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haiku with humour
In Japan, we have a proverb that says "Fortune comes to a merry home." I will adapt this proverb in the following way: "Happiness comes to the home which is brimming over with humor." Life without humor is dull like a dinner without wine. To live with a person who can not understand humor is unpleasant; it is like living in a room without a window. These words reveal my concept of the previous proverb and my adaptation. In our home, my husband likes black humor very much, so we have become masters of humor.
Humor holds an important position in the literature of all ages and countries. That the use of puns are a part of haiku in Japan is not so important, what matters rather is that there is humor in the essence of the haiku spirit. Humor is an essential element in haiku.
R. H. Blyth, who was an author and commentator of books on haiku, understood the spirit of Zen in its background. In Haiku, volume 1 (Tokyo: Hokuseido, 1952), pp. 196-203, Blyth classified humor in haiku into the following nine categories:
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(1) The laughter of disillusionment;
(2) The laughter of studied idiocy;
(3) Spontaneous idiocy;
(4) Hyperbole;
(5) Dilemma;
(6) Scatalogical humour;
(7) Dry humour;
(8) Breaking with conventionality;
(9) Dropping from the sublime to the ridiculous.
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No one has done such a unique analysis as Blyth.
Although it is not always possible to say that these categories are the last word on haiku humor, the elements of these various kinds of humor are symbolically revealed in our own daily scenes of life. Blyth translated the following haiku of a cat's lovemaking as an example of wit and the use of puns in haiku.
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Nete okite ooakubi site neko no koi
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Having slept, the cat gets up,
and with great yawns,
Goes out love-making
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The following is the background of this haiku: On a dark night in early spring in a garden where a Japanese apricot has begun to bloom, a male cat is crying crazily while looking for a female. The male cat is not afraid of people, or frightened by the wind and rain. He does not stay in the house, but is looking for a female night and day. He seldom eats. After about 10 days he returns home exhausted.
The behavior of this male cat resembles that of a human being in love. This haiku which condenses the role of love-making in our lives reveals humor with a touch of pathos. I am happy to give applause to the humor of cats in love through my own series of haiku with this theme. I will end with two haiku, as I go out in the spring air for a stroll:
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Cats in love
Making nightmares
For baby
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The love of the cats
Passing by like a stranger
To the feeder
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Ikuyo Yoshimura
March 7, 2001
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