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Paper short abstract

This paper examines Terada Torahiko’s 1935 essay “Japanese People’s View of Nature,” focusing on seasonality and his concept of the Holistic Organism. It applies seasonal aesthetics to both an ecologically relational view of nature and a modern discourse of “Japaneseness” shaped by nationalism.

Paper long abstract

This study examines the discourse of a commonly imagined harmonious relationship between the Japanese and nature, focusing on the role of seasonal aesthetics in constructing this image of harmony. As a case study, it analyzes Terada Torahiko’s 1935 essay “Nihonjin no shizenkan” (Japanese People’s View of Nature). A physicist, haiku poet, and essayist, Terada surveys the Japanese archipelago’s geographical and geological conditions, its flora and fauna, and the ways in which Japanese people have interacted with nature in both everyday and spiritual contexts.

Central to the essay is Terada’s concept of the “Holistic Organism” (zenkiteki yukitai). Terada critically argues that, even though people in his time tend to put humans and nature into a binary, they should not be separated, as they are interdependent. He further proposes that the interaction between the Japanese people and the natural conditions of the archipelago constitutes an organic whole. While it resonates with some of his contemporary philosophical ideas and literary trends, the view of nature presented by Terada also shares some similarities with certain concepts of contemporary environmental ethics, such as deep ecology and bioregionalism.

Seasonality is crucial to Terada’s theory of the relationship between the Japanese and nature. Terada views Japanese literature and art as records of various phenomena in Holistic Organism, with tanka and haiku being the most significant. He emphasizes the seasonal lexicon in poetry as something that gives spatially and temporally concrete images to the Holistic Organism. This perspective on seasonality, representing the Japanese putative harmonious relationship with nature, resonates with the concept of “Japaneseness” in modern-era discourse that has been prevalent since the Meiji period (1868-1912) and onward.

By examining Terada’s treatment of seasonality, this paper argues that his theory simultaneously articulates an ecologically resonant view of nature and reproduces a sense of “Japaneseness” infused with nationalism, ubiquitous at the early stage of the modern nation-state. In doing so, it highlights the ambivalent role of seasonal aesthetics in modern Japanese thought, situated between environmental ethics and the symbolic identity of the modern nation-state, a role still commonly circulated to this day.