Description
Book SynopsisEmptiness and Temporality is an account of classical Japanese poetics that takes its starting point in the two Buddhist concepts of emptiness (J. kû) and temporality (mujô) that ground the medieval understanding of poetry, and examines their affinity with contemporary Western theory, particularly Derridean différance and deconstruction.
Trade Review"[
Emptiness and Temporality] is an example of impeccable scholarship by an author with a through knowledge of source materials and a broad, interdisciplinary theoretical background, scholarship that is beautifully supplemented by deep and precise reading of poems in excellent translation." -- Rein Raud *
Monumenta Nipponica *
"The most notable contribution Ramirez-Christensen makes for western audiences is her introduction and illumination of
renga verses as an expression of Buddhist awakening . . . She offers readers a much-needed study in Japanese literature, examining what can be a rather inaccessible poetic form with great skill and clarity." -- Victor J. Forte *
H-Net Reviews *
"In addition to her groundbreaking
Emptiness and Temporality, which itself constitutes a major contribution to the fields of
waka and
renga studies, she has published a 416 page annotated translation of the poet Shinkei's fifteenth-century
Sasamegoto,
Murmured Conversations (2008) . . . These two new volumes confirm their author as one the world's leading authorities on Shinkei,
renga, and medieval Japanese poetics." --
Japanese Journal of Religious Studies"Esperanza Ramirez-Christensen has offered a compelling study of the position of Buddhism within Shinkei's poetics. Building on her great project of studying the life and writings of Shinkei, she has given us a window into a world where the lines between religion and artistic practice were blurred—and, in the case of Shinkei, ultimately disappeared. Ramirez-Christensen's study is an important contribution to comparative poetics and to the ongoing discussions of the subtle relationship between religion and the arts in the medieval world." -- Brian Ruppert *
Journal of Japanese Studies *
Table of Contents@fmct:Contents @toc4:Acknowledgments iii List of Abbreviations iii @toc2:Introduction 1 @toc1:Part One The Poetics of Renga @toc2:1. The Grammar of the Renga Sequence 000 2. The Link as a Structure of Signification 000 3. Emptiness, or Linking as Diff'rance 000 4. Linking as Hermeneutical Process 000 5. The Link as Figuration and Metaphorical Shift 000 6. Diff'rance and "the Jo-ha-ky' of the Myriad Arts" 000 @toc1:Part Two Kokoro, or the Emptiness of the Sign @toc2:7. The Close Link and the Distant Link 000 8. Emptiness and Enlightenment in Poetry 000 9. Medieval Symbolic Poetry and Buddhist Discourse 000 10. Beyond Meaning: Beauty Is the Aura of Contemplation 000 11. Ushin: Poetic Process as Meditation 000 12. Poetry and the Instantaneous Illumination of Zen 000 13. Linking by Words and by Mind: Understanding, Interpretation, and Iterability 000 14. The Chill and the Meager (Hieyase): Poetics and the Philosophy of the Privative 000 15. The Mode of Ambiguity Is the Dharma-Body 000 @toc4:Notes 000 Glossary of Key Terms and Concepts 000 Bibliography 000 Index 000
