Japanese Poetry
our literature, it is highly necessary that our conception of Japanese and Chinese poetry should be based upon a wider knowledge of originals. In a sense this widening of artistic boundaries is only a part of that general internationalizing of thought which many people hope will be, however indirectly, the one truly lasting victory of the European conflict. We need not venture to say what English poetry may gain from a possible infusion of oriental influence. It has gained much in the past from many derivative sources, all of which have contributed their share of richness and beauty to English verse. It is a mistake to judge poetry, even English poetry, as one critic recently insisted, only by English standards of comparison. We have yet to realize as Ernest Fenellosa says, how much the alien is at the root of the national. Here in America influences pour in upon us from both sides. We may yet become the melting-pot of the arts, as well as of races.
For the student of comparative poetry, Yone Noguchi's little book will serve as a key to a vast store-house of treasure. The Japanese lyrics, translated by Lafcadio Hearn and reprinted conveniently in a single volume, have been selected from his many essays on the subject. So much is lost, however, of the fine flavor of Hearn's personal scholarship, that I think certain selections from the essays themselves should have been retained, or at least that a reference list of the essays from which the poems were taken should have been given. A. C. H.
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