The Blade of Jun ETO: The Seasons when Haiku and Waka Intersected (1970s-1990s)

The Blade of Jun ETO: The Seasons when Haiku and Waka Intersected (1970s-1990s)
Your critical writing is written in waka" and "Criticism must be in haiku. These two words were not mere stylistic remarks, but were a condensed moment of postwar Japan's critical consciousness itself. Jun ETO (1932-1999), who rose to prominence at a young age with his essay on Soseki, is known as a critic who continued to question the structure of the postwar state, the attitude of intellectuals, and the ethics of literature. His writings were characterized by a clear tension, a cutting edge of clarity that stripped away unnecessary sentiments and went to the heart of the subject matter. His use of the haiku analogy was symbolic of his critical stance of cutting out the world in short sentences and not allowing it to become muddied.
The recipients of these words found themselves in the 1970s and 1980s, a period of great social and cultural upheaval. High growth was ending, underground culture and the obscene energy of youth were drifting through the cities, and eventually the consumer society was maturing. In literature, the center of gravity was shifting from heavy criticism that carried politics and big stories to softer narratives that valued personal moods and feelings. It was also characteristic of this period that the dense landscapes of Kenji Nakagami and the light style of Haruki Murakami came to be read on the same ground. Criticism also began to accept not only the strength of logic, but also a style that included the writer's body heat and sway, and the flow of the text itself came to have value.
Jun ETO's name "waka" was a sharp critique of this trend. Waka is a form that presupposes lyricism and lingering sentences, which is the opposite of the tension that criticism should have. That is why Eto went on to say, "Criticism must be haiku. Haiku symbolizes condensation, a blade, and the instantaneous force of observation, and the idea that in order to cut out the subject without hesitation, it is necessary to sharpen the words themselves, not to flow with emotion.