![Men Dancing To Samisen](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/0/07/Men_Dancing_To_Samisen.jpg)
, literally "the
pathos
Pathos (, ; plural: ''pathea'' or ''pathê''; , for "suffering" or "experience") appeals to the emotions and ideals of the audience and elicits feelings that already reside in them. Pathos is a term used most often in rhetoric (in which it is c ...
of things", and also translated as "an empathy toward things", or "a sensitivity to
ephemera
Ephemera are transitory creations which are not meant to be retained or preserved. Its etymological origins extends to Ancient Greece, with the common definition of the word being: "the minor transient documents of everyday life". Ambiguous in ...
", is a Japanese idiom for the awareness of , or transience of things, and both a transient gentle sadness (or
wistfulness
Melancholia or melancholy (from el, µέλαινα χολή ',Burton, Bk. I, p. 147 meaning black bile) is a concept found throughout ancient, medieval and premodern medicine in Europe that describes a condition characterized by markedly d ...
) at their passing as well as a longer, deeper gentle sadness about this state being the reality of life.
Origins and analysis
The idiom
comes from
Heian period
The is the last division of classical Japanese history, running from 794 to 1185. It followed the Nara period, beginning when the 50th emperor, Emperor Kanmu, moved the capital of Japan to Heian-kyō (modern Kyoto). means "peace" in Japanese. ...
literature, but was picked up and used by 18th century
Edo period
The or is the period between 1603 and 1867 in the history of Japan, when Japan was under the rule of the Tokugawa shogunate and the country's 300 regional '' daimyo''. Emerging from the chaos of the Sengoku period, the Edo period was characteriz ...
Japanese cultural scholar
Motoori Norinaga
was a Japanese scholar of ''Kokugaku'' active during the Edo period. He is conventionally ranked as one of the Four Great Men of Kokugaku (nativist) studies.
Life
Norinaga was born in what is now Matsusaka in Ise Province (now part of Mie Pre ...
in his literary criticism of ''
The Tale of Genji,'' and later to other germinal Japanese works including the . It became central to his
philosophy of literature
Philosophy and literature involves the literary treatment of philosophers and philosophical themes (the literature of philosophy), and the philosophical treatment of issues raised by literature (the philosophy of literature).
The philosophy ...
; he viewed it the main theme of ''The Tale of Genji''.
His articulation was the result of well-established
poetic
Poetry (derived from the Greek ''poiesis'', "making"), also called verse, is a form of literature that uses aesthetic and often rhythmic qualities of language − such as phonaesthetics, sound symbolism, and metre − to evoke meanings in a ...
readings of ''The Tale of Genji'' and the concept became central to his own; ''Genji'' was "instrumental" in the term's establishment.
According to Norinaga, to "know" is to have a shrewd understanding and consideration of reality and the assortment of occurrences present; to be affected by and appreciate the beauty of cherry blossoms was an example of this knowledge provided by Norinaga.
Japanese cultural scholar Kazumitsu Kato wrote that understanding in the Heian period was "almost a necessity for a learned man in aristocratic society", a time when it was a prominent concept.
Donald Richie
Donald Richie (17 April 1924 – 19 February 2013) was an American-born author who wrote about the Japanese people, the culture of Japan, and especially Japanese cinema. Although he considered himself primarily a film historian, Richie also dir ...
wrote that the term has "a near-Buddhistic insistence upon recognition of the eternal flux of life upon this earth. This is the authentic Japanese attitude toward death and disaster".
Various other scholars have discussed the term.
Etymology
The phrase is derived from the Japanese word , which means "thing", and , which was a
Heian period
The is the last division of classical Japanese history, running from 794 to 1185. It followed the Nara period, beginning when the 50th emperor, Emperor Kanmu, moved the capital of Japan to Heian-kyō (modern Kyoto). means "peace" in Japanese. ...
expression of measured surprise (similar to "ah" or "oh"), translating roughly as "pathos", "poignancy", "deep feeling", "sensitivity", or "awareness". has seen multiple translations, such as "pathos of things" and "sensitivity of things"; the Latin phrase has also been invoked.
