Link
- Making the Connection
manners
and methods of linkage
Introduction
For Matsuo Basho no aspect of renku theory was more important than that of linkage. He is reputed to have expressed the wish that whilst he might not be remembered for any outstanding hokku he would find recognition as a master of link. Elsewhere in Renku Reckoner the article Link & Shift an Overview explains the core generative mechanism of a renku sequence which governs any trio of verses. Here we will examine link - the relationship between each added verse (tsukeku) and its preceding verse (maeku) - in more detail.
Unlike many renga masters Basho refrained from publishing a didactic or systemised body of linked verse theory. Instead his approach appears elliptical and at times contradictory, not least because such teachings as we do have are contained in the memoirs and commentaries of his followers, men who could sometimes be tempted to dine out on a story. Nonetheless in the matter of linkage we have sufficient correlation between accounts to be sure that the following statement, as recorded by Kyorai, is relayed with reasonable accuracy:
The Master said, "The hokku has changed repeatedly over the years, but there have only been three changes to the nature of haikai linkage. In the distant past poets valued word links (kotobazuke). In the more recent past poets have emphasised content links (kokorozuke). Today it is best to link by transference (utsuri), reverberation (hibiki), scent (nioi), or status (kurai)."
It has recently been postulated that Basho was speaking more or less figuratively, that by 'distant past' he was referring to the Teimon school of haikai, and by 'more recent past' he was referring to the Danrin school. This is possible; Basho had been influenced by both schools in his early years and they continued to exert a competitive claim on Basho's contemporaries.
However a critical distinction between word links and content links, between kotobazuke and kokorozuke, had been drawn more than three centuries earlier by Nijo Yoshimoto and the poet Sogi, revered by Basho, was strongly identified with kokorozuke. Further, the lexical devices embraced by the term kotobazuke had indeed been the mainstay of linking technique from the earliest recorded times. It is most likely therefore that Basho was speaking literally, and considered his Shofu style to be the culmination of a thousand years of literary development.
Whatever the precise historic reference, Basho's judgment is essentially a qualitative one which translates readily into distinctions which are universally applicable. Basho identifies not three types but three tiers of technique which he places in ascending order of artistry.
Monozuke (object linkage) and kotobazuke (word linkage) both occupy the lowest rank, predicated as they are on the primary content or phrasing of a verse. We are dealing here with various types of lexical play at single word level, or the simple association of one object with another.
The middle rank is composed of imizuke (generally given as 'meaning linkage') and kokorozuke (generally given as 'heart' or 'content linkage'). Common to both is the reliance on some form of mentation - a conscious interpretation or a direct extension of the action or setting of the makeu.
Basho places his own contribution to the aesthetics of linking technique uppermost. This he calls nioizuke - the indirect and imagistic evocation of a more tenuous form of association. The term is generally given as 'scent linkage' and in its wider sense is considered to embrace a number of subdivisions such as are outlined above in the quotation from Kyorai. That one such is also referred to as nioi, but intended more narrowly, is a confusion not untypical of the sometimes cavalier and fractious assertions of Basho's immediate followers.
Be that as it may the distinction between kokorozuke and nioizuke - we might almost say between Sogi and Basho - is clear enough: the former tends to the rational, the latter to the intuitive. At first sight this may seem a rather slight distinction, but its effect is more significant.
Let us examine each of the three tiers in a little more detail.
The very reasons for which word and object linkage had historically been regarded as high art were, for the Basho school, grounds for them to be all but dismissed. Earlier poets had prized engo, inventive word play relying heavily on cognates and homophones, or yoriai, the technique of linking via fixed associations between groups of words or objects - associations which in the main had arisen from their presence in this or that classic verse or tale and their subsequent prescription in a some critical treatise or other.
Thus engo and yoriai had been the preserve of the educated and leisured classes as they required high levels of verbal dexterity, a flair for etymology, a comprehensive knowledge of Japanese and Chinese literary precedent; and a thorough grounding in the normative concepts of category arising therefrom. By contrast Basho held that erudition alone had little intrinsic value, that ostentation was simply tiresome, that conventional associations were the route to atrophy, and that common language and common experience could be the stuff of artistic excellence just as readily as could courtly pursuits or the phrasing of a centuries old waka.
Even where new language and fresh associations were employed the objection to linkage via material references or lexical devices alone remained that the verses were considered and composed superficially, the connections made by elevating a part to the detriment of the whole. Clearly a sequence composed entirely of such links might be drole or striking, but it would be unlikely to have substance or coherence.
Such criticisms had been made centuries before the Edo period and though wit remained prominent in linked verse, especially amongst those who considered it a pastime only, many poets had sought to broaden and deepen the experience. Thus we arrive as Basho's 'recent past' and the techniques grouped under the heading of kokorozuke - linkage via content, heart or meaning.
