VI

FROM THE EDITOR OF THE

ENGLISH EDITION

For the past thirty years Professor Dolin has been a major figure
in the field of East Asian studies in his native Russia. Since
receiving his Ph.D. in Japanese literature from the Institute
of Oriental Studies of the USSR Academy of Sciences in 1978
he has published over a dozen research monographs and
more than twenty volumes of translations. While his primary
research interest, as reflected in the present volume, has been
modern Japanese poetry, he has also written extensively on the
poetry of other periods, Japanese religion, East Asian martial
arts, Russian society and literature. His translations include
several anthologies of Japanese poetry (among them a complete
translation of the Kokinshū), as well as works of literary criticism
and fiction. In addition to his academic activities, Professor
Dolin is a practicing poet and has published his own poetry
and novellas.
After working for twenty years at the Academy of Science’s
Institute of Oriental Studies, in 1992 Professor Dolin joined
the faculty of Tokyo University of Foreign Studies, where he
taught comparative literature and culture. Since 2004 he has
been Professor of Japanese Literature and Comparative Culture
Studies at Akita International University.
The present work is a partial translation of Professor
Dolin’s massive Istoriya novoy yaponskoy poesii (History of New
Japanese Poetry) published in 2007 by Hyperion Press, St.
Petersburg in 2007. The original consists of four volumes, three
devoted to Japanese poetry in non-traditional forms (shintaishi,
viii WILLIAM LEE
kindaishi, and gendaishi) and one to modern tanka and haiku. This
English edition corresponds to the first volume and covers the
beginnings of the movement for new poetry and the Japanese
Romanticist and Symbolist periods.
Despite being only a partial translation of the original, the
English edition fills an important gap in the scholarly treatment
of Japanese poetry for English readers. Until now the only work
that has come close to its scope is the section on “Poetry in New
Forms” in the second volume of Donald Keene’s Dawn to the
West. Perhaps the reason for the paucity of critical studies of
such poetry has been the attractiveness for Western readers of
the more exotic traditional forms. It may also reflect, however,
a certain cultural chauvinism and a misunderstanding of
Japanese poetry in new forms (shintaishi, kindaishi, and later
gendaishi) which is often taken simply as a Japanese effort to
imitate the poetry of the West. If that is the goal and Western
poetry is the standard by which to judge the results, than
Japanese poets can indeed be said to have failed.
It is the great merit of Professor Dolin’s work that he avoids
such a perspective and sets the evolution of modern Japanese
poetry in a broader social, cultural, and literary context, one
which allows him to analyze the effort to create a new Japanese
poetry not as a series of unsuccessful attempts at writing
Western-style poetry, but as part of a much more complicated
and also more productive process. Bringing to the subject
a deep and wide knowledge of both Japanese and Western
poetic and cultural traditions, Professor Dolin is able to show
that the various poetic movements that followed one after
another in quick succession at the beginning of the twentieth
century represent not simply a rejection of Japan’s own literary
past and the adoption of Western aesthetics, but a renaissance
of Japanese poetry which took place in a newly expanded,
international context. As he convincingly demonstrates, despite
their fascination with Western poetry and philosophy, the poets
of the period clearly saw their task as the creation of a new
Japanese poetics, and, whether consciously or unconsciously,
FROM THE EDITOR OF THE ENGLISH EDITION ix
they drew on their own native tradition just as much as they did
on foreign models. For this reason, the new poetry could not
help but be something different from Western poetry. To borrow
Professor Dolin’s own words, it represents, in a very real and
meaningful sense, the fruit of a creative “East-West synthesis,”
a synthesis which, in its revolutionary spirit, aesthetic focus,
and cosmopolitan stance, can be compared to the achievements
of Russian poets of the so-called “Silver Age.”
As for the genesis of the present English edition of this
important work, the sections of the original to be translated
were selected (and in some cases abridged) by Professor Dolin
and then sent to Moscow, where they were translated into
English by professional translators. Although the text was for
the most part quite readable, the translators were not native
speakers of English; nor were they experts in the field of
Japanese literature. It was thus my task as translation editor to
polish the English and render the text in a form that meets, as
closely as possible, standard academic practices in the English-
speaking world. Concerning the second part of this task, one
area in which it proved unfeasible to follow standard practice
is the treatment of long vowels in Japanese. Since it is not the
practice in the Russian academic world to mark such vowels
with macrons, these were absent both from the original text and
the initial translation, and the decision was made, for better or
for worse, to forego the tedious job of going back over the text
and inserting them.
Since during most of the process of editing I was in Japan on
sabbatical, it was my good fortune to have many opportunities
to discuss directly with Professor Dolin ambiguities in the
translation and other issues concerning the text. Professor
Dolin also thoroughly went over my first draft, making many
helpful suggestions for its improvement. Any awkwardness
or deficiencies in the English, however, are my responsibility
alone. This goes, of course, also for the translation of the poems
and poem excerpts included in the text. It was perhaps fortunate
for me that examples of poetry were kept to a minimum due
x WILLIAM LEE . XI

to the fact that it was not the purpose of the original work to
present a broad sampling of modern Japanese poetry; Russian
readers, after all, had the benefit of Professor Dolin’s many fine
translations in other works, such as his anthology Japanese Poetry
of the Meiji-Taisho-Early Showa Period, which appeared in 2004.
Many of the poems cited in the text, however, have not been
A. Dolin
translated into English before. Although the poetry samples,
too, were first rendered into English by the Russian translators,
THE SILVER AGE OF JAPANESE POETRY
I have in most cases referred also to the original Japanese.
Unlike Professor Dolin, however, I am not a poet, and make no
ROMANTICISTS AND SYMBOLISTS
claim that the English versions of the poems found here reflect
the fine quality of the translations in the original Russian work.

William Lee
Professor of Japanese Literature
University of Manitoba
 FOREWORD

Political changes inevitably entail radical reforms in the do-

mains of ideology and culture, awaking creative drives and
pushing artists to overcome the inertia of traditions. The period
from the end of the nineteenth century to the beginning of the
twentieth century marked such an era of change in Japan’s
cultural history. Almost twenty years after the Meiji Restoration
(1868) a blind, mechanical imitation of Western ways had given
way to a serious exploration of the achievements of European
culture. The new, post-restoration generation of intellectuals
strove for a harmonious combination of national traditions and
borrowings, a merging of “indigenous” and “alien” elements.