Awareness of the transience of all things heightens appreciation of their beauty, and evokes a gentle sadness at their passing. Norinaga saw the state of being as the fundamental condition of the concept.
The term has seen gradual change in its meaning, although since "the beginning it represented a feeling of a special kind: 'not a powerful surge of passion, but an emotion containing a balance".
In contemporary culture
is "one of the most well-known concepts in traditional literary criticism in Japan".
Yasunari Kawabata
was a Japanese novelist and short story writer whose spare, lyrical, subtly shaded prose works won him the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1968, the first Japanese author to receive the award. His works have enjoyed broad international appeal an ...
was a considerable modern proponent of .
Norinaga asserted that the feeling of may be so profound that allusions to
sense
A sense is a biological system used by an organism for sensation, the process of gathering information about the world through the detection of Stimulus (physiology), stimuli. (For example, in the human body, the brain which is part of the cen ...
s, highlighting "the sound of wind or crickets, ... the colour of flowers or snow", would be the only apt expression.
Notable
manga
Manga (Japanese: 漫画 ) are comics or graphic novels originating from Japan. Most manga conform to a style developed in Japan in the late 19th century, and the form has a long prehistory in earlier Japanese art. The term ''manga'' is u ...
artists who use -style storytelling include
Hitoshi Ashinano,
Kozue Amano
is a Japanese manga artist. She is widely known as the creator of ''Aria (manga), Aria'', which proved to be a best-selling hit, and was adapted into an anime television series consisting of 3 seasons and 2 Original video animation, OVAs.
As o ...
, and
Kaoru Mori
is a Japanese manga artist from Tokyo and the creator of the manga series ''Shirley'', '' Emma'', and ''A Bride's Story''. Many of her works are centered on female characters in the 19th century, such as a maid in Victorian Britain and a bride ...
. In
anime
is Traditional animation, hand-drawn and computer animation, computer-generated animation originating from Japan. Outside of Japan and in English, ''anime'' refers specifically to animation produced in Japan. However, in Japan and in Japane ...
, both ''
Only Yesterday'' by
Isao Takahata
was a Japanese director, screenwriter and producer. A co-founder of Studio Ghibli, he earned international critical acclaim for his work as a director of Japanese animated feature films. Born in Ujiyamada, Mie Prefecture, Takahata joined Toei ...
and ''
Mai Mai Miracle
is a Japanese animated film based on Nobuko Takagi's novelization of her autobiography, ''Maimai Shinko''. It was produced by the animation studio Madhouse, distributed by Shochiku, and directed by Sunao Katabuchi.
The film debuted at the Locar ...
'' by
Sunao Katabuchi emphasize the passing of time in gentle notes and by presenting the main plot against a parallel one from the past.
By the 1970s, had been adopted in Japanese and English film criticism with noted attention towards the Japanese director
Yasujirō Ozu
was a Japanese film director and screenwriter. He began his career during the era of silent films, and his last films were made in colour in the early 1960s. Ozu first made a number of short comedies, before turning to more serious themes in t ...
.
Ozu was well known for creating a sense of , frequently climaxing with a character very understatedly saying , after a familial and societal
paradigm shift
A paradigm shift, a concept brought into the common lexicon by the American physicist and philosopher Thomas Kuhn, is a fundamental change in the basic concepts and experimental practices of a scientific discipline. Even though Kuhn restricted t ...
, such as a daughter being married off, against the backdrop of a swiftly changing Japan. Ozu has often expressed feelings by showing the faces of objects rather than the face of an actor. Some examples include two fathers contemplating the rocks in a "dry landscape" garden, and a mirror reflecting the absence of the daughter who has just left home after getting married.