For many persons new to renku kokorozuke remains the linking technique of choice. The attractions are, it can seem, self evident: one simply studies the setting, the protagonists, or the action of the preceding verse and extends them in some way - perhaps adding a deliberate twist. Unlike kotobazuke's single word focus the text of each verse is considered as a whole; the invitation is to respond to meaning.
The added verse may now link in a quasi-narrative manner: furnish collaborative detail; describe consequent events; explore a particular character's background; or pursue the exegesis of an abstract idea. The obligation to shift assures that the development of the sequence will not become thematic overall but each pair forms a discrete vignette which is deconstructed in turn by the next added verse, the new pair sketching out a different scene - a fresh nexus in an ever evolving chain of recontextualisation.
The classics, and other sources of external reference, may once more be brought into play not, as in kotobazuke, to simply name-check a much quoted word, phrase or object but for their deep structure, for their complex resonance as intertexts.
With such levels of refinement it is not unreasonable to contend that skillful use of kokorozuke allows any given pair of verses to be considered very much as one might a single waka or tanka. Consequently the vogue arose in English language haikai scholarship during the last century to present the text of haikai-no-renga sequences as recombined pairs: AB BC CD DE etc.
For all that such readings might favour a particular aspect of critical appreciation they are unfortunate as they impart a stop/start quality to the dynamics of the sequence as a whole. This type of reading is nowhere more inappropriate than in the case of Shomon sequences where the relationship between verses has undergone a further transformation, and the question of coherence over extended passages is now very much to the fore.
Nioizuke - Going with the Flow
There are many terms used in Japanese to describe the various gradations of the Basho-style link and Renku Reckoner will shortly carry an article examining them in more detail. One thing they have in common is that they are vague, overlapping and variable - highly dependant on their proponent's real or imagined understanding of their originator's intentions. Nonetheless it is possible to make a clear distinction between kokorozuke and nioizuke: whereas kokorozuke employs a form of sequential dependency in which the relationship of each added verse to the preceding verse is apprehensible, and thus amenable to intellectual scrutiny, nioizuke is supratextual, relying instead on the interplay of mood, tone and dynamic intensity.
It may be argued that nioizuke is not entirely without precedent. The 'suggestive' link (yosei) and the 'buried link' (uzumiku) were recognised techniques in medieval renga and both can yield pairings that seem highly indirect. However the buried link challenged the reader to puzzle out a deliberately obscure extratextual reference, and the suggestive link can seem far more gnomic than was the authors' intention as it is often predicated on an intertextual reading whose additional sources may be far from apparent to the modern reader, and which are almost certain to be lost in translation.
Nioizuke, by contrast, goes deliberately beyond the sense of the text, decoupling the expectation that there must be an intellectually plausible connection between the content of the added verse and that of the preceding verse. At a stroke the space between the verses is broadened as evocation replaces description and the moment of the tsukeku becomes synchronous with, rather than consequent to, that of the maeku - a relationship more akin to exchange (kakeai) than to addition (tsukeai). This is a crucial distinction as it produces relationships between verses which are comparable to the internal juxtaposition (awase) typical of a bipartite haiku or hokku.
An important consequence of the deconstruction of semantic dependency is that a wider range of topics and materials may be combined or matched without courting the deliberate incongruity typical of the Danrin school. Commonplace themes and language may be introduced in ways that validate their essential dignity and allow them to appear alongside icons of high culture. In this form of haikai, whilst humour is not absent, expectations are confounded more to produce fresh insight than to excite hilarity.
The move from determinism to inference also means that poets can orchestrate the tonal impact of successive verses, yielding a form of coherence which nonetheless respects the obligation to shift in all 'hard' aspects of content. When used with sufficient skill nioizuke allows the dramatic impact of whole passages to be more closely controlled without resorting to any form of thematic constraint.
The Layering and Proximity
As ever with the poetics of the Basho school the relationship between theory and practice is fluid, its precepts offered as advice rather than direction. Even in sequences led by the Master himself there are abundant instances of basic word play (engo) and content linking (kokorozuke) so direct as to be little more than narrative extension. Clearly there are many instances of pure scent linking too but perhaps most significant are those relationships which work on many levels due to the layering of different aspects and styles of linkage. Nioizuke permits great subtlety and offers extended dynamic control, but it is best understood as the highest order of linkage, rather than the sole appropriate technique.
Just as there are variations in style of linkage within any given sequence there are variations in the proximity of the links. Early renga treatises regarded word play as generating 'tight' linkage (shinku) whereas content linkage would tend to be 'loose' (soku). With the advent of nioizuke, and the subsequent layering of techniques, such clear cut distinctions are less easily drawn but the principle remains valid: it is undesirable to seek a uniform degree of proximity between verses within a renku sequence. As in any art, a reliance on the obvious will yield a work that is crass whilst deliberate obscurantism is the first resort of the charlatan. If a renku sequence is to surprise, delight and confound it will not do so by being unrelievedly pedestrian or irritatingly arcane.