The tendency toward the international and intercontinental
synthesis of different cultures manifested itself most distinctly
in the newly emerging poetry of Japanese Romanticism and
Symbolism. An analysis of the work of the Romanticist and
Symbolist poets can give a proper understanding of the spe-
cific features of the evolution of literature in the countries of
the Far East at the initial stage of formation of contemporary
industrial society. Their literary legacy makes it easier to com-
prehend the most important trends in Japan’s cultural in-
novation during the Meiji (1868–1912) and Taisho (1912–1925)
periods and, consequently, also the basis of the entire system of
non-traditional aesthetic values that took shape in Japan over
the course of the twentieth century.
In spite of all the differences existing between the literatures
of Romanticism and Symbolism in England, France, Germany,
2 THE SILVER AGE OF JAPANESE POETRY
and Russia, they have many common features and are deeply
rooted in the cultural heritage of Europe. The complex of aesthe-
tic categories that created the ideological and theoretical basis
for Western Romanticism was the result of the long evolution of
the relationship between artist and audience.
A different situation obtained in Japan in the 1880s and
1890s. Young intellectuals felt that the traditional ideas had
become obsolete and were eager to introduce world culture
to Japan at any price. It took Japan only two or three decades
to travel the same course that Europe had taken centuries
to cover. Romanticism was thus a kind of mirror which
reflected enormous changes in the spiritual life of Japanese
society. Perhaps that is why the Japanese Romanticists were
not so pessimistic in their world outlook. An abundance of
new impressions, a break with traditional foundations, and
a constant expectation of the unknown became the major
factors that defined the individual during the heydays of
Japanese Romanticism and Symbolism.
In the course of these changes, the cult of emotions replaced
the rational system of Confucian ethical values. At the same
time, the Romanticists and Symbolists could not and did not
want to place themselves in opposition to the state, that same
bourgeois establishment against which their European counter-
parts revolted. The Japanese poets of Romanticism and also
of Symbolism were not driven by the aspiration to escape
from a corrupt society to the realm of unattainable ideals or
to an “ivory tower”. On the contrary, the majority of them
longed to contribute to the transformation of the country
and to the creation of a new culture. Nowhere in the works
of the Japanese Romanticists, with the exception of the early
poetry of Kitamura Tokoku, do we find that classical romantic
character—the proud but lonely outcast poet unfairly rejected
by society. “Outcast poets” such as Baudelaire, Verlaine or
Rimbaud are not typical of the Japanese tradition, though the
names and personalities of these “poètes maudits” had a kind
of magical attractiveness for their Japanese followers in the age
of Symbolism and even later.
FOREWORD 3
Personal experiences reflected in the lyrical poetry of the
Japanese poets do not contradict the public well-being and
social system at large. This can perhaps be explained by the
inertia of the centuries-old taboo against standing out in
opposition to the authorities. It is also likely that at the end of
the nineteenth century the idea of national unity in the face
of the omnipotent West outweighed the individual interests
of Japanese intellectuals. Whatever the case, Japanese Roman-
ticism should still be considered a progressive movement, one
which, while forging a new national identity, paved the way
for the development of innovative literature and, in particular,
the poetry of the twentieth century. As for the heritage of
Japanese Symbolism, it remains even today the paragon of
harmony, refined skill, and grace. The majority of the Japanese
Symbolists, many of whom subsequently joined other schools
and poetic groups, had long and successful lives in literature.
Some problems of Japanese Romanticism have been covered
earlier in the works of Russian scholars such as N. I. Konrad,
Т. P. Grigoreva, I. L. Ioffe, D. P. Bugaeva, and N. S. Sheftelevich.
However, the majority of these scholarly works consist either
of very short overviews [430] or of detailed treatments of the
work of a particular author. The same can be said of the few
works of other Western scholars, such as Joyce Ackroyd [216].
Apart from the review of the work of the most renowned poets
of the modern period in Donald Keene’s Dawn to the West,
there are no special large-scale analytical works by Western
scholars on the Japanese Romanticists, Symbolists, and early
modernists writing in non-traditional forms [286; 287].
On the other hand, Japanese literary critics from the begin-
ning of the twentieth century up to present day have paid
much attention to the period of Romanticism and Symbolism.
In mainstream works on the literary history of the Meiji-Taisho
epoch, the treatment of the Romanticists and Symbolists is
for the most part focused on various problems of poetics and
aesthetics, which were discussed for the first time by the literati
belonging to these poetic schools. The abundant works on this
topic by Japanese scholars present a rather vague picture of
4 THE SILVER AGE OF JAPANESE POETRY
the formation and development of shintaishi (new-style poetry)
and kindaishi (modern poetry) verse1. However, it is impossible
to analyze the path of Japanese poetry in the twentieth century
without a clear understanding of its historical foundations.
At the beginning of the twentieth century, when memories
of the Romanticist era were still fresh, critics often defined
shintaishi as the highest achievement of Japanese poetry,
since it was seen as the result of a centuries-long evolution of
traditional verse. Such an opinion was expressed by Noguchi
Yonejiro in his popular essay [307], as well as by Haga Yaichi
and Onoe Hachiro. Their short notes on poetry of the 1890s
are rather emotional but not always objective and convincing.
The memoirs of the poets of the epoch of Romanticism and
Symbolism reveal a deeper understanding of the matter,
although their conclusions lack a firm grounding in theory.
Books by poets such as Doi Bansui, Shimazaki Toson, Kitahara
Hakushu, and Sato Haruo help to reveal the spirit of the age,
but as one might expect these authors are rather subjective in
their preferences and judgments.
In the early 1930s, shintaishi verse was already being asses-
sed by the critics with much reservation. Kindaishi had in the
meantime established its priority as the new trend in metric
verse, having been developed mostly by the Symbolists.
However, since the first years of the Taisho period kindaishi was
already being gradually replaced by gendaishi (contemporary
poetry), the new poetry of free forms, predominantly vers libre,
and by the beginning of World War II the latter had completely
conquered the literary domain. Only a few poets of Symbolism
remained loyal to kindaishi in their later careers. Nonetheless,
there is no clear-cut chronological border or formal division
between kindaishi and gendaishi, either in the history of Japanese
literature or in books by particular poets.
1 The Japanese Romanticists accepted shintaishi (literary, new-style poetry)
as their principal poetic form, as it was not restricted by the usual canonic
rules and regulations. In comparison to the traditional tanka, haiku, and
renga, shintaishi had the advantages of unlimited volume, relative freedom
of a meter, and a great variety of tropes.
