flem
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response 22 of 24:
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Dec 1 22:18 UTC 2000 |
(5/7/5 is traditional, but I've seen actual, legit, haiku from the
masters go 5/5/7 or 7/5/5.
Haiku trivia:
Haiku are descended from (among many other things) tanka
(short poems), which had 31 syllables, 5,7,5,7,7. Tanka were
a short form of renka, long poems (I think. I've not been able to
find a definition of renka in this book, but I'm pretty sure.),
which went 5,7,5,7,7,5,7,5,7,7,... for as long as people cared
to write. Now, one of the Cool Things Poets Did is they would
get together in little groups and write renga, which are long
linked poems. The first guy would do 5,7,5, the next guy 7,7,
etc, until the beer ran out. ;) Unsurprisingly, people would
write short linked poems, too (you'd think that would be tanga,
but I've never actually seen that word except in kanji that I
don't even try to transliterate.)
In the early part of the Kamakura Era, 1186-1339, such linked
poems became exceedingly popular, and two schools arose, the
serious, [kanji], Ushinha, and the comic, [Mushinha].
The Mushinha gave the name Haikai Renga, "sportive
linked poems", abbreviated to Haikai, [kanji], to their
compositions, and this became used of all such poetry and
poetical exercises. The word haiku is a mixture of this
expression, haikai, and hokku, [kanji], the first poem of the
Long Linked Verses, haikai plus hokku becoming haiku, about the
middle of the 18th century. "Haikai" sometimes means haiku, and
some old people still use the word "hokku".
...
The relation of haiku to renku is a little like that of
ancient Greek statues to the temples in which they were
enshrined. Only gradually did the statue begin to be carved
for its own sake.
- R. H. Blyth, _Haiku_,
volume 1, "Eastern Culture.
)
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