Science fiction
Science fiction (sometimes shortened to Sci-Fi or SF) is a genre of speculative fiction which typically deals with imaginative and futuristic concepts such as advanced science and technology, space exploration, time travel, parallel unive ...
author
Ken Liu
Ken Liu (born 1976) is an American author of science fiction and fantasy. His epic fantasy series ''The Dandelion Dynasty'', which he describes as silkpunk, is published by Simon & Schuster. Liu has won Hugo and Nebula Awards for his short fic ...
's short story "" won the 2013
Hugo Award for Best Short Story
The Hugo Award for Best Short Story is one of the Hugo Awards given each year for science fiction or fantasy stories published or translated into English during the previous calendar year. The short story award is available for works of fiction of ...
. Inspired by works like the science fiction manga , Liu sought to evoke an "aesthetic primarily oriented towards creating in the reader an empathy towards the inevitable passing of all things", and to acknowledge "the importance of memory and continuity with the past".
Akira Kurosawa
was a Japanese filmmaker and painter who directed thirty films in a career spanning over five decades. He is widely regarded as one of the most important and influential filmmakers in the history of cinema. Kurosawa displayed a bold, dyna ...
's ''
I Live in Fear
is a 1955 Japanese drama film directed by Akira Kurosawa, produced by Sōjirō Motoki, and co-written by Kurosawa, Shinobu Hashimoto, and Hideo Oguni. The film is about an elderly Japanese factory owner so terrified of the prospect of a nuclear a ...
'' and
Shohei Imamura's ''
Black Rain'' have been associated with the term.
The 2020 science fiction novel ''
The Book of Koli
''The Book of Koli'' is a 2020 post apocalyptic novel by British writer M. R. Carey. It is the first book in the Rampart Trilogy, preceding '' The Trials of Koli'' (2020) and '' The Fall of Koli'' (2021). Reviews of the book upon its release wer ...
'' has as a primary character an
artificial intelligence
Artificial intelligence (AI) is intelligence—perceiving, synthesizing, and inferring information—demonstrated by machines, as opposed to intelligence displayed by animals and humans. Example tasks in which this is done include speech re ...
named Monono Aware, a wordplay on .
See also
*
Melancholia
Melancholia or melancholy (from el, µέλαινα χολή ',Burton, Bk. I, p. 147 meaning black bile) is a concept found throughout ancient, medieval and premodern medicine in Europe that describes a condition characterized by markedly dep ...
*
This too shall pass
"This too shall pass" ( fa, این نیز بگذرد, īn nīz bogzarad) is a Persian adage translated and used in several languages. It reflects on the temporary nature, or ephemerality, of the human condition — that neither the bad, nor good, ...
, a Middle-Eastern adage regarding ephemerality
Media and written works:
* ''
In Search of Lost Time
''In Search of Lost Time'' (french: À la recherche du temps perdu), first translated into English as ''Remembrance of Things Past'', and sometimes referred to in French as ''La Recherche'' (''The Search''), is a novel in seven volumes by French ...
''
*
* ''
Lost in Translation''
*
* ''
Last Life in the Universe
''Last Life in the Universe'' (Thai title: เรื่องรัก น้อยนิด มหาศาล, ''Ruang rak noi nid mahasan'') is a 2003 Thai romantic crime film directed by Pen-Ek Ratanaruang. The film is notable for being t ...
''
* ''
Samurai Jack
''Samurai Jack'' is an American animated action-adventure television series created by Genndy Tartakovsky for Cartoon Network and distributed by Warner Bros. Domestic Television. Tartakovsky conceived ''Samurai Jack'' after finishing his wor ...
''
* ''
Girls' Last Tour
is a Japanese manga series written and illustrated by Tsukumizu. It was serialized monthly through Shinchosha's ''Kurage Bunch'' manga website from February 2014 to January 2018 and collected in six ''tankōbon'' volumes. An English release ...
''
Related terms with no direct translation in English:
*
*
*
Memento mori
''Memento mori'' (Latin for 'remember that you ave todie'