FOREWORD 5
It is essential to keep in mind that precise terminological
definitions of shintaishi, kindaishi and gendaishi have never
been forged, either by Japanese or Western literary critics. It
is simply assumed that from the middle of the first decade of
the twentieth century shintaishi verse began giving way to
something more novel in spirit and form, kindaishi, which was
itself superseded by the even more modern and innovative
gendaishi. Some scholars designate by the term kindaishi the
whole bulk of poetry by the Romanticists and Symbolists in non-
conventional genres and include in this category even shintaishi.
Others also include in kindaishi the poetry of Naturalism, the
poetry of abstract humanism, and, at least partly, the works
of the “democratic poetry” (minshushi) school of the 1910s, but
find it difficult to define the precise period and circumstances of
the next transition, reserving the term gendaishi mostly for post-
war poetry. This is neither relevant nor helpful, since as early as
the 1920s and 1930s modern gendaishi was already successfully
competing with a relatively conservative kindaishi tradition.
Each Japanese poet and literary critic has his or her own
peculiar pattern for the use of the term kindaishi. Some scholars
have introduced new factional divisions, adding to shintaishi
and kindaishi the categories bungo jiyushi (free verse based on
traditional literary language) and kogo jiyushi (free verse based on
the modern language), and then applying the term gendaishi on
a case-by-case basis depending on chronological, morphological,
generic or personal gradation
As for chronology, any universal division is out of the
question. In the work of some scholars the boundary between
the era of shintaishi verse and that of kindaishi is marked out
very conventionally somewhere in the period between 1902 and
1906. Regarding the boundary between the eras of kindaishi and
gendaishi, the definitions here vary in a range of at least fifteen
to twenty years (from 1908 to 1928). Yet kindaishi continued its
presence in Japanese poetic journals and collections up to the
beginning of the 1930s.
More or less objective criteria for the division of modern
poetry into shintaishi, kindaishi, and gendaishi might be found
6 THE SILVER AGE OF JAPANESE POETRY
in the morphological features of the verse. In general, the term
shintaishi can be applied to verse of non-traditional forms, of
unfixed length, written in bungo in a fixed poetic rhythm with
a simple prosody that resembles uniform meter and which is
built on the alternation of tone groups formed of 7 and 5 syllables
(the so called onsuritsu pattern). Some deviation in the form of
an increased number of syllables (8 and even 9) is acceptable
(for example, 7–5, 7–7, 8–7, 8–8, 9–9, etc.).
Accordingly, the term kindaishi can be applied to any poem
written, as a rule, in bungo, but sometimes in kogo as well, where
a distinct rhythmic pattern based on traditional metric principles
(though in different combinations) is emphasized. Finally, the
term gendaishi should be applied to verse of an unfixed or fixed
(sonnets, quatrains, etc.) structure written in the colloquial
modern language and not based on the traditional prosody.
Unfortunately, such a “morphological” division brings
with it inevitable problems. For example, the quite modern
poet Miyoshi Tatsuji wrote many beautiful lyrical poems
using the bungo style and some elements of classical meter,
while the devoted modernist Nakahara Chuya was guided
by the poetics and melody of traditional rhythms and paid
tribute to bungo verse. During World War II Japanese poets,
almost without exception, wrote archaic bungo poems, reviving
sometimes the rhythms of early shintaishi poetry, especially in
their more militant war-time works. However, the poems by
these authors, many of whom would later lay the foundations
for post-war Japanese poetry, cannot be classified as kindaishi
verse. Taking into account all the historical implications, they
must be considered gendaishi.
On the other hand, Kitahara Hakushu, Takamura Kotaro,
Murayama Kaita, and other “classical” poets of kindaishi verse,
even in works written in the 1910s, sometimes used very liberal
rhythms similar to free verse and quite willingly resorted to
colloquial language. However, their early poems definitely
cannot be referred to as gendaishi.
The attempt at any unequivocal classification in such cases
is doomed to failure, as any individual poet may be at the same
FOREWORD 7
time a fan of living words and an adherent of the ancient bungo
style, or an admirer of melodic rhythm and also of free verse.
Only when one considers both formal elements and the content
of their poems would it be possible, albeit still with some
reservations, to carry out an adequate classification.
For our purposes, the term kindaishi verse (including also
shintaishi) applies to a moderately novel tradition embracing
the whole domain of poetry at the very end of the nineteenth
and the beginning of the twentieth century. Although it met the
social demands of that period, it was hardly compatible to the
challenges of modern art. The aesthetic ideals of kindaishi verse
correlate roughly to the ideals of the European Romanticists,
Pre-Raphaelites, Parnassians, and Symbolists. Consequently, we
may conventionally view kindaishi verse as the major poetic form
of Japanese Romanticism and Symbolism, which includes the
works of such poets as Kitahara Hakushu, Kinoshita Mokutaro,
Sato Haruo, and Hinatsu Konosuke, all of whom lived long lives
but stayed loyal to Symbolism to the end. On the other hand,
poets who, like Takamura Kotaro, departed from Symbolism
and discovered thereby the realm of modernity, later became
the masters of gendaishi verse.
The first serious research on the poetry of Romanticism
and Symbolism in Japan occurred in the late 1920s and 1930s.
Among the most important early works one can point to
Hinatsu Konosuke’s History of the Poetry of the Meiji-Taisho Period
(Meiji Taisho shi shi, 1929) [34]. Hinatsu, a contemporary and
participant in the events, traces the history of Japanese poetry
in new forms from the moment of its emergence up to the mid
1920s. The author gives his evaluation of the best poets and
their works, but he does not analyze their poetic techniques or
the structure of the poems. This monograph by Hinatsu, like
a number of the works by his followers, is for the most part
focused on empirical facts, ignoring such essential factors as
language, stylistics, peculiarities of genres, etc. Hinatsu’s work
thus appears more like an extended review rather than serious
research. The same style characterizes the works of Kiyohara
8 THE SILVER AGE OF JAPANESE POETRY
Sadao, Iwasaki Juntaro, and Odagiri Hideo, in which excessive
detailed historicism is accompanied by rather superficial theo-
retical literary analysis.
A second wave of interest in the culture of the Meiji-
Taisho period, in particular in the poetry of Romanticism and
Symbolism, emerged during the early 1950s in parallel with the
growing activity of post-war poets and the foundation of poetic
groups such Arechi (“Waste Land”) and Retto (“Archipelago”).
