Poet Sogi’s Journey to Shirakawa Barrier

Abstract

The diary of the Japanese poet Sogi (1421–1502) “Shirakawa kiko” (“Journey to the Shirakawa Barrier”, 1468) is analyzed. The sacred place, sung in the lyrics of the past, is the beginning of the song (utamakura). The diary is divided into two parts. This is the result of the development of the genre in the art of renga (connected stanzas) poets. The subject of the study is the prose part. It reveals an increased suggestiveness (yojo) of artistic speech. In the reminiscent variety, a picture of intertextual discourse is formed, the significance of the literary tradition is revealed. It makes up the latent layer of the text, covering the entire narrative. The essay is considered as a memoir diary, it is dominated by emotional content (aware), dating back to the cult of feelings of the aristocratic era. In the chronotope of the diary, a plexus of times and spaces is found, creating an illusory vision of reality as a reflection of the poet’s Zen consciousness. The journey remains unfinished, affirming the infinity of the path and recalling the rotation of the wheel of samsara — the cycle of life and death. The path in the illusory, changeable world affirms the idea of mortal existence (mujo), which has become the fundamental Zen Buddhist concept of the diary.

Keywords:

medieval Japanese literature, poet Sogi, travel diary, Shirakawa barrier, intertextual discourse, allusive