Koan of Himself: Finding Ikkyū’s fūryū in Whitman’s “Song of Myself”

Abstract

Fūryū has been defined as the “aesthetic of unconventionality” (Qiu, 2001). In a broader, psychosocial context, it is associated with an iconoclastic attitude – a freethinking, grounded idealism amidst a myriad of circumstances. Experientially, fūryū can be understood as the Zen of poetic sensibility. Ikkyū Sōjun, an iconoclastic Rinzai Zen master (1394-1481), was the embodiment of fūryū. In his Zen poetry, Nature was a frequent metaphor for his sexuality and often alluded to counter the hypocrisy of most 15th century Zen establishments. Similarly, in his poem “Song of Myself”, Walt Whitman openly addressed his bisexuality and themes of “Self as Nature” with a sensuous fortitude reminiscent of fūryū. Both points considered, thegoal of this paper was to identify the fūryū in “Song of Myself” by comparingthe poetry of Ikkyū and Whitman. The analysis of fūryū in the context of modern American literature can assist the contemplative practices of Zen Buddhist or transcendental meditators in the West. Furthermore, it can contribute to the understanding of fūryū as an accessible universal concept, present in modern and contemporary literature, and in the practice of Zen itself.