Japan and the Culture of the Four Seasons: Nature, Literature, and the Arts

Japan and the Culture of the Four Seasons: Nature, Literature, and the Arts. By Haruo Shirane. New York: Columbia University Press, 2013. Pp. xxi + 311. Paper $22.50, isbn 978-0-231-15281-5.

Haruo Shirane's new book Japan and the Culture of the Four Seasons: Nature, Litera- ture, and the Arts provides a comprehensive examination and insightful analysis of the role of seasonal imagery that has developed over the course of eleven hundred years (eighth through nineteenth centuries) of Japanese literary history, especially with regard to iconic animals and flowers used in various ways as external symbols of change reflecting interior emotions. Shirane mainly looks at examples of poetry, beginning with the early Manyoshu collection and including many examples of the thirty-one-syllable waka initiated in the classical period as well as the haikai that gained popularity in the Edo period. He also considers various kinds of visual and practical arts, such as gardens and printmaking, that became prominent in the medi- eval and early modern periods, along with other kinds of societal practices, such as annual observances, seasonal festivals, and household behavior based on harmoniz- ing with nature.

This eminently readable and handsomely produced volume, on which the au- thor notes he had been laboring for many years prior to publication, contains over thirty annotated black-and-white illustrations of Japanese paintings and designs, with eleven of these reproduced as attractive color plates. The book also includes a par- ticularly useful set of indexes that are divided into "Index of Seasonal and Trans- Seasonal Words and Topics" and "Index of Authors, Titles, and Key Terms," in addition to a very helpful bibliography of vernacular and English sources on the topic of Japa- nese views of the environment seen in relation to artistic expressions. Since there are multiple references to different kinds of blossoms and other key seasonal symbols with variant nuances depending on the historical period in which they are used, the scholarly apparatus makes it a pleasure to navigate through the book's rich resources.

Shirane's main focus is on examining the notion of "secondary nature," that is, not a direct apprehension or participation in the natural world but a culturally con- structed view of the non-human realm as representative of inner feelings experienced through profound associations made with outer...