Wikipedia:Peer review/Kigo/archive1

Kigo

The kigo article is about the use of season words in the short Japanese poetry form known as haiku, as well as in the longer linked-verse form known as renga. A couple of different people have worked osporatically n this article over the last half year and they have transformed it from a bare stub into an article that I think is now close to being worthy of nomination as a featured article.

In soliciting comments, one person said that the introduction needs to be larger, another did not like the use of Bold for each kigo, and another said that they thought that the first paragraph in the section titled Must haiku include a kigo? was confusing. My own opinion is that the article still needs a few more photographs to illustrate some of the representative kigo.

As for references, although most English-language haiku books usually include a small amount of information on kigo, the two books by Higginson listed under print references are the only books in English that are only on kigo. One of our Japanese Wikipedians also helped on the article, which is the reason that there is a reference in Japanese listed. BlankVerse ∅ 10:32, 22 May 2005 (UTC)

Neat article. I'm not sure how to get around the list/glossary feeling of the article, stringing it our into prose seems counter productive, more text will probably decrease the prominence of the lists, or there is a option to shorten the lists, or move the lists to a seperate glossary article keeping the best examples. You may also want to cut back on the use of bold text. The lead should be expanded slightly. Its going to seem silly but it wasn't clear to me if people use kigo in regular speech or if they are just used in poetry--nixie 00:23, 24 May 2005 (UTC)

Thank you for your comments. There have also been a few people making very helpful comments directly on the Talk page for the Kigo article.

For the Japanese Wikipedia entry, they have a smaller list of kigo in their kigo article, with a separate article that is a list of kigo. The Japanese, however, are very familiar with haiku (there are daily haiku columns in most major newspapers, for example). For the average English Wikipedia visitor who will probably not be that familiar with haiku, and probably not know anything about kigo, I think that it helps to have numerous examples of kigo, although I agree that the number of example kigo might be too large currently. I have been thinking of cutting back on number of "Common kigo" (but will probably also end up adding a few new kigo since I think the number of kigo related to Humanity and Observances which are currently categories that I think are underrepresented).

A couple of people have commented about the inadequate lead, but I am having trouble expanding it. The suggestions I have had so far I think have oversimplified some of the issues discussed in the article to the point where I think that they would cause confusion.

FYI: Kigo are only used in haiku and renga (and occasionally in senryu), and are not used (AFAIK) in regular speech. It is interesting though, that there is a Japanese poetic technique called kakekotoba which is the use of the numerous homonyms in the Japanese language to create puns or multiple meanings in a poem, that also has a similiar techique in regular speech called share. BlankVerse ∅ 07:17, 24 May 2005 (UTC)

The fact that they're words excusively for poetry could go in the lead, it makes them quite unique :) --nixie 14:49, 24 May 2005 (UTC)

Ah...enlightenment! I misinterpreted your question. The season words (kigo) for the most part are just regular vocabulary words (that have seasonal associations), although like English there are words, usually rare or obsolete in normal conversation, that are considered "poetic". The word for frog in Basho's famous frog haiku, for example, was an ancient term, so it was something like Shakespeare using a word from the vocabulary of Chaucer. Those sort of poetic words, though, are much more common in waka than they are in haiku.

However when the words are used in haiku (or renga), because of the convention of kigo, the words will have a deeper resonance for both the poet and reader than when they are used in regular conversation. When you read a haiku that mentions the moon, for example, you know that it is about the autumn, so you end up interpreting the rest of the information in the haiku based upon that knowledge. I guess that is something I need to make clearer in the article. BlankVerse ∅ 10:30, 25 May 2005 (UTC)

So it is better for us to say "Kigo (literary "seasonal words") is a concept and technic of some genres of Japanese poetry, originally in renga and today in haiku which was developed from renga. Most of kigo are common words in conversation, some were common but currentdays sound archaic and poetic, some were generated for the poetic-rethorical purpose or bollowed from other poetic genre including waka or Chinese poetry. Though most of those words appear in other poetry form, kigo is highly haiku and renga technic, hence never considered as "kigo"".