mono no aware

is the sense of deep feeling found in things seen and heard. It comes naturally from the movement of the heart.

Nativist strategy disposed writers to search out the real to recover the tangible, authentic, and corporeal meaning that contemporary language had lost. Motoori, who shared an interest in this question with others like Kagawa Kageki (17681843), framed this quest best in his discussions of mono no aware. Aware, the sense of deep feeling, he wrote, was found in things seen and heard... it came naturally from the movement of the heart. In the vocalizations of the ancients, the proper response when one was moved by a flower was to say '' aah,'' or ''hare '' when one was moved by the moon. Aware combined these expressions.

Kageki KagawaThinkers

Kageki Kagawa