Ok, I liked "Anatomy of Melancholy" so much when I was young that I stole the library's copy because I couldn't find it at the bookstore and there was no amazon then. Replaced the library's copy years later. Not only weird enough to read it, weird enough to steal it lol.
I've never even heard of the first seven books! Thank you for expanding my horizons Steve! But a small correction: everyone knows that Bigfoot lives in the PNW, not Massachusetts (part of why Washington, not Massachusetts, is the greatest state of this union).
Thanks for this. Was thinking much of your excellent, useful and intriguing list as the NYT was, with much fanfare, revealing their [insert adjective of choice here] list of 100 greatest 'books' (sic for 'novels') of the 21st century over past week. Cannot wait for your response video!!
No one but you, Steve, would put together such a varied decade! What a treat. I would second and amplify your comments on the strangeness of the unabridged "1001 Nights" (literally, in Arabic, "1000 Nights and One Night). There are (endless) stories that are essentially sermons next to stories of bawdy widows and conniving jinn. And Attar's "Conference of the Birds" is a Sufi classic. Anyone who likes that could look at Rumi's "Masnavi" or Sa'di's "Bustan." Neither is what you might expect. Now I have to go looking for the Heptameron!
I'm very happy to see this list continuing as I could happily listen to you talk about classics all day, Steve, but did you have to give us a spoiler by having number one sitting there in plain view under Erasmus?
I just heard of the Heptameron for the first time a few days ago, and here it is again haha. It was recommended to me because I like Karen Blixen/Isak Dinesen, and especially her Seven Gothic Tales. Not sure how valid that comparison is beyond just the obvious aspect of Blixen continuing/doing her own thing with the Thousand and One Nights/Decameron/etc storytelling tradition, but it does sound very interesting! I'm intrigued by that Penguin three volume edition of the Thousand and One Nights. How's the translation in that one? So far I've only read bits of the Burton translation, which I find delightful, but I understand it has issues.
I wish I was younger where there would be at least a tiny chance to read even a small percentage of books you have recommended. I needed a Steve Donoghue in my life 60 years ago. I need to go catch up with Pride and Prejudice Chapter 8. Bye.
Just a note that you might find interesting. Ignatius Donnelly's the great Cryptogram, had a theory that bacon also wrote the anatomy of melancholy. I know you like the SAQ, but I didn't see you mention that book - it was good reading - way better than the Delia Bacon book.
🎉I have read the Burton, all of it, last time I looked I was still a woman, however, I liked the book, but with my sexist filter glasses on. I'm of to look for Gregory of Tours, which I'm keen to read. I'd love a new Penguin Classics deluxe in a new translation. I can dream, can't I? The other books are interesting too. I love this series of videos.
Working my way through the Golden Age of Crime novels. Started with a reread of many of Agatha Christie's greatest hits and now am reading for the first time The Worthingham Mystery by Anthony. Berkeley
Larry McMurty bought "my" Nabokov Eugene Onegin books. Every other Saturday I"d drop by a used book store that had the 3 hardback volumes (1st editions) on top of a small bookshelf. I"d pat them each time I visited. I'd chat with the two booksellers about what was selling, what wasn't, what they were reading, etc. One Saturday I arrived and the guys were glowing. I figured they'd made some good sales by their expressions (this was in the 90's in Austin, Texas where there remained interesting collector and antiquarian booksellers, but less and less people frequented them. The book sellers liked me because I was young and bought books, but the problem was I was the rare young person in there at any time of day. By the early 2000's all those stores had shut down, including this one). I reached over to the bookshelf to pat my Nabokov books and they were gone. "Larry McMurtry was here," one of the guys told me, " and he made a huge buy including the Eugene Onegin books." McMurtry traveled the country buying books for his store in Archer City. When I met McMurtry's son, James, after a gig (he is a wonderful musician) about a year after I told him I'd never forgiven his dad for that. He laughed. I had to settle for the 3 volume paperback editions I found at another used book shop. Enjoyed the narrative poem and the film too.
