What is the Japanese word (noun) that means “the bittersweetness of a brief, fading moment of transcendent beauty.”?


The article written by Emily Anthes, appearing in the New Yorker, May 12 issue
under the title, “The Glossary of Happiness” wraps up with the following
paragraph:

> Lomas (a lecturer in applied positive psychology at the University of East
> London) returned to the University of East London and launched the Positive
> Lexicography Project, an online glossary of untranslatable words. “If you
> just put them out there and people are aware of them, then—almost like
> linguistic natural selection—people will find ones that appeal to them, and
> they might start using them,” Lomas said. If he succeeds, we may stroll
> through these waning days of spring more aware of aware— **the Japanese noun
> for “the bittersweetness of a brief, fading moment of transcendent
> beauty**.”

I can’t think up a Japanese word (noun) equivalent to the notion, “the
bittersweetness of a brief, fading moment of transcendent beauty” in English.
Would you suggest me any Japanese counterpart that comes up to your mind?




The word the writer meant was 哀れ

> If he succeeds, we may stroll through these waning days of spring more aware
> of _aware_

In English, foreign words are often typeset in italics, and this article
follows the convention (although your copypaste did not copy the italics
over.)

