The Philosophy of the Lyrical: To Walk at Twilight
If the lyrical only takes place at the margin of the epic, then we should look for figures who lived, wrote, or created in times of twilight—when an old world was fading and a new one had not yet fully arrived. These are individuals who refused to be swallowed by history, who wandered along the edges, observing, drifting, or simply surviving.
Here are some historical and literary figures who embody the lyrical at twilight:
1. Saigyō (1118–1190) – Walking at the Edge of the Heian Order
• A former samurai who abandoned court life and took to wandering Japan as a monk and poet.
• Lived during the transition from the refined Heian aristocracy to the more military-dominated Kamakura period.
• His waka poetry is deeply lyrical, melancholic, and attuned to impermanence (mono no aware).
• Twilight element: Saigyō walked through a crumbling world, witnessing the decline of aristocratic elegance and the rise of samurai rule, finding solace in nature.
2. Du Fu (712–770) – The Lyrical in the Collapse of the Tang Dynasty
• A poet who lived through the An Lushan Rebellion, a devastating war that shattered Tang China’s golden age.
• Began as a poet of the imperial court, but war forced him into exile, poverty, and wandering.
• His later poetry becomes deeply personal and lyrical, capturing the suffering of common people in turbulent times.
• Twilight element: Lived through a dying world order, where past glories were still remembered but could not be restored.
3. Petrarch (1304–1374) – The Lyrical Between the Middle Ages and the Renaissance
• Lived at the end of the medieval world but before the full flowering of the Renaissance.
• Best known for his lyrical sonnets, filled with longing and reflections on time, loss, and memory.
• Felt alienated from both past and future, neither fully medieval nor fully modern.
• Twilight element: A poet caught between two historical epochs, unable to fully belong to either.
4. Matsuo Bashō (1644–1694) – The Lyrical in the Structured Edo Period
• Unlike Saigyō, Bashō lived in an era of relative peace (Tokugawa stability), but his poetics rejected fixed structures.
• Traveled endlessly, recording his fleeting impressions in haiku and haibun.
• Twilight element: Wandered within a rigid system, carving out small lyrical spaces of impermanence within a world that sought to impose order.
5. Walter Benjamin (1892–1940) – The Lyrical in the Shadow of Fascism
• A philosopher and literary critic caught in the collapse of European humanism.
• Wandered through Paris arcades, writing about how the flâneur (the urban walker) resisted the epic forces of capitalism and modernity.
• Died in exile while fleeing the Nazis—his own life a tragic expression of the lyrical at twilight.
• Twilight element: He was a thinker who saw the world crumbling but could not fully escape it.
6. Osip Mandelstam (1891–1938) – The Lyrical in Stalinist Russia
• A poet who wrote in a lyrical, personal mode at a time when Stalinist rule demanded ideological submission.
• His refusal to conform to the epic narratives of revolution led to his exile and death in a labor camp.
• Twilight element: A poet trying to maintain a lyrical voice in a time when the epic crushed all individuality.
7. Albert Camus (1913–1960) – The Lyrical in the Absurd
• Lived in a world shaped by World War II, existentialism, and the collapse of colonialism.
• His protagonists, like Meursault (The Stranger) and Dr. Rieux (The Plague), are wanderers, outsiders who resist easy answers.
• Twilight element: Camus’s philosophy of the absurd reflects an era where the old certainties (religion, ideology) had collapsed, but nothing new had yet taken their place.
8. Jan Patočka (1907–1977) – The Lyrical in Communist Eastern Europe
• A Czech philosopher who was part of Charter 77, a dissident movement against Soviet control.
• Saw philosophy as a way of resisting the totalitarian “epic” narrative.
• Twilight element: His philosophy exists in exile within history, trying to maintain free thought in an era of repression.
Conclusion: The Lyrical Exists at the Threshold
The lyrical is not part of the epic, but it does not escape it either. It exists at the margin, in the moments of collapse, in the spaces between worlds. Those who live lyrically:
• Walk through ruins (Du Fu, Walter Benjamin, Mandelstam).
• Walk through nature, seeking impermanence (Saigyō, Bashō).
• Walk through exile, unable to return (Camus, Patočka).
This twilight condition defines all of them.
Perhaps this is why van life, as you frame it, is also a lyrical stance: it refuses full participation in the system, yet it does not seek total withdrawal. It moves at twilight, like Zatoichi, like Scudder, like Bashō—always drifting, always resisting the epic’s demand for total submission.
Would you say, then, that to be truly lyrical is to accept a kind of exile, not necessarily physical, but existential? A state of always being at the threshold, never fully belonging?