I discovered Burton's Anatomy of Melancholy by catching a few references to it in other books which made me think it might be something I would like. And in those days it was very difficult to find. I scoured the used bookstores in my area for it to no avail, and had to make do with a library copy, the same one from which the NYRB edition is a reprint. As soon as that was published I got it in hard copy. There is also a newer one by Peguin which I have as an ebook. I have read it cover to cover twice. And parts of it many times. I did not get the impression at any time that it was a "no girls allowed" book at all. It is an altogether unclassifiable book. I don't believe that it is what it appears to be at first glance. Near the very beginning, the author who calls himself "Democritus Junior," quotes a statement someone made about the Greek philosopher Democritus: "there was nothing in the whole range of nature about which he did not write," and this is what Burton, I believe, took it upon himself to do, hanging this project on the subject of what we call depression or mental illness. Since Burton believes that madness and distraction characterize in some degree all mortal existence, the whole range of human experience and behavior is covered, maniacally and systematically, but with a massive dose of wit and humor. It is also a heroic love-letter to reading, to language, to vocabulary, to literature. The book is jam-packed with quotations from literature. You will find yourself and your friends described in its pages. And it will change forever how you think about the past. But I know it is not a book for everyone. To get a taste of it you can read the 120+(!) page introduction, and the chapters "Miseries, Cares, and Discontents," and the amazing "Digression on Air." I don't know anyone personally who can stand to read this book, but for me it is my #1 favorite.
So far your list appears reasonable but if Mad Magazines Snappy Answers to Stupid Questions isn't number one I'm going to have to reassess your qualifications
I've not read _The Anatomy of Melancholy_ but it seems like a precursor to _The Noonday Demon: An Anatomy of Depression_ which I have read and is quite good. I remember Solomon referencing the older book in fact. Would you recommend _Anatomy…_ for someone who liked (I don't know that *enjoy* is the right verb, but really yes) _Noonday Demon?_
The Anatomy of Melancholy is a thousand times more interesting. At least to me. I know that most readers cannot tolerate the somewhat archaic language, style, and vocabulary - and the lack of any plot and so on. However, it is filled with a rare wisdom, humor, and love of language. I have enjoyed it now for many years. It is possible to simple browse around in it - you are almost guaranteed to find somethin amusing or thought-provoking, but of course reading from the beginning carefully, especially the long introduction, is preferable.
@@blakeray9856 Thanks. I'll have to give it a try. Solomon is a good writer. I know Steve really liked _Noonday Demon_ though. I wonder how he compares the two?
" Just the other night I was reading the famous haiku of Basho, the Zen mystic and master. It does not look like great poetry to the Western mind or to the mind which has been educated in a Western way. And now the whole world is being educated in the Western way; East and West have disappeared as far as education is concerned. Listen to it very silently, because it is not what you call great poetry but it is great insight - which is far more important. It has tremendous poetry, but to feel that poetry you have to be very subtle. Intellectually, it cannot be understood; it can be understood only intuitively. This is the haiku: WHEN I LOOK CAREFULLY, I SEE THE NAZUNIA BLOOMING BY THE HEDGE! Now, there seems to be nothing of great poetry in it. But let us go into it with more sympathy, because Basho is being translated into English; in his own language it has a totally different texture and flavor. The nazunia is a very common flower - grows by itself by the side of the road, a grass flower. It is so common that nobody ever looks at it. It is not a precious rose, it is not a rare lotus. It is easy to see the beauty of a rare lotus floating on a lake, a blue lotus - how can you avoid seeing it? For a moment you are bound to be caught by its beauty. Or a beautiful rose dancing in the wind, in the sun... for a split second it possesses you. It is stunning. But a nazunia is a very ordinary, common flower; it needs no gardening, no gardener, it grows by itself anywhere. To see a nazunia carefully a meditator is needed, a very delicate consciousness is needed; otherwise you will bypass it. It has no apparent beauty, its beauty is deep. Its beauty is that of the very ordinary, but the very ordinary contains the extraordinary in it, because all is full of God - even the nazunia flower. Unless you penetrate it with a sympathetic heart you will miss it. When for the first time you read Basho you start thinking, "What