 Home Haiku and Its TheoriesAnthropormophism - Some Thoughts by Jane Reichhold Jane Reichhold's answers to my question:
Rosa Clement:Many times I have heard from reviewers and publishers that anthropomorphism
and personification are not good in haiku. However, Basho, Issa, Buson and others wrote haiku using anthropomorphism...
Dear Rosa,
You have put your finger on a very sore spot in haiku-writing rules. And you are right to question the rule concerning personification.
FOR THE USE OF PERSONIFICATION:
1. The personification of inanimate things is a basic part of our language. We so easily speak of the head, feet or legs of the beds, tables and chairs; rivers run, and we even allow that 'time flies.' Thus, it becomes very hard to determine when the author has broken the rule by personifying something which shouldn't be.
2. Personification of things does make a positive connection the author and the thing which seems to be an actual haiku technique.
3. The old masters occasionally did it.
4. Modern authors do it.
5. It often adds a lyrical or deeper aspect to a poem.
6. Haiku written due to the influence of tanka (or even cut off of and out of a tanka) - especially those written by the Japanese - may have personification in them because it is an acceptable technique of tanka and many of the old masters based their haiku on tanka examples.
AGAINST THE USE OF PERSONIFICATION:
1. English language haiku rules have been handed down to use requiring that we avoid personification. This could have come about from the idea that haiku were not poetry and should not use poetical techniques (such as metaphor and simile). When the pioneers were introducing haiku to English writers they were reacting against the prevailing poetry fashions and wished to present haiku as something very new and different - non-poetry poetry. Therefore, Spiess and others made rules hoping that if they were followed our haiku would be more like the Japanese examples and much less like the poetry being written in English at the current time. Not using personification does separate the haiku from lyrical poetry - which many people see as a definite plus.
2. Part of the charm of haiku is the pure is-ness of things. In order to create a personification, the intellect and imagination must be engaged by both the author and the reader. This moves the haiku off the basic element of the simplicity and clarity of is-ness. In figuring out the personification one must use fantasy - a facility one usually tries to avoid using in haiku. The cool, calm, rational aspect of haiku is then lost.
3. Haiku seek to flow gently in the calm creek of reality. The jerk of the jolt of creativity can, for some people, yank them out of the contemplative mode.
4. Creating a personification can be seen as 'showing off' - something egoless authors never do.
As I see it, when we question these English rules which someone made up, we open up incredible possibilities for our haiku. It is very well known that non-Japanese haiku ARE different from those written in Japanese, and given our questioning natures, our inventiveness, our urge to make everything anew, it is practically a given that in our hands haiku will end up very different from the ones written in Japan in either the 1600s or yesterday. Again, I think each writer has to decide which of the many rules to follow or not. And our degree of tolerance for understanding and accepting when another author has different rules is one of the lessons we need to practice as our world grows smaller.
Blessed be!
Jane
Thanks to Jane Reichold |