Hagiwara Sakutarô, Buddhist realism, and the establishment of japanese modern poetry

Abstract

This article approaches the works of poet Hagiwara Sakutarô (1886-1942) from a comparative perspective that engages philosophy and literature. The philosophical dimension of Sakutarô’s poetry is analyzed by means of inter-textual readings that draw on the tradition of Buddhist epistemology and on the texts of logicians Dignāga and Dharmakīrti (5th century). The comparative analysis is considered under the perspective of the influence of Naturalism and the use of description in the emergence of Japanese modern poetry. Pointing to the possibility of a Buddhist realism that shares some common characteristics with Naturalism, the article emphasizes the Buddhist dimension of Sakutarô’s poetry, which appears in spite of the poet’s turn to Western philosophy (notably to Schopenhauer, Nietzsche, and Kant), as well as to his overt rejection of Buddhism as a necessary step to the modernization of the Japanese letters.