is there so tremendously important to say about a nazunia blooming by the hedge?" In Basho's poem the last syllable - KANA in Japanese - is translated by an exclamation point because we don't have any other way to translate it. But kana means, "I am amazed!" Now, from where is the beauty coming? Is it coming from the nazunia? - because thousands of people may have passed by the side of the hedge and nobody may have even looked at this small flower. And Basho is possessed by its beauty, is transported into another world. What has happened? It is not really the nazunia, otherwise it would have caught everybody's eye. It is Basho's insight, his open heart, his sympathetic vision, his meditativeness. Meditation is alchemy: it can transform the base metal into gold, it can transform a nazunia flower into a lotus. WHEN I LOOK CAREFULLY.... And the word 'carefully' means attentively, with awareness, mindfully, meditatively, with love, with caring. One can just look without caring at all, then one will miss the whole point. That word 'carefully' has to be remembered in all its meanings, but the root meaning is meditatively. And what does it mean when you see something meditatively? It means without mind, looking without the mind, no clouds of thought in the sky of your consciousness, no memories passing by, no desires... nothing at all, utter emptiness. When in such a state of no-mind you look, even a nazunia flower is transported into another world. It becomes a lotus of the paradise, it is no longer part of the earth; the extraordinary has been found in the ordinary. And this is the way of Buddha: to find the extraordinary in the ordinary, to find all in the now, to find the whole in this - Buddha calls it TATHATA. Basho's haiku is a haiku of tathata: THIS nazunia, looked at lovingly, caringly through the heart, unclouded consciousness, in a state of no-mind... and one is amazed, one is in awe. A great wonder arises, How is it possible? This nazunia - and if a nazunia is possible then everything is possible. If a nazunia can be so beautiful, Basho can be a buddha. If a nazunia can contain such poetry, then each stone can become a sermon. WHEN I LOOK CAREFULLY, I SEE THE NAZUNIA BLOOMING BY THE HEDGE! KANA.... I am amazed. I am dumb. I cannot say anything about its beauty - I can only hint at it. A haiku simply hints. The poetry describes, the haiku only indicates - and in a very indirect way. A similar situation is found in Tennyson's famous poetry; comparing both will be of great help to you. Basho represents the intuitive, Tennyson the intellectual. Basho represents the East, Tennyson the West. Basho represents meditation, Tennyson mind. They look similar, and sometimes the poetry of Tennyson may look more poetic than Basho's because it is direct, it is obvious. FLOWER IN THE CRANNIED WALL I PLUCK YOU OUT OF THE CRANNIES HOLD YOU HERE, ROOT AND ALL, IN MY HAND, LITTLE FLOWER - IF I COULD BUT UNDERSTAND WHAT YOU ARE, ROOT AND ALL, AND ALL IN ALL, I SHOULD KNOW WHAT GOD AND MAN IS. A beautiful piece, but nothing compared to Basho. Let us see where Tennyson becomes totally different. First: FLOWER IN THE CRANNIED WALL I PLUCK YOU OUT OF THE CRANNIES.... Basho simply looks at the flower, he does not pluck it out. Basho is a passive awareness: Tennyson is active, violent. In fact, if you have really been impressed by the flower, you cannot pluck it. If the flower has reached your heart, how can you pluck it? Plucking it means destroying it, killing it - it is murder! Nobody has thought about Tennyson's poetry as murder - but it IS murder. How can you destroy something so beautiful? But that's how our mind functions; it is destructive. It wants to possess, and possession is possible only through destruction. Remember, whenever you possess something or somebody, you destroy something or somebody. You possess the woman? - you destroy her, her beauty, her soul. You possess the man? - he is no longer a human being; you have reduced him to an object, into a commodity. Basho looks carefully, just looks, not even gazes concentratedly; just a look, soft, feminine, as if afraid to hurt the nazunia. Tennyson plucks it out of the crannies and says: ... I HOLD YOU HERE, ROOT AND ALL, IN MY HAND, LITTLE FLOWER.... He remains separate. The observer and the observed are nowhere melting, merging, meeting. It is not a love affair. Tennyson attacks the flower, plucks it out root and all, holds it in his hand. Mind always feels good whenever it can possess, control, hold. A meditative state of consciousness is not interested in possessing, in holding, because all those are the ways of the violent mind. And he says: LITTLE FLOWER.... The flower remains little, he remains on a high pedestal. He is a man, a great intellectual, a great poet. He remains in his ego: LITTLE FLOWER.... For Basho, there is no question of comparison. He says nothing about himself, as if he is not. There is no observer. The beauty is such that it brings a transcendence. The nazunia flower