Faithfully, with affectionate regards and thanks,
Lafcadio Hearn.
TO MASANOBU ŌTANI
Tōkyō, December, 1897.
Dear Ōtani,—I have your very nice letter, which gave me much pleasure. This is just a line before I go away, in regard to the subject for January, and relevant matters.
First let me tell you that you are very, very much mistaken—extraordinarily mistaken—in thinking that I do not care for what you call “vulgar” songs. They are just what I care most about. In all the poems that you translated for me this month, I could find but one that I liked very much; and that was a dodoitsu.
Now I am going to shock you by saying something that may surprise you; but if I do not say it, you will never understand what I want. In all the great mass of student poetry that you collected for me, I found only seventeen pieces that I could call poetry,—and on submitting those seventeen pieces to higher tests, I found that nearly all were reflections of thoughts and feelings from older poets. As for the book that you translated, I could find no true poetry in it at all, and scarcely anything original.
And now let me tell you my honest opinion about this whole matter. The refined poetry of this era, and most of the poetry that you collected for me of other eras, is of little or no value. On the other hand, the “vulgar” songs sung by coolies and fishermen and sailors and farmers and artisans, are very true and beautiful poetry; and would be admired by great poets in England, in France, in Italy, in Germany, or in Russia.
You will think, of course, that this only shows my ignorance and my stupidity. But please reflect a little about the matter. A great poem by Heine, by Shakespeare, by Calderon, by Petrarch, by Hafiz, by Saadi, remains a great poem even when it is translated into the prose of another language. It touches the emotion or the imagination in every language. But poetry which cannot be translated is of no value whatever in world-literature; and it is not even true poetry. It is a mere playing with values of words. True poetry has nothing to do with mere word-values. It is fancy, it is emotion, it is passion, or it is thought. Therefore it has power and truth. Poetry that depends for existence on the peculiarities of one language is waste of time, and can never live in people’s hearts. For this reason there is more value in the English ballad of “Childe Waters” or of “Tamlane,” than in the whole of the verse of Pope.
Of course, I know there are some beautiful things in Japanese classical poetry—I have translations from the Manyōshū and Kokinshū which are beautiful enough to live forever in any language. But these are beautiful because they do not depend on word-values, but upon sentiment and feeling.