During this period, for the first time after the long years of
ultra-nationalist hysteria followed by the war and then by the
American occupation, the national identity of the Japanese was
revived on a new, democratic basis. It was quite natural that
many intellectuals associated post-war social and economic
reforms with Meiji reforms and the cultural achievements of the
first quarter of the twentieth century. Modern literature needed
some beacons in a sea of troubles, and many literati turned to the
works of the writers of that earlier critical epoch in the history of
modern Japan.
In quantity, as well as in quality, the post-war critical works
on Meiji-Taisho literature surpass those of the pre-war period.
It was only in the 1950s that a number of multi-volume works
were published, such as Homma Hisao’s History of Meiji Lite-
rature (Meiji bungaku shi; Zoku Meiji bungaku shi) [41, v. 1, 879],
Lectures on the History of Modern Japanese Literature (Koza nihon
kindai bungaku shi), edited by Odagiri Hideo [97], A Study
of Japanese Romantic Literature (Nihon romanshugi bungaku
no kenkyu) by Kataoka Yoshikazu [69], A History of Modern
Japanese Poetry (Gendai nihon shi shi) by Onchi Terutake [13],
A Study of the Formal Features of Japanese Verse (Nihon shika no
keitaigakuteki kenkyu) by Yokoyama Seiga [202], and A History
of the Japanese Literary World (Nihon bundan shi) by Ito Sei [55].
In addition, grandiose collected editions such as The Complete
Works of Modern Japanese Literature (Gendai nihon bungaku
zenshu), the eight-volume Modern Theory of Literature (Gendai
bungakuron taikei), and the Complete Works of Contemporary
Japanese Poets (Gendai nihon shijin zenshu; later edited and
reissued in 1980 in 34 volumes) [19], were published during
FOREWORD 9
this period. Selections and complete collections of the works of
Shimazaki Toson, Tayama Katai, Natsume Soseki, and many
other classics also appeared repeatedly. These publications were
followed by a wave of monographs on the works of individual
writers of the Meiji period, such as Kitamura Tokoku by Sakamoto
Hiroshi [151] and Wakaki hi no Kunikida Doppo (The Young
Kunikida Doppo) by Ono Shigeki [144].
From the middle of the 1960s research in the domain of the
new Japanese poetry was marked by a qualitative shift toward
more analytical studies of the historical and literary processes.
Comparative studies, rare in earlier periods, gained momentum.
Interesting parallels between the works of Japanese Romanticists
and their European predecessors are discussed in collections of
literary criticism such as Modern Japanese Literature and Foreign
Literature (Nihon kindai bungaku to gaikoku bungaku) [154] and
Research on Modern Japanese Literature with the Application of the
Method of Comparative Literary Criticism (Nihon kindai bungaku
no hikaku bungakuteki kenkyu) [91], as well as in the more
focused collection, Essays on Shimazaki Toson (Shimazaki Toson
hikkei) [31] and in the book by Ebizawa Shunji, Meiji Literature
and English Literature (Meiji bungaku to ei bungaku) [12].
As an example of large-scale complex research efforts,
mention should be made of the multi-volume History of Mo-
dern Literature (Gendai bungaku shi) by Odagiri Hideo [140],
Introduction to the History of Japanese Literature (Nihon bungaku
shi josetsu) by Kato Shuichi [70], and the four-volume History
of Modern Japanese Poetry (Nihon gendaishi shi), the first
volume of which includes serious and insightful articles by
Hasegawa Izumi, Seki Ryoichi, and Maeda Ai on the problems
of Romanticism [30; 160; 100]. Some valuable materials for
the study of shintaishi, kindaishi, and treatises on the aesthetic
concepts of the time can be found in the first several volumes
of the collection of poems, documents, and works of literary
criticism, Japanese Poetry (Nihon no shika; thirty volumes) [137],
first published in the late 1960s and reissued several times.
The Meiji-Taisho period in the next decade continued to
draw the attention of Japanese literary critics, who tried to come
10 THE SILVER AGE OF JAPANESE POETRY 1. 11

closer to the source of modern poetry and to understand more Pa r t 1

deeply the sources of Japanese culture in the twentieth century.
Thus, during the last few decades the following extensive
monograph works have appeared: History of Meiji Literature THE
THE ROMANTICIST
ROMANTICIST
(Meiji bungaku shi) by Ueda Hiroshi [191], History of Taisho
Literature (Taisho bungaku shi) [832], Literary Museum of the
IDEALS
Meiji period (Meiji bungeikan) [192], the six-volume collection of
articles edited by Yanagida Izumi, Conversations on the History
of Meiji-Taisho Literature (Zadankai Meiji-Taisho bungaku shi)
[196], the collection of publications edited by Saito Shinji,
The World of Meiji Literature As a Mirror of a New Epoch (Meiji
bungaku no sekai—kyozo toshite no shinseiki) [149], a new
edition of the three volume publication of the works of Yoshida
Seiichi, An Appreciation of Kindaishi Poetry (Nihon Kindaishi
Kansho) [211], and the monograph History of Kindaishi Verse
(Kindaishi shi) by Takada Mizuo [177]. In addition, there have
been many interesting studies of the work of individual poets
of Romanticism and Symbolism, including Kawamura Masa-
tatsu’s work on Kitahara Hakushu, Morita Saketoshi on Miki
Rofu, and Eto Miyoko on Horiguchi Daigaku.
The major problem that faces a scholar who intends to explore
the topic of modern Japanese poetry—a topic that has already
been thoroughly analyzed by Japanese researchers—is how to
make Japanese aesthetics and poetics of the Meiji-Taisho period
comprehensible for a reader coming from a different cultural
environment and brought up on different literary conventions.
It is all the more crucial because the essays by Kitamura Tokoku
and Miki Rofu or the poems of Shimazaki Toson, Doi Bansui,
and Kitahara Hakushu, although written in old-style bungo,
sometimes reveal a depth of thought, an intensity of feeling, and
an overwhelming erudition that can be matched by very few
modern Japanese writers. It is this vivid perception of life in its
constant flow that makes the works of the Japanese Romanticists
and Symbolists appealing to readers of various periods and
cultural backgrounds.