is there, blooming by the hedge - KANA - and Basho is simply amazed, is struck to the very roots of his being. The beauty is overpowering. Rather than possessing the flower, he is possessed by the flower, he is in a total surrender to the beauty of the flower, to the beauty of the moment, to the benediction of the herenow. LITTLE FLOWER, says Tennyson, IF I COULD BUT UNDERSTAND.... That obsession to understand! Appreciation is not enough, love is not enough; understanding has to be there, knowledge has to be produced. Unless knowledge is arrived at Tennyson cannot be at ease. The flower has become a question mark. For Tennyson it is a question mark, for Basho it is an exclamation point. And there is the great difference: the question mark and the exclamation point. Love is enough for Basho - love IS understanding. What more understanding can there be? But Tennyson seems to know nothing of love. His mind is there, hankering to know... BUT IF I COULD UNDERSTAND WHAT YOU ARE, ROOT AND ALL, AND ALL IN ALL.... And mind is compulsively perfectionist. Nothing can be left unknown, nothing can be allowed to remain unknown and mysterious. ROOT AND ALL, AND ALL IN ALL... has to be understood. Unless mind knows everything it remains afraid - because knowledge gives power. If there is something mysterious, you are bound to remain afraid because the mysterious cannot be controlled. And who knows what is hidden in the mysterious? Maybe the enemy, maybe a danger, some insecurity? And who knows what it is going to do to you? Before it can do anything it has to be understood, it has to be known. Nothing can be left as mysterious. That is one of the problems the world is facing today."
Saving Ulysses for the top ten, I see ...
We all know his deep love (sic) for Joyce.
@@PGChemistry-s2y Indeed!
Ok, I liked "Anatomy of Melancholy" so much when I was young that I stole the library's copy because I couldn't find it at the bookstore and there was no amazon then. Replaced the library's copy years later. Not only weird enough to read it, weird enough to steal it lol.
I've never even heard of the first seven books! Thank you for expanding my horizons Steve!
But a small correction: everyone knows that Bigfoot lives in the PNW, not Massachusetts (part of why Washington, not Massachusetts, is the greatest state of this union).
Thanks for this. Was thinking much of your excellent, useful and intriguing list as the NYT was, with much fanfare, revealing their [insert adjective of choice here] list of 100 greatest 'books' (sic for 'novels') of the 21st century over past week. Cannot wait for your response video!!
No one but you, Steve, would put together such a varied decade! What a treat. I would second and amplify your comments on the strangeness of the unabridged "1001 Nights" (literally, in Arabic, "1000 Nights and One Night). There are (endless) stories that are essentially sermons next to stories of bawdy widows and conniving jinn. And Attar's "Conference of the Birds" is a Sufi classic. Anyone who likes that could look at Rumi's "Masnavi" or Sa'di's "Bustan." Neither is what you might expect. Now I have to go looking for the Heptameron!
I'm very happy to see this list continuing as I could happily listen to you talk about classics all day, Steve, but did you have to give us a spoiler by having number one sitting there in plain view under Erasmus?
Thank you, Steve, genuinely.
I just heard of the Heptameron for the first time a few days ago, and here it is again haha. It was recommended to me because I like Karen Blixen/Isak Dinesen, and especially her Seven Gothic Tales. Not sure how valid that comparison is beyond just the obvious aspect of Blixen continuing/doing her own thing with the Thousand and One Nights/Decameron/etc storytelling tradition, but it does sound very interesting!
I'm intrigued by that Penguin three volume edition of the Thousand and One Nights. How's the translation in that one? So far I've only read bits of the Burton translation, which I find delightful, but I understand it has issues.
I wish I was younger where there would be at least a tiny chance to read even a small percentage of books you have recommended. I needed a Steve Donoghue in my life 60 years ago. I need to go catch up with Pride and Prejudice Chapter 8. Bye.
Steve, What a list-- so many I haven't heard of before. Definitely added a few to my TRL.
Amazing list king
Just a note that you might find interesting.
Ignatius Donnelly's the great Cryptogram, had a theory that bacon also wrote the anatomy of melancholy.
I know you like the SAQ, but I didn't see you mention that book - it was good reading - way better than the Delia Bacon book.
🎉I have read the Burton, all of it, last time I looked I was still a woman, however, I liked the book, but with my sexist filter glasses on. I'm of to look for Gregory of Tours, which I'm keen to read. I'd love a new Penguin Classics deluxe in a new translation. I can dream, can't I? The other books are interesting too. I love this series of videos.
