Japan

mono no aware

nationality

British

occupation / innovator as

drum kit

drummer

is often misleadingly translated as the pathos of things. This is a misleading translation because because it suggests that things can inherently possess qualities like pathos or a pathetic beauty, whereas in the Japanese tradition, such qualities come into being only when people perceive them in things. Beauty is not in the object but is evoked by the subject (i.e., the perceiver).

Because of the particular Japanese liking, already noted, for the perishable beauties of nature and because of the acute Japanese sensitivity to the passage of time, mono aware has always been tinged with sadness and melancholy. Some commentators have sought to convey this sense by translating the phrase as the ''pathos of things.'' But this is misleading, because it suggests that things can inherently possess qualities like pathos or a pathetic beauty. Rather, in the Japanese tradition, such qualities come into being only when people perceive them in things. In other words, the Japanese have traditionally tended to the belief that beauty is not in the object but is evoked by the subject (i.e., the perceiver).

is the capacity to be moved by things, whether they are the beauties of nature or the feelings of people.

The most basic sense of mono no aware is the capacity to be moved by things, whether they are the beauties of nature or the feelings of people, a capacity that Tsurayuki, at least, believed would directly lead to aesthetic expression. .

Paul Varley

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Paul Varley