Haku Rakuten

Haku Rakuten (白楽天) is a Noh play in the first category by Zeami Motokiyo, about the Japanese god of poetry repelling the Chinese poet Bai Juyi (or Po Chü-i) from Japan 500 years earlier, in defiance of the (perceived) challenge from China to the autonomy of Japanese poetry.

The elder of the fishermen explains to him the nature of Japanese poetry, Yamato Uta, suggesting that it is something shared both by men and by the birds, insects, and frogs of the land.

He launches into a series of dances that summon a divine wind, blowing a defeated Bai back to China.

[3] In the ensuing Ha section, the shite (an old fisherman) acknowledges the status of Chinese poetic shi and fu, together with that of the Buddhist scriptures from India, but suggests that rather than servile imitation the Japanese poetic tradition "blends", develops, and transcends its inheritance; his proposition, as above, that the birds and the beasts share in the creation of Japanese poetry and song, draws on Ki no Tsurayuki's preface to the Kokinshū.

[3] In turn, the noh play has inspired works including folding screens by Ogata Kōrin,[8][9][10] and woodblock prints by Suzuki Harunobu[1] and Kōgyo Tsukioka.

Parody of the Noh play Haku Rakuten ; woodblock print by Suzuki Harunobu , c. 1766. In the cultural contest between Japan and the continent, Bai Juyi is substituted with a Korean ambassador , holding an ink wash painting in the traditional style. and Sumiyoshi Myōjin with the winning charms of a modish Japanese bijin , holding a bijin-ga painting in the radical ukiyo-e style. [ 1 ]