Working my way through the Golden Age of Crime novels. Started with a reread of many of Agatha Christie's greatest hits and now am reading for the first time The Worthingham Mystery by Anthony. Berkeley
Who are these dude bros on YT he keeps referring to?? And I know a few women myself who have (if not completely) read the Anatomy of Melancholy!
Will add the Frank's book for sure. Just recently read the Anglo saxon chronicle and onto Bede.😊
Larry McMurty bought "my" Nabokov Eugene Onegin books. Every other Saturday I"d drop by a used book store that had the 3 hardback volumes (1st editions) on top of a small bookshelf. I"d pat them each time I visited. I'd chat with the two booksellers about what was selling, what wasn't, what they were reading, etc. One Saturday I arrived and the guys were glowing. I figured they'd made some good sales by their expressions (this was in the 90's in Austin, Texas where there remained interesting collector and antiquarian booksellers, but less and less people frequented them. The book sellers liked me because I was young and bought books, but the problem was I was the rare young person in there at any time of day. By the early 2000's all those stores had shut down, including this one). I reached over to the bookshelf to pat my Nabokov books and they were gone. "Larry McMurtry was here," one of the guys told me, " and he made a huge buy including the Eugene Onegin books." McMurtry traveled the country buying books for his store in Archer City. When I met McMurtry's son, James, after a gig (he is a wonderful musician) about a year after I told him I'd never forgiven his dad for that. He laughed.
I had to settle for the 3 volume paperback editions I found at another used book shop. Enjoyed the narrative poem and the film too.
FINALLY
I discovered Burton's Anatomy of Melancholy by catching a few references to it in other books which made me think it might be something I would like. And in those days it was very difficult to find. I scoured the used bookstores in my area for it to no avail, and had to make do with a library copy, the same one from which the NYRB edition is a reprint. As soon as that was published I got it in hard copy. There is also a newer one by Peguin which I have as an ebook.
I have read it cover to cover twice. And parts of it many times. I did not get the impression at any time that it was a "no girls allowed" book at all.
It is an altogether unclassifiable book. I don't believe that it is what it appears to be at first glance. Near the very beginning, the author who calls himself "Democritus Junior," quotes a statement someone made about the Greek philosopher Democritus: "there was nothing in the whole range of nature about which he did not write," and this is what Burton, I believe, took it upon himself to do, hanging this project on the subject of what we call depression or mental illness. Since Burton believes that madness and distraction characterize in some degree all mortal existence, the whole range of human experience and behavior is covered, maniacally and systematically, but with a massive dose of wit and humor. It is also a heroic love-letter to reading, to language, to vocabulary, to literature. The book is jam-packed with quotations from literature.
You will find yourself and your friends described in its pages.
And it will change forever how you think about the past. But I know it is not a book for everyone. To get a taste of it you can read the 120+(!) page introduction, and the chapters "Miseries, Cares, and Discontents," and the amazing "Digression on Air."
I don't know anyone personally who can stand to read this book, but for me it is my #1 favorite.
So far your list appears reasonable but if Mad Magazines Snappy Answers to Stupid Questions isn't number one I'm going to have to reassess your qualifications
🤣😂😆
I respect you for putting Lucky Jim on a much higher rank than I would myself, which would be around this span of the list.
He has made it clear that this list except for maybe the top 10 are not in any particular order...
Surprised and delighted to see Gregory of Tours get a mention at all, nevermind make the top 40!
It’s not a ranked list till the top 10
@@Tolstoy111 Gregory gang gotta take what we can get!
I've not read _The Anatomy of Melancholy_ but it seems like a precursor to _The Noonday Demon: An Anatomy of Depression_ which I have read and is quite good. I remember Solomon referencing the older book in fact. Would you recommend _Anatomy…_ for someone who liked (I don't know that *enjoy* is the right verb, but really yes) _Noonday Demon?_
The Anatomy of Melancholy is a thousand times more interesting.
At least to me. I know that most readers cannot tolerate the somewhat archaic language, style, and vocabulary - and the lack of any plot and so on. However, it is filled with a rare wisdom, humor, and love of language. I have enjoyed it now for many years. It is possible to simple browse around in it - you are almost guaranteed to find somethin amusing or thought-provoking, but of course reading from the beginning carefully, especially the long introduction, is preferable.
