Create a 5 page essay paper that discusses Why Mono No Aware: Cultural Art History of Tokugawa Period Japan.“Mono no aware” is especially a term -in the art history of Japan- that means the pathos

Create a 5 page essay paper that discusses Why Mono No Aware: Cultural Art History of Tokugawa Period Japan.

“Mono no aware” is especially a term -in the art history of Japan- that means the pathos of things. Also it refers to ‘empathy towards things’ or ‘a sensitivity of transience of things”. Indeed though the term is not directly associated with the things of beauty, the quality to attract human mind is considered as an essential features of these things.

But literally it refers to the transience or ephemera of anything. According to Khoon Choy Lee, it is the awareness of the transience, of things, that produces a sense of bittersweet cognition of how things flow inevitably flow out into the past. Since things flow out the past or beauty is not everlasting, human attempt to retain it forever essentially gives birth to the pathos. In fact the term was first introduced by the Japanese scholar Motoori Norinaga in the 18th century. Norinaga first used it as a concept in a literary criticism of “the Tale of Genji”. Afterward the concept of “Mono no aware” was widely used in various Japanese art and literature including “Manyosha” and in contemporary Japanese cultural tradition and literary philosophy it occupies a central place.

Historical Origin of ‘Mono No Aware’ and its Perception

The term ‘Mono no aware’ is derived from two linguistic sources: First ‘mono’ is a traditional Japanese word that means “things”. then ‘aware’ is a term, used in Heian period, that refers to an exclamation, meaning a set of measured surprises such as “deep feeling”, “pathos”, “poignancy”, “sensitivity” etc, as Hooker says, “The phrase, derived from aware , which, in Heian Japan meant something like "sensitivity" or "sadness", means "a sensitivity to things.”