to just one of many occasions where Saikaku demonstrated his extraordinarily fluent capacity to extemporize haikai. Specifically he composed the 1,600 verses in a roughly 24 hour compositional gig, called a 'yakazu haikai' ('arrow-number' i.e. darting and redarting the bull's-eye haiku') in 1677. However this was nothing compared to his effort in his prime, aged 43, at the Sumiyoshi shrine in Osaka on the 5th of June 1684, where he notched up 23,500 verses, so rapidly no one could record them. (a little over 16 a minute non-stop for a 24 hour period). The scribes resigned themselves simply to tallying the progressive total.' (Saikaku-shu, ed.Itasaka Gen et al.Iwanami Koten Bungaku Taikei, Tokyo 1957 vol.1 pp.10-11)
Peter Dale
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'One Japanese writer, Ihara Saikaku (1642-93), wanted to be a great novelist. He was said to have destroyed his entire collection of haiku — thousands of them. He was the most prolific haiku composer of all time — penning an average of 17 a minute or a staggering 1,600 a day.'
This is somewhat sketchy, and confuses several distinct incidents. The anecdote relates to just one of many occasions where Saikaku demonstrated his extraordinarily fluent capacity to extemporize haikai. Specifically he composed the 1,600 verses in a roughly 24 hour compositional gig, called a 'yakazu haikai' ('arrow-number' i.e. darting and redarting the bull's-eye haiku') in 1677. However this was nothing compared to his effort in his prime, aged 43, at the Sumiyoshi shrine in Osaka on the 5th of June 1684, where he notched up 23,500 verses, so rapidly no one could record them. (a little over 16 a minute non-stop for a 24 hour period). The scribes resigned themselves simply to tallying the progressive total.' (Saikaku-shu, ed.Itasaka Gen et al.Iwanami Koten Bungaku Taikei, Tokyo 1957 vol.1 pp.10-11)
Peter Dale
Search the archive: http://listserv.ucsb.edu/archives/nabokv-l.html
Contact the Editors: mailto:nabokv-l@utk.edu,nabokv-l@holycross.edu,chtodel@cox.net
Visit Zembla: http://www.libraries.psu.edu/nabokov/zembla.htm
View Nabokv-L policies: http://web.utk.edu/~sblackwe/EDNote.htm