@@blakeray9856 Thanks. I'll have to give it a try. Solomon is a good writer. I know Steve really liked _Noonday Demon_ though. I wonder how he compares the two?
I just read The Tale of Genji, that too was weird.
Steve, have you seen that Claudia and Katie are live right now?
Have you seen the 100 best books according to NYT?
That's 100 best of the 21st century- thought it was a pretty crap list tbh but I discovered a few interesting books from it
Icelandic, not Norse. But a great list.
👍🏾 😍
Pushkin!
" Just the other night I was reading the famous haiku of Basho, the Zen mystic and master. It does not look like great poetry to the Western mind or to the mind which has been educated in a Western way. And now the whole world is being educated in the Western way; East and West have disappeared as far as education is concerned. Listen to it very silently, because it is not what you call great poetry but it is great insight - which is far more important. It has tremendous poetry, but to feel that poetry you have to be very subtle. Intellectually, it cannot be understood; it can be understood only intuitively.
This is the haiku:
WHEN I LOOK CAREFULLY, I SEE THE NAZUNIA BLOOMING BY THE HEDGE!
Now, there seems to be nothing of great poetry in it. But let us go into it with more sympathy, because Basho is being translated into English; in his own language it has a totally different texture and flavor.
The nazunia is a very common flower - grows by itself by the side of the road, a grass flower. It is so common that nobody ever looks at it. It is not a precious rose, it is not a rare lotus. It is easy to see the beauty of a rare lotus floating on a lake, a blue lotus - how can you avoid seeing it? For a moment you are bound to be caught by its beauty.
Or a beautiful rose dancing in the wind, in the sun... for a split second it possesses you.
It is stunning. But a nazunia is a very ordinary, common flower; it needs no gardening, no gardener, it grows by itself anywhere. To see a nazunia carefully a meditator is needed, a very delicate consciousness is needed; otherwise you will bypass it. It has no apparent beauty, its beauty is deep. Its beauty is that of the very ordinary, but the very ordinary contains the extraordinary in it, because all is full of God - even the nazunia flower. Unless you penetrate it with a sympathetic heart you will miss it.
When for the first time you read Basho you start thinking, "What is there so tremendously important to say about a nazunia blooming by the hedge?"
In Basho's poem the last syllable - KANA in Japanese - is translated by an exclamation point because we don't have any other way to translate it. But kana means, "I am amazed!" Now, from where is the beauty coming? Is it coming from the nazunia? - because thousands of people may have passed by the side of the hedge and nobody may have even looked at this small flower. And Basho is possessed by its beauty, is transported into another world. What has happened? It is not really the nazunia, otherwise it would have caught everybody's eye. It is Basho's insight, his open heart, his sympathetic vision, his meditativeness. Meditation is alchemy: it can transform the base metal into gold, it can transform a nazunia flower into a lotus.
WHEN I LOOK CAREFULLY.... And the word 'carefully' means attentively, with awareness, mindfully, meditatively, with love, with caring. One can just look without caring at all, then one will miss the whole point. That word 'carefully' has to be remembered in all its meanings, but the root meaning is meditatively. And what does it mean when you see something meditatively? It means without mind, looking without the mind, no clouds of thought in the sky of your consciousness, no memories passing by, no desires... nothing at all, utter emptiness.
When in such a state of no-mind you look, even a nazunia flower is transported into another world. It becomes a lotus of the paradise, it is no longer part of the earth; the extraordinary has been found in the ordinary. And this is the way of Buddha: to find the extraordinary in the ordinary, to find all in the now, to find the whole in this - Buddha calls it TATHATA.
Basho's haiku is a haiku of tathata: THIS nazunia, looked at lovingly, caringly through the heart, unclouded consciousness, in a state of no-mind... and one is amazed, one is in awe. A great wonder arises, How is it possible? This nazunia - and if a nazunia is possible then everything is possible. If a nazunia can be so beautiful, Basho can be a buddha. If a nazunia can contain such poetry, then each stone can become a sermon.
WHEN I LOOK CAREFULLY, I SEE THE NAZUNIA BLOOMING BY THE HEDGE!
