Nagaraeba – Hegel und Fujiwara no Kiyosuke

Abstract

Abstract Although there is a dispute among grammarians as to whether Japanese is a tense or aspect language, time expressions tend to be made from the perspective of the speaker, i.e. under the aspect of an event that is “now, in this moment already completed, just happening, or not yet happening.” Evidently, the notion of a threefoldedness of time perception is predominant. A comparison of different time concepts and philosophies points towards a transcultural circulation of this notion. Hegel’s philosophy exemplifies the effectiveness and shaping function of this notion of threefold time concepts. Using Fujiwara no Kiyosuke’s poem Nagaraeba, I aim to show how the thesis of the threefoldedness also of the traditional Japanese experience of time, together with the thesis of the aspect orientation of the Japanese language, may help us to interpret and understand classical waka, along the lines of the so-called “fusion of horizons” (Horizontverschmelzung) described by Hans-Georg Gadamer.