mono no aware

occupation / innovator as

translator

nationality

British

is the direct emotional experience of the pathos inherent in the beauty of the outer world, a beauty that is inexorably fated to disappear together with the observer.

Let us recall how aware was explained by Ivan Morris, author of The World of the Shining Prince: The gamut of its use in Heian literature is extremely wide.( . . . ) its most characteristic use in The Tale of Genji is to suggest the pathos inherent in the beauty of the outer world, a beauty that is inexorably fated to disappear together with the observer. Buddhist doctrines about the evanescence of all living things naturally influenced this particular content of the word, but the stress in aware was always on direct emotional experience rather than on religious understanding. Aware never entirely lost its simple interjectional sense of 'Ah!'3 The term often appears in the phrase mono no aware, which is roughly an equivalent of lacrima rerum (the pathos of things). Nevertheless, it does not mean sad feelings only. 'Aware is born when man can tell a difference in the sense of things and knows their essence. Therefore, mono no aware is impossible unless the person faces ''the essence of existence''. With this in mind, mono no aware o shiru, or getting to(know) mono no aware signifies.

Ivan MorrisThinkers

Ivan Morris