Speaker: Sonja Arntzen, Professor Emerita, University of Toronto
This talk will address the Kyōunshū, a collection of Sinitic poetry by the medieval Zen monk Ikkyū (1394-1481). I published a study and selected translations of the Kyōunshū under the title Ikkyū and the Crazy Cloud Anthology in 1986. Quirin Press invited me to produce a revised and expanded edition of that volume that was published in 2022. After a brief introduction to Ikkyū’s life and work, I will relate some of the insights and shifts in perception that resulted from the opportunity to revisit the research of my youth at this late point in my life. I will focus on one insight that arose from providing the poems in the new edition with kundoku readings (vernacular glosses). The question of how Japanese writers of Sinitic poetry over the centuries sounded out their poems is a complicated one, particularly given the fundamental linguistic differences between Chinese and Japanese. But, at least for the Kyōunshū, some clues are provided by the kunten (reading guide marks) in the margins of the oldest manuscripts. I will present one example from the Okamura Manuscript which dates from Ikkyū’s lifetime and even contains some of his own writing. We will examine together its general style and aural effect. Thus, this talk will provide a sounding in the sense of “plumbing the depths” of the topic (at least here and there) as well as giving a sense of the sound of Ikkyū’s poetry.
