Rhetoric, Aesthetics and Culture: Yasunari Kawabata, Thousand Cranes (Senbazuru, 1949-1952)
Rhetoric, Aesthetics and Culture: Yasunari Kawabata, Thousand Cranes (Senbazuru, 1949-1952)

Summary/Abstract: The present study aims to emphasise what one could call “metonymic repetition” and the function that this acquires in the architecture of the novel Senbazuru, signed by the Japanese author Yasunari Kawabata. In the mentioned narrative text, metonymy, combined with the rhetorical figure of repetition, is used as a method of redefining the aesthetic concept of mono no aware (literally translated, ‘the sadness of things’), exemplified by the traditional art of the tea ceremony, which is considered an universe of pure sensation in Japanese mentality. Following the path of relations of contiguity, the narrator metonymically introduces a digression from the plot towards atmosphere and from characters to spatial and temporal coordinates, in order to turn himself into a contemplator of feminine mystery and of artistic beauty, but not without also raising the question of art’s role in contemporary times.

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