The Seasons
in Japanese Waka

The first evidence of seasonal usage in waka can be found in the Kokinshu, which dates back to the year 922. The collection of poetry was classified by season and subject, a system that is still used in Japanese haiku poetry. The classification system follows this particular order: '"Seasons"(heat/cold, long/short days), "Sky and Elements"(astronomy), "Fields and Mountains"(geography), "Temples and Shrines"(Gods and Buddhas), "Human Affairs"(things of men), "Birds and Beasts," "Trees and Flowers"(botany)' (Blyth, 388). Japanese culture considers the New Year a season, as well as Spring, Summer, Winter, and Autumn. This system shows that seasons must be important to waka, not only by way of classification, but because it makes clear that poems were written with seasonal influence. "However, in the Kokinshu, the real subjects are not those of insects, grasses, and flowers, but the feelings of the poets; these things are symbols of human thought and emotion"(Blyth, 350). The seasons were often used to express a mood. (Blyth, 336-350)
In waka, specific seasonal objects and occurrences are particular to the seasons and are also used to express a certain mood. Many are so commonly used that they have become standard. Orange blossoms are associated with the happiness of love, and also with nostalgia. (Ooka, 124) "...morning glories bring up thoughts of quickly fading beauty, ...autumn winds suggest sadness, ...plum blossoms... the promise of perfect beauty to be attained by the later cherry blossoms"(Henderson, 16). The most famous sign of spring, the cherry blossom, generally symbolizes something like fleeting beauty, but can be specifically associated with samurai who die at a young age. (Henderson, 16-17) Waka also utilizes the sadness of rain, in which every different kind of rain is meant to evoke a different emotion. "Japanese poets have studied in all its aspects, the different kinds of rain, windy slashing rain, steady drumming rain, the shower, the noiseless, invisible rain..."(Blyth, 63). Aside from simply using seasonal phenomena to express meaning, Japanese words are used which have two meanings, or which stands for a physical action and not just a feeling. An example of this is the word aki, which means "autumn," but also means "to tire of." The word tsuyu means "dew," but also stands for a woman's tears or a woman crying. Some poets also use an allusion to a god or goddess to express the idea of a season. The phrase "saogami no wakare" or "parting from spring" uses an allusion to Saohime, the goddess of spring, in order to include a season into the poem.(Ooka, 16)
Haiku is one form of waka in which the season is considered extremely important. The seasonal reference in a haiku is the called a kigo, or season word. Found in nearly all haiku, the kigo is some word or expression that indicates the time of year, and forms a background for the picture that the poem is trying to put into the reader's mind. The kigo can either be a direct reference to, or definite naming of the season. It can also be a reference to one aspect of a season, such as snow or blossoms. The meaning of the Japanese word renso is, in English, the "association of ideas." Poets used renso in order to get their point across with very few words. The idea of 'internal comparison,' in which the kigo is used as background and as comparison with other aspects of the poem, is also utilized.(Henderson, 5) Through these concepts, the seasons became important because of their associations.
There seem to be many explanations for the importance of the kigo, all of which are just hypotheses. R. H. Blyth, author of Haiku: Volumes I & II, speculates that the kigo serves its purpose, "...unifying into a whole the scattered elements of the intuition" and "...enabling the poets to speak to one another open secrets to which the unpoetical reader is not initiate"(Blyth, 336). However, Harold Henderson, author of An Introduction to Haiku, believes that haiku poets created the importance of the season word. "The older haiku-makers came to the conclusion that one experience common to all men was the change of weather with the different seasons, and so introduced into nearly all their poems what is known as a ki, or "season"(Henderson, 4-5). Whatever the reason, it is apparent that the haiku is concerned with human emotion, and that natural phenomena are used to reflect these human emotions. Hence, the kigo "... may give the atmospheric background, it may be a kind of seed, a trigger which releases a whole world of emotions, of sounds and scents and colours"(Blyth, 335).
In order to emphasize the kigo, a form of painting called haiga is found accompanying haiku in many compilations and collections. Haiga are specifically small sketches of indian-ink or simple colors, which "endeavour to express in pictures what haiku do in words"(Blyth, 88). The form originated in the late 15th to early 16th centuries, when haiku separated from renga. This style of painting is intuitive, so the nature of the subject is implicitly expressed. The subject is usually the kigo, so the purpose of a haiga is to express understand of the poem pictorially as well as verbally.(Blyth, 88-9) As a person views the haiga on one page and the haiku on the other, "...the pictures he sees teach him how to look at and feel and listen to the world of nature. They show him where the value and meaning of things is, so that he may say in words what the picture says in lines"(Blyth, 87). The appearance of haiga with haiku shows that the most important elements of the poem were not the syllable structure, but the time, place, subject, and meaning. Haiku searches for a poetical significance in things, instead of just looking for beauty and excluding ugliness like other waka does.(Blyth, 110)
There is no given explanation as to why Japanese waka is so concerned with the seasons. However, when looking at aspects of Japanese religions such as Taoism, Confusianism, and Shinto, it is plain to see that nature plays a large role. The Chinese mystic Soshi wrote many short essays on the importance of nature in a man's life. These ideas were relayed to Japan through the teachings of Taoism.