 1 THE AGE OF
EXPLORATION

The Meiji Restoration (1868), which created the pre-conditions

for the transformation of Japan into an Asian superpower,
started with a number of radical reforms in the fields of
economics, politics, and ideology. The reorganization affected
agriculture and industry, state administration and social
institutions, the military, the police, school education, and
science. The total collapse of the old feudal system of values in
all domains of human activity also inevitably led to a revision
of the traditional foundations of art and culture.
The history of Japanese culture of the Meiji period (1868–
1912) provides convincing evidence that a comprehensive
mutual enrichment of cultures occurred when the centuries-
long national isolation of Japan was abruptly abandoned and
replaced by a fierce rivalry with the Western superpowers. The
perception of the West both in the Japanese bureaucracy and
among the wider circle of intellectuals was at the beginning
rather controversial. On the one hand, Western science and
technology, as well as the great masterpieces of European
painters, sculptors, composers, writers and poets, were greatly
appreciated. On the other hand, the manners of the Europeans,
their ruthlessness, noisy aggressiveness, indifference to every-
day ritual, and lack of an aesthetic feeling towards nature, not
to mention their failure to appreciate the niceties of Japanese
etiquette, caused bewilderment among the Japanese, mixed
at times with contempt. For the first two decades after the
14 Part 1. THE ROMANTICIST IDEALS
Meiji Restoration reforms were directed at the fastest possible
introduction of the technological achievements of the West and
at the effective modernization of the political, economic, and
social domains. A great number of experts from Europe and
America were invited to participate in the great transformation.
At the same time, a flow of translated literary texts poured onto
the book market.
The general enthusiasm towards Western art led to the
establishment of schools of Western painting or yoga (Kawa-
kami Togai, Takahashi Juichi) and sculpture. In 1876, the
School of Western Arts (Kobu bijutsu gakko) was established
and the Italian masters Antonio Fontanesi, Giovanni Capelletti,
and Vincenzo Ragusa were appointed teachers. For a time,
the traditional schools of Japanese art were downplayed. How-
ever, following blindly the vogue for things Western conflicted
with the national traditions and was certainly unworthy of
the founders of a great Asian empire, which is how the public
figures of the period saw themselves. The Westernization rush
of the first years of Meiji soon gave way to a sober analysis
of the advantages and disadvantages of Western and Eastern
civilizations aimed at selecting the best of both in the most
creative way.
In the 1880s, the pages of the leading magazines were
already full of agitated discussions on the interaction of Eastern
and Western cultures and on Japan’s political, economic, and
spiritual role in the world. The growth of national self-conscious-
ness was felt quite distinctly in the humanities as well. Japanese
scholars began to publish with new commentaries ancient
texts such as the Kojiki, the Nihongi, and the Fudoki. The large-
scale reprinting of the masterpieces of pre-modern Japanese
literature fueled the development of classical literary criticism
and led to a boom of interest in the works of the literary giants
of the Genroku era (1688–1704), Ihara Saikaku and Chikamatsu
Monzaemon.
Gradually there evolved a restoration of traditional aesthetic
values. The Tokyo Art School (Tokyo bijutsu gakko) was focused
1. THE AGE OF EXPLORATION 15
mostly on teaching the canons of Japanese art, though many of
its students went to Europe for training. The traditionalists even
undertook several serious attempts at forbidding or limiting
the importation into Japan of books on Western painting and
sculpture, and in 1882 managed to bring about for a period
a ban on the exhibition of yoga paintings. These restrictions
lasted for more than ten years.
The movement for the restoration of Japanese aesthetic
and ethical values was led by Okakura Kakuzo (1862–1913),
an influential art critic who found an unexpected ally and
instructor in Ernest Fenollosa (1853–1908), a devoted American
admirer of Japanese culture and a convert to Buddhism.
All these tendencies developed against the background of
an extensive expansion of Western-type school and univer-
sity education, which gave young people access to the innum-
berable treasures of Western civilization. However, the growth
of a nationalist wave in culture in the late 1880s led to the
situation (albeit for a short period) where foreign specialists
were forbidden to teach at Japan’s national universities.
In the late 1880s, a fierce debate was launched between
the adherents of cosmopolitan ideology writing in the journal
Kokumin no tomo (“The Friend of the People”), founded by the
progressive philosopher Tokutomi Soho, and their opponents,
the nationalists from the Seikyosha (“True Teaching”) society,
united around the magazine Nihonjin (“The Japanese”).
The members of the Seikyosha group vociferously opposed
servility toward the West and called for the “preservation of
national identity” (kokusui hozon). A talented propagandist of
arising nationalism, Miyake Setsurei, in his book The Truth,
Kindness, and Beauty of the Japanese (Shinzenbi nihonjin),
claimed the superiority of the Japanese over other nations
and in particular over the white race, thereby assuming the
priority of Japanese culture. This racial theory had its further
development in the works of another member of the Seikyosha
group, Shiga Shigetaka (1868–1927), who grounded his concept
of the chosen nation of Yamato (the classical name for Japan)
16 Part 1. THE ROMANTICIST IDEALS
in geographic, climatic, environmental, and historical factors.
Due to the efforts of the members of Seikyosha, the idea of
“people’s nationalism” (kokuminshugi), a close relative of the
concept of state nationalism (kokuseishugi, nihonshugi), gained
a certain popularity. Nevertheless, Westernization had already
taken firm root in Japanese soil and would not easily yield the
ground to conservative views.
Religious reformation also played a crucial role in the
transformation of the ideological foundations of Japanese
society. After the ban on Christianity was lifted in 1873,
the activities of English, French, and Russian missionaries
resulted in the proliferation of Christian dogma among the
new Japanese intelligensia. In the 1880s, several Christian
schools, colleges, and universities, and 130 churches were
founded in Japan. The Bible was translated into Japanese
(for the first time since the sixteenth century), and its most
lyrical part, the psalms, was widely exploited as a source of
church hymns . The new faith was promoted throughout the
country by numerous Christian organizations, and many of
the most active intellectuals came under the strong influence
of Christian ideology, which was for them the embodiment of
Western cultural values.
However, the pro-Western views of the newly converted
Christians and young sympathizers faced active opposition
from a conservative majority that adopted a positive attitude
towards the mainstream nationalist doctrine of kokutai (“natio-
nal polity”, i. e. the state as an integrated body). The Biblical
texts were opposed by the canons of state Shinto, Confucian
dogma, and the severe regulations of the Imperial Edict on
Education (1890). The aim of the government was to work out
a new ethical system that would mobilize the citizens to serve
their country and their sovereign. Thus, the new intellectuals
of the Meiji period had to define their role against a back-
drop of modernization in which the cultures of East and West
were destined to act like yin and yang, polar forces continually
complementing and struggling against each other.
