Kyka, Japan's Comic Verse: A Mad in Translation Reader

"There is an absolute freedom both in respect of language and choice of subject. The kiôka must be funny, that is all.¿ ¿ William J Aston History of Japanese Literature 1899. This Reader is a selection from ¿Mad in Translation ¿ a thousand years of kyôka, comic Japanese poetry in the classic waka mode,¿ a 2000-poem, 200-chapter, 740-page monster of a book. It offers a 300-page double distillation high-proof sample of the poetry and prose, with improved translations, re-considered opinions and additional snake-legs (explanation some scholars may not need). The scattershot of two-page chapters and notes have been compounded into a score of cannonball-sized thematic chapters with just enough weight to bowl over most specialists yet, hopefully, not bore the amateur and sink a potentially broad-beamed readership. Generally speaking, even readers with no particular interest in Japan ¿ if such odd souls exist ¿ may expect (with apologies to Chesterton) unexpected pleasure from this book if English metaphysical poetry, grooks, hyperlogical nonsense verse, outrageous epigrams, the (im)possibilities and process of translation between exotic tongues, the reason of puns and rhyme, outlandish metaphor, extreme hyperbole and whatnot tickle their fancy. Read together with The Woman Without a Hole, also by Robin D. Gill, the hitherto overlooked ulterior side of art poetry in Japan may now be thoroughly explored by monolinguals, though bilinguals and students of Japanese will be happy to know all the original Japanese is included.