Devenir histórico del haiku proletario japonés y su recepción en lengua castellana: análisis y estudio

Abstract

Japanese proletarian literature is a cultural and political phenomenon that began in the early 20th century. Its starting point is necessarily multiple and complex, and it was accelerated by various events, among which the following stand out: the incursion of Commodore Perry’s ships in 1853, the Meiji Restoration of 1868—which marked a complex and gradual opening between East and West—the Russo-Japanese War, the rapid process of industrialization, and finally, the difficult conditions of Japanese factory workers, a circumstance that fostered their interest in socialist thought.

In this article, it will focus on the birth of the haiku that can be termed proletarian or socially conscious, through the プロレタリア俳句運動 (Puroretaria haijin dōmei, or Proletarian Haiku Poets Association) as a poetic response to the coercion and oppression of two forms of fanaticism, especially between 1920 and 1945: imperialist power (the government and the Emperor) and the control of poetic art exercised by Takahama Kyoshi and his circle and the journal Hototogisu, which did not eliminate the spirit of proletarian synergies as one of the various movements of the so-called “new rising haiku.”

Despite repression, proletarian haiku did not disappear and transformed after 1945 into the 新俳句人連盟 (Shin haikujin renmei, or Federation of Haiku Poets) as the legacy of this libertarian movement, an association that continues to this day. Finally, in this article, it will highlight the limited attention and theoretical development of proletarian haiku in the West and analyze the results of a study on haiku translations into Spanish, as well as the limited reception of proletarian haiku in those translations.