ABSTRACT
I AMONG the numerous forms of literary compositions that have come into existence in Japan, in order to provide modes of expression suitable to various mental moods and temperaments, none has attracted in Europe as much attention as haiku-perhaps the briefest rhetorical device anywhere invented. Consisting of only seventeen syllables divided into three lines, it shares some features of the sonnet and can perhaps be best compared with it. In the standard structure of the sonnet, there are three periods or breaks in thought, expressed in the fifth line of the octave, the beginning of the sestet, and in the last line, which should be the climax. It is this tripartite character of the sonnet that can be compared with the three lines of the haiku. Otherwise the two forms are very remote from each other, both in their object and technique. There are certain other forms in Europe, especially in countries of Romance and Celtic languages, which are almost as short. Some forms of Welsh prosody-such as the cywydd metre, consisting of an indefinite number of lines of seven syllables each, or the englyn form consisting of four lines of 10, 6, 7, 7 syllables respectively-are perhaps the best examples of poetical brevity in Europe. Or perhaps Spain affords more compact forms in solea, seguidilla and cuarteta. But these forms have scarcely been adopted beyond the frontiers of their native land. And as far as a geographical diffusion is concerned, it is only the triolet that may be said to have won any degree of universality in Europe and America. The triolet has not changed its form ever since its beginning in the 13th century. Consisting of only eight lines, it has its first, fourth and seventh lines repeated, and again its second and eighth are repetitions. So, practically, it consists of five lines only-like our uta, of which I shall speak later. Mr. Edmond Gosse says of the triolet; “It is charming; nothing can be more ingeniously mischievous, more playfully sly, than this tiny trill of epigrammatic melody, turning so simply on its own innocent axis.”