KANA.... I am amazed. I am dumb. I cannot say anything about its beauty - I can only hint at it.
A haiku simply hints. The poetry describes, the haiku only indicates - and in a very indirect way.
A similar situation is found in Tennyson's famous poetry; comparing both will be of great help to you. Basho represents the intuitive, Tennyson the intellectual. Basho represents the East, Tennyson the West. Basho represents meditation, Tennyson mind.
They look similar, and sometimes the poetry of Tennyson may look more poetic than Basho's because it is direct, it is obvious.
FLOWER IN THE CRANNIED WALL I PLUCK YOU OUT OF THE CRANNIES HOLD YOU HERE, ROOT AND ALL, IN MY HAND, LITTLE FLOWER - IF I COULD BUT UNDERSTAND WHAT YOU ARE, ROOT AND ALL, AND ALL IN ALL, I SHOULD KNOW WHAT GOD AND MAN IS.
A beautiful piece, but nothing compared to Basho. Let us see where Tennyson becomes totally different. First: FLOWER IN THE CRANNIED WALL I PLUCK YOU OUT OF THE CRANNIES....
Basho simply looks at the flower, he does not pluck it out. Basho is a passive awareness:
Tennyson is active, violent. In fact, if you have really been impressed by the flower, you cannot pluck it. If the flower has reached your heart, how can you pluck it? Plucking it means destroying it, killing it - it is murder! Nobody has thought about Tennyson's poetry as murder - but it IS murder. How can you destroy something so beautiful? But that's how our mind functions; it is destructive. It wants to possess, and possession is possible only through destruction.
Remember, whenever you possess something or somebody, you destroy something or somebody. You possess the woman? - you destroy her, her beauty, her soul. You possess the man? - he is no longer a human being; you have reduced him to an object, into a commodity.
Basho looks carefully, just looks, not even gazes concentratedly; just a look, soft, feminine, as if afraid to hurt the nazunia.
Tennyson plucks it out of the crannies and says: ... I HOLD YOU HERE, ROOT AND ALL, IN MY HAND, LITTLE FLOWER.... He remains separate. The observer and the observed are nowhere melting, merging, meeting. It is not a love affair. Tennyson attacks the flower, plucks it out root and all, holds it in his hand. Mind always feels good whenever it can possess, control, hold. A meditative state of consciousness is not interested in possessing, in holding, because all those are the ways of the violent mind.
And he says: LITTLE FLOWER.... The flower remains little, he remains on a high pedestal. He is a man, a great intellectual, a great poet. He remains in his ego: LITTLE FLOWER....
For Basho, there is no question of comparison. He says nothing about himself, as if he is not. There is no observer. The beauty is such that it brings a transcendence. The nazunia flower is there, blooming by the hedge - KANA - and Basho is simply amazed, is struck to the very roots of his being. The beauty is overpowering. Rather than possessing the flower, he is possessed by the flower, he is in a total surrender to the beauty of the flower, to the beauty of the moment, to the benediction of the herenow.
LITTLE FLOWER, says Tennyson, IF I COULD BUT UNDERSTAND.... That obsession to understand! Appreciation is not enough, love is not enough; understanding has to be there, knowledge has to be produced. Unless knowledge is arrived at Tennyson cannot be at ease. The flower has become a question mark. For Tennyson it is a question mark, for Basho it is an exclamation point. And there is the great difference: the question mark and the exclamation point.
Love is enough for Basho - love IS understanding. What more understanding can there be? But Tennyson seems to know nothing of love. His mind is there, hankering to know... BUT IF I COULD UNDERSTAND WHAT YOU ARE, ROOT AND ALL, AND ALL IN ALL.... And mind is compulsively perfectionist. Nothing can be left unknown, nothing can be allowed to remain unknown and mysterious. ROOT AND ALL, AND ALL IN ALL... has to be understood. Unless mind knows everything it remains afraid - because knowledge gives power. If there is something mysterious, you are bound to remain afraid because the mysterious cannot be controlled. And who knows what is hidden in the mysterious? Maybe the enemy, maybe a danger, some insecurity? And who knows what it is going to do to you? Before it can do anything it has to be understood, it has to be known. Nothing can be left as mysterious. That is one of the problems the world is facing today."
'I hate allegory' - copy of Ulysses behind you?
He hates Ulysses too