"Such a man (a Real Man) is unaffected by circumstances, his demeanour is full of repose, his (facial) expression undemonstrative. His coolness is that of autumn, his warmth that of spring. His emotions follow their natural course like the round of the four seasons. His harmony with natural things is beyond all human estimate..."(Blyth, 43-4)

This is part of a teaching about conduct. Even in this early time, people felt very connected to the world around them. They also felt indebted to nature, who provides their life force and human form.

"A child must go obediently East, West, South, North, according as his parents tell him. In and Yo (Ying and Yang) are not merely a man's mother and father. When they bring me close to death, and I oppose them, I am rebellious and unruly; they are blameless. Great Nature, by bestowing upon me (human) form gives me my place (in the world); by life, enables me to work; by old age, contentment; by death, cessation of existence."(Blyth, 45)

Confusianism also speaks of nature in this sort of personification. Confusius considered nature to be 'the Way.' This means that nature was seen as the way of life, the controlling force in everyone's existence.

"The song of the birds, the voice of insects, are all means of conveying truth to the mind; in flowers and grasses we see the messages of the Way. The scholar, pure and clear of mind, serene and open of heart, should find in everything what nourishes him."(Blyth, 76)

While these ideas spread to Japan, they were probably welcomed because the Japanese culture had already established similar views.

Shinto, Japan's own naturalistic religion, holds many of the same views and ideas as expressed in Taoism and Confusianism. However, Shinto believes in the existence of kami, which basically means "god." There are many kami, which can be found throughout nature.

"Kami thus refers to the essence of many phenomena that the Japanese believed were endowed with an aura of divinity. Rocks, rivers, animals, trees, places, and even people can be said to possess the nature of kami."(Picken, xxii)

This kind of thought is called "animism," or the belief in indwelling spirits. Shinto also practices "animatism," or nature worship. Nature is, in this case, personified into kami. (Blyth, 150)

"To the Japanese mind, there does not exist that tremendous gulf between us and God on one hand, and animals, trees, and stones on the other. It is said with some truth that they have a feeble grasp of personality, and haiku shows a democracy among its subjects which derives from this."(Blyth, 150)

By worshipping kami, the Japanese bring themselves closer in spirit to nature, allowing them to understand its importance. It is this connection that reveals itself in waka, and creates the importance of the kigo.

"...we go back to the old savage animism, and superstition, and common life of man and spirits and trees and stones... Things have taken on something of the tenuous nature of the abstractions they turned into. Again, spring and autumn, for example, non-existant, arbitrary distinctions, have attained a body and palpability they never had before."(Blyth, 5)


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