1. THE AGE OF EXPLORATION 17
The Sino-Japanese war of 1894–1895, which generated
the first powerful wave of the ultra-nationalist movement
of “Japanism” (nihonshugi or nipponshugi), was a kind of
landmark that finally divided the two major trends in the
Japanese culture of modern times. The devoted traditionalists
launched a campaign to revive the Noh and Kabuki theatres,
ikebana (flower arranging), the tea ceremony, national crafts,
and samurai martial arts, all of which were proclaimed mani-
festations of an “indigenous Japanese spirit” (yamato damashii).
In the midst of this campaign there emerged a movement for
the reform of the traditional poetic genres tanka and haiku led
by talented young literati like Yosano Tekkan, Yosano Akiko,
Masaoka Shiki, Shimagi Akahiko, and Saito Mokichi. Their
efforts to create modern tanka and haiku traditions were largely
successful, ensuring the survival of these genres.
At the same time, adherents of Western ways, while not
ignoring entirely the role of the national classics, emphasized
the necessity of learning from the West in order to create
an advanced modern culture as a blend of both the old and
the new.
To begin with, the status of literature in society was
essentially transformed. This entailed a re-evaluation not only
of the functions of the separate genres, schools, and trends but
also of the concept of literature itself. Whereas in the Edo or
Tokugawa period (1600–1867) fiction was considered reading
for entertainment and at best an “inferior art”, after the Meiji
Restoration it attained the same sort of status it had in Western
countries; that is to say, it was considered a “real art”, the
purported function of which was to improve morals, introduce
progressive ideas, and form public opinion. In their novels,
writers of the Meiji period such as Futabatei Shimei, Koda
Rohan, Izumi Kyoka, Shimazaki Toson, and Natsume Soseki
sought to perceive the essence of the epoch and reveal the acute
problems of the changing times. The favourable response to
this type of fiction created an environment for the development
of the modern Japanese novel.
18 Part 1. THE ROMANTICIST IDEALS
Alongside Noh, Kabuki and the Joruri puppet theatre,
which preserved earlier forms of theatrical art, there was
established the modern shingeki theatre, an absolutely new,
European-style drama based on the achievements of Ibsen,
Maeterlinck, and Chekhov.
Only after modern newspapers and magazines had emerged
at the end of the nineteenth century did literary criticism
and journalism start to develop and reflect the new trends in
aesthetic thought.
Tanka and haiku were rivaled by shintaishi verse, as the
traditional lyrical forms seemed inappropriate either for so-
cial discourse or for expressing the rebellious emotions over-
whelming new artists in a changing world. A sad destiny
was probably awaiting the Kabuki and Noh theatres, as well
as many other traditional arts and crafts. However, the resto-
ration of traditional culture based on the new foundation was
quick and effective, and it became the salvation of the “good
old” Japanese traditions. In the early twentieth century there
thus occurred a “schism”, a resolute split of Japanese culture
into two major trends, dividing the supporters of Westernized
innovation and the adherents of traditionalist aesthetics. This
division has been preserved up to the present day in poetry,
art, and drama, despite numerous attempts from both sides to
overcome the barriers.
Radical changes in culture, which accompanied the reforms
in administration, social institutions, and economics, were the
result of qualitative shifts in the worldview of the artist and
in his relations with society. Under the influence of Western
philosophy, aesthetics, and literature, the classical ideal of
the self-sufficient literati (bunjin) was pushed aside in favor
of other ideals—not quite settled and consequently not abso-
lute, but nonetheless capable of exerting a strong influence on
people’s minds.
What were the characteristic features of the bunjin, the
ideal type of the artist that prevailed during the Edo period?
The image of the bunjin (from the Chinese wenjen) presumed
1. THE AGE OF EXPLORATION 19
a comprehensively educated intellectual, one well versed in
the Japanese and Chinese classical heritage, who composed
poems and wrote prose, was an expert in drawing, painting,
and calligraphy, as well as in traditional arts such as ikebana,
gardening or tea ceremony, and who conceived the pleasures
and sorrows of existence in accordance with the furyu principle
(derivation from Chinese fenglyu), that is, by following the
natural way of “wind and stream”. Being a Zen master (whether
properly ordained or not), a bunjin, as a rule, avoided public
social activities, preferring instead a peaceful and quiet private
life in the country, or at least idealizing such a kind of life and
cherishing it in his dreams (see [406; 118]).
The state of detachment from mundane affairs (mushin)
was a necessary pre-condition for a Zen master in any kind of
creative activity. His poetry, painting, calligraphy or garden
design, all of which reflected universal metamorphoses, had
to embody eternal human feelings and impressions formed by
contemplation of nature. The ultimate aim of this creative act,
as of any spiritual activity in general, was the achievement of
harmony with the world and with one’s own ego. Historical
events, social problems, and political issues were out of the
scope of traditional Japanese poetry based on the principle of
“following the Way of Nature”. Such themes could be dealt
with only in kanshi (poetry written in Chinese). Even if a bunjin
accidentally occupied an important public position and was
expected to execute public service according to the rules and
conventions of Confucian ethics, his verses and pictures, as far
as their content was concerned, could not be much different
from those created by a mountain hermit.
Contemplating eternity, a Zen artist considered his life
at a given historical period of time as an instant in a stream
of extremely lengthy kalpa (aeons). This helps to explain the
deliberate neglect of the specific details of transient mundane
life and the particular concern for the cyclic, seasonal changes
of the elements, which symbolize eternity, immortality, self-
dissolution, and permanent revival. This can be seen in the
20 Part 1. THE ROMANTICIST IDEALS
most popular classical “seasonal” images: sakura in bloom, the
voice of the cuckoo, the autumn moon, the first snow, etc.
For a bunjin, the actual time of the act of creation differs
markedly from historical time. The present was inevitably
correlated with the past. In both medieval Japan and China
it was ancient times that were considered “the golden age”,
and each new step on the path of historical and cultural
evolution was unthinkable without comparing it to the deeds
of the ancients. The principle of “following the Way of the
ancients” formed a foundation for the classical poetics of tanka,
and the practice of “following the original poetic sample” or
borrowing lines from the classics (honkadori), perfected by
Fujiwara Teika and other poets of the Shinkokinshu anthology
(late 12th—early 13th C), has not lost its value for tanka even
today.
