EMPTINESS AND TEMPORALITY: BUDDHISM AND MEDIEVAL JAPANESE POETICS . By Esperanza Ramirez-Christensen . Stanford, CA : Stanford University Press , 2008 . Pp. vii + 208 . $55.00 .
摘要
Emptiness and Temporality is an admirable attempt to apply Western philosophical ideas and literary theory, and critical theory, to the principles espoused in poet‐priest Shinkei's fifteenth‐century poetical treatise, Sasamegoto (Murmured Conversations). The author thus continues her earlier research into this important figure, his life, and his writing, extending the exploration in new and exciting directions. (An excellent annotated translation, Murmured Conversations: A Treatise on Poetry and Buddhism by the Poet‐Monk Shinkei was published simultaneously as a companion edition.) Shinkei's work is, unsurprisingly, deeply imbued with Buddhist images, Buddhist themes, and Buddhist allusions. Ramirez‐Christensen seeks to use Buddhist philosophy as a bridge between (post)modern Western critical discourse and medieval Japanese poetics. Husserl or Derrida are enlisted to help the reader understand Buddhist philosophy and Japanese poetry and the relationship between the two fields. Her conviction that the medieval Japanese aesthetic world is one that totally depends upon Buddhist notions of experience and ontology is unassailable, in this reviewer's opinion. From the idea of the constructive space between verses of linked poems (renga) in Shinkei's thought to the representation looking or observation as an aspect or outgrowth of meditation, Buddhism is a powerful source of theory about poetic practice, as this analysis ably demonstrates. This book will be a most welcome addition to the bookshelves of students of medieval Japan, but is also useful in thinking more broadly about aesthetics and Buddhism, Western theory and Buddhism, poetry and religious experience, and a whole host of other issues.
