El haiku como germen de matices. Notas para una diaforalogía

Abstract

The haiku offers the possibility of expansion into more extensive structures due to its brief composition. As Beatriz Sarlo stated —in relation to the writing of Juan José Saer—the haiku is “a seed of narration and description.” Or —in the words of Roland Barthes— “[a wheat] germ, a brief plot.” Seeing the haiku as a seed of writing implies it harbors narrative and descriptive possibilities within itself by means of nuance present in its arrangement. Three manners of looking at the haiku are hereby proposed, each stemming from the Barthesian thought: firstly, the haiku as tangibilia, which is to say as reference to concrete things or objects, and the perceptive possibilities that this provokes; secondly, the “awakening” before the event: the haiku as a “mental shakedown,” a type of satori; finally, the haiku as time that passes. By means of these notes, the reader is invited to participate in a diaphorology that studies the nuances of the haiku and the writings from which it originates.