Classical art did not deny the theoretical possibility of
innovation, but innovation was allowed only within the limits
of the aesthetic system with all its inherent features (see [453,
243–254]). In Japan, which for a period of more than two
centuries remained in isolation and received only limited
creative impulses from the continent, the tendency to conserve
the genres of elite art forms, primarily poetry, painting, and
music, can be easily discerned. Even the most talented masters
of tanka and haiku could not create within the framework of the
system anything essentially new, and thus always remained
hostages of the aesthetic and poetic canon. Their work satisfied
readers before the Meiji Restoration, but when the country
received a powerful incentive for development, the position of
the artist inevitably had to change.
In a book addressed to his English colleagues, the Symbolist
poet Noguchi Yonejiro argued that
Repetition is not without delight entirely when it is musical;
but we shall grow very bored of being suggested the same
thing all the time; monotony is often suicidal. But our
shintai-shijin (the new-styled poem-writers) broke off at
once from such a prejudice which is, at its best, the refuge
1. THE AGE OF EXPLORATION 21
of an impoverished mind; and they left the old home of
restriction and flew out into the freedom of nature and life
(see [307, 92]).
To be sure, the change manifested itself not only in the
renovation of poetic form. All formal explorations in poetry
and painting were a consequence of deep perturbations in the
spiritual life of the Japanese on the eve of the twentieth century.
As has been insightfully remarked by a Russian scholar of
Japanese culture, “a poet not wishing to break the rhythm of
world order should change in accordance with it” [404, 172].
The type of artist that emerged in the period of “spiritual
revolution” (designated by Japanese scholars as the period from
the late 1880s to the end of the 1890s) differed considerably
from the bunjin of the Edo period. Along with a classical
Confucian education he would acquire an extensive complex
of “Western” knowledge in the fields of philosophy, litera-
ture, music, and painting. The Christian moral principle that
gives a person the choice between good and evil, making the
individual responsible for everything in nature and society,
was superimposed on his Buddhist outlook (see [373, 24–30]).
The gesture of self-sacrifice for the sake of the future realm
of the good gave to the works of many poets, writers, and
painters at the beginning of the new century a humanist pathos.
The active position taken by a person following the Christian
system of values, especially the Protestant creed, was opposed
to the submissiveness and passive non-action of Buddhist
contemplation. Such idealistically interpreted concepts of
Christianity inspired (at least for a time) the work of Kitamura
Tokoku, Kunikida Doppo, Kitahara Hakushu, Takamura
Kotaro, and many other writers who began their careers in
the Meiji period. Christianity provided for a large number of
intellectuals an impulse for creative aspirations, and at the
same time helped them resist, from the position of “Christian
cosmopolitanism”, the muddy wave of nationalist propaganda
that flooded Japan at the time of the Sino-Japanese (1894–1895)
and Russo-Japanese (1904–1905) wars.
22 Part 1. THE ROMANTICIST IDEALS
Neither the early Symbolists Kyukin and Ariake, nor Miki
Rofu and Hagiwara Sakutaro, who came after them, actually
ever opposed the nationalist ideology of nipponshugi (Japanism).
They basically accepted the standard national history with its
strong mythological Shinto component justifying the noble
mission of the Yamato race. Moreover, the Romanticists Yosano
Tekkan and Doi Bansui did much in verse to immortalize the
“valorous spirit of Japan”. Nevertheless, the fascination with
Western culture and the attractiveness of Christian ideals
generated in the majority of intellectuals of the Meiji–Taisho and
early Showa (1926–1988) periods a very special attitude towards
Europe and the Europeans, which sometimes came close to
idolatry. Any trip to Europe was perceived as a pilgrimage
to Mecca both by the lucky travelers and by their audience
in Japan. We can find explicit evidence of this attitude in the
comments by Mori Ogai on his trip to Germany (see [418, 31–
35]), by Tokutomi Roka on his visit to Russia (see [410, 115–126]),
by Takamura Kotaro and Horiguchi Daigaku on their travels
to America and to France, by Noguchi Yonejiro on his life in
America, and by Nishiwaki Junzaburo on his stay in England.
At the same time, the pilgrims would almost invariably suffer
a complex of “colonial inferiority”, which could be detrimental
to their self-esteem.
Thus, the fascination with Western literature, architecture,
and painting functioned as a kind of yeast for the fermentation
of Japanese culture of the twentieth century. However, as Basho
once said, “without the immutable there is no new stem”.
The new poetry would never have succeeded if it were sheer
imitation, a mechanical implantation of the seeds of exotic
foreign plants in Japanese soil.
Ironically, almost all the poets of shintaishi, kindaishi,
and gendaishi who had adopted Christianity and advocated
various Western ways while young would sooner or later
return to Buddhism and Shinto, and their works would
acquire traditionalist tones. This was the case with Kitamura
Tokoku, the leader of Japanese Romanticism, at the end of his
1. THE AGE OF EXPLORATION 23
short life. He shifted from poetic dramas in a Byronic vein to
sentimentalist lyricism in the traditional genre of “flowers and
birds”. Kitahara Hakushu, a renowned Symbolist who had
started his career with poetic dreams of “Christian heresy” in
feudal Japan and loved to pose for photographers in a Russian
shirt, followed the same path. The same is true of the first
Japanese modernists, Yamamura Bocho and Muroo Saisei,
and after them (much later) the founder of surrealist poetry,
Nishiwaki Junzaburo, who, when he grew old, turned to the
poetics of sabi embodied in the personality of “the Old man
Basho” and to the nostalgic lyricism of landscape poetry.
The author of the scandalous poetry collections Howling at the
Moon and A Blue Cat, Hagiwara Sakutaro, in his later years
composed meditative elegies on Buddhist themes. Finally, the
absurdist Takahashi Shinkichi, who in his youth challenged
the bourgeois establishment in bold Dadaist verse, was later
inspired by Zen teachings and took to composing Zen poems
in a modern style.
In some cases, however, writers and poets who had been
excessively fascinated by the West and steeped in Christianity
lost their national grounding and wasted their talent. For
example, one of the best poets of Symbolism, Miki Rofu, was led
astray by Trappist missionaries and ended his days in creative
impotence.
