![]() ![]() This essay places Ryūkō's work in context, characterizing it as a synthesis of a number of elements from the contemporary criticism-the principal among these being the current of negative criticism of Japanese poetry, on the one hand, and the current of positive response to Western free-verse poetry, on the other. It is common for historians of modern Japanese poetry to say that the poet Kawaji Ryūkō was the first to publish free-verse poetry in Japanese (in 1907). In this essay I argue that the appearance of modern Japanese free-verse poetry can be explained using a modified version of Lotman's model. Lotman posits another alternative: the semiotic system might instead choose to break or alter its own rules, renovating and transforming itself by incorporating elements from other semiotic systems. ![]() The semiotic system is described as having become rigidified, under such circumstances. In his essays on the dynamics of cultural change, the semiotician Yuri Lotman proposes a model to explain the fact that when an area of culture- poetry, for example-develops a set of self-descriptions-such as poetry criticism, histories of poetry, and so on-that area of culture (or semiotic system, to use Lotman's term) is in a position to become rigidly self-repeating: once it draws up rules for itself, then there is the possibility that it will follow those rules. ![]()
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