A primavera de Yosano Akiko: uma análise das flores e das cores em Midaregami

Abstract

This article aims to analyze poems from the tanka collection Midaregami (1901), by Japanese writer Yosano Akiko (1878-1942), within the theme of flowers and colors in her poetry. We seek to undertake an analysis of the images and their symbologies within the cultural, historical and literary Japanese context. Therefore, the methodology of this study is based on bibliographic research, mapping and analysis of passages in which flowers and colors stand out, focusing on how they are constructed as a conduit vehicle to reveal images that dialogue with Yosano’s formation as a poet and with other works of Japanese, Chinese and European literary tradition. We will use the work of Haruo Shirane (2012) as the main theoretical basis. Yosano’s poetry, marked by complex metaphors and themes of love and youth, has individualism, sensuality, desire and the modern woman as striking traits in her work. After the initial definition of the aforementioned corpus, we first selected 10 translated poems in which we mapped the flowers and colors in order to map the symbology present in their metaphors. Of the 10 poems, we chose 7 and, from these, we examined the presence of flowers and colors from the Japanese cultural repertoire.