For Japanese poets, overcoming Christian illusions and
returning to the native tradition, primarily to Buddhist philo-
sophy and aesthetics, was a salutary process, as Buddhism was
for them not a self-sufficient religious doctrine but the way to
perceive one’s own ego and the surrounding world.
As a rule, the new artistic worldview of Japanese writers was
the result of a fusion of Buddhism and Christianity, of Eastern
and Western thought. A Similar process took place in the
second half of the twentieth century in the USA, where young
poets, having overcome the initial stage of blind infatuation
with Zen Buddhism, came to an essentially new and original
poetics under strong Japanese influence (see [372, 116–120]).
24 Part 1. THE ROMANTICIST IDEALS
Thus, an artist of the new type who combined in his
work both Eastern and Western elements had to become
an intermediary between two civilizations, two different aesthe-
tic systems. The roots of one were in the thousand-year-old
heritage of the East with its intricate method of introspective
analysis. The other component was the dynamic, optimistic,
and competitive spirit of Western culture. When the theories
of classical German idealism and of French neo-positivism
encountered on Japanese soil Buddhism and Shinto, they were
given a new interpretation.
In the Japanese culture that emerged in the twentieth
century and continues today, two tendencies—Japan-centrism
and Euro-centrism—can be identified. The former includes
all traditionalist schools of poetry, painting, crafts, theatre,
etc. The latter refers to all schools and groups which in the
beginning were attracted to classical Western models and then
developed new synthetic forms. However, just as the poets
of traditional genres (Masaoka Shiki, Yosano Akiko, Saito
Mokichi, Yoshii Isamu, and others), in spite of all their efforts,
could not avoid the influence of Western aesthetics (actually
they did not even try to resist it but eagerly accepted Western
culture, adjusting traditionalist forms to the new reality),
the masters of kindaishi verse could not ignore tradition and
abandon the legacy of their ancestors. “The struggle of these
two tendencies in the context of a difficult political situation
shaped the formation and development of Japanese bourgeois
culture” [376, 205].
Well-grounded arguments in defense of their positions
were put forward by the advocates of both approaches, and
discussions on the “East-West” topic brought vitality to the
culture of the Meiji-Taisho period. In the domain of poetry,
a fierce debate between “Western-oriented” and “Japan-
oriented” factions took place in the pages of Bungakukai
(“World of Literature”) and other influential periodicals.
The split between the poetry of new forms and the poetry of
traditional forms eventually became definitive, and the two
1. THE AGE OF EXPLORATION 25
sides took their own paths. After the final delimitation in the
third decade of the Meiji period, disputes between the two
cooled off, and the two trends came to a peaceful coexistence.
However, within each trend the debate over the proportion of
old and new, of native and borrowed elements, continued for
many years.
The advocates of tanka and haiku, for their part, attempted
to reform the poetic vocabulary, expand the range of topics,
and intensify the expressive means of verse. The poets of
kindaishi, on the other hand, had problems of a different order
to consider: the emergence of new schools (Romanticism, Sym-
bolism, Naturalism, Futurism, etc), the advantages and dis-
advantages of metric verse and free-form verse, the correlation
of colloquial verse (kogo) and classical verse (bungo), and the
merits of poetic translations and imitation. For the poets and
critics of kindaishi, as for all the literary historians of the Meiji-
Taisho period, Western aesthetics and poetics was the starting
point for the evaluation of all Japanese poetry of the time.
However, this should not be seen as evidence of an inferiority
complex based on an idealization of European culture. After all,
even the Russian Symbolists were inspired by French poetry,
and the Futurists by the slogans of their Italian colleagues, yet
both groups created poetry fundamentally different from their
models.
Most of the literary criticism, essays, and manifestos of the
various Japanese poetic schools and groupings at the beginning
of the twentieth century reveal not only excellent knowledge
of European and American literature, but also sensible views,
balanced evaluations, and, most importantly, a desire to make
use of the Western experience in creating a new national poetry.
Actually, this approach is characteristic of the Japanese attitude
toward Western civilization in general. The slogan put forth
during the Meiji period, “wakon yosai” (“Japanese spirit—
Western learning”), did not imply any inferiority on the part
of the Japanese, but rather assumed gradual mastering of those
26 Part 1. THE ROMANTICIST IDEALS
missing links of technological progress which would eventually
make it possible for Japan to leave its teachers behind.
The decline of Romanticist new-style (shintaishi) verse in the
first years of the twentieth century clearly marked for Japanese
poetry the end of a period of apprenticeship which had been
necessary to fill in a gap of several centuries in a short period of
only two decades. The accelerated pace of this apprenticeship
caused some confusion for Japanese poets and resulted in
elements of eclecticism in their works. The same can be said of
the range of works of Western poetry imported and introduced
into Japan. As the academic N. I. Konrad put it, the selection was
“in many respects spontaneous and pre-conditioned by personal
dispositions, sometimes simply as a result of casual fashion or
accident” [430, 342]. However, this situation was typical only of
the tumultuous period of the “spiritual revolution” at the end
of the nineteenth century.
By the period of the Russo-Japanese war the situation had
improved and Japan started to keep pace with Europe and
America. Thus, while Symbolism emerged in Japanese poetry
later than in France or Belgium, it appeared almost at the same
time as Russian Symbolism; likewise, Futurism came to Japan
only four or five years after its arrival in Italy and Russia; and
Japanese Dadaism follows its European prototype by only
two years. Japanese Surrealism, though guided by André
Breton’s manifestos, on the whole was quite an independent
phenomenon and developed in parallel with its European
counterparts during the 1920s and 1930s. Later Japanese poetry,
as was the case with other kinds of literature and art, generated
many original modernist trends and schools.
Kindaishi and gendaishi poetry should not be considered
secondary to the literature of the West, even though the
latter from time to time gave Japanese verse a powerful
incentive for renovation. In the history of modern Japanese
poetry, it is easy enough to identify lines of influence from
this or that national literature or from particular poets. Yet, to
quote V. M. Zhirmunsky, influence in literature
1. THE AGE OF EXPLORATION 27
. . .is not an accidental, mechanical push from outside, nor
an empirical fact of the personal biography of a writer or
a group of writers, or the result of accidental acquaintance
with a new book, an interest in a literary fashion or the
presence of a bilingual ‘intermediary’ . . . To make influence
possible, an ideological need for such an import has to
emerge, and there must have developed similar tendencies
in a given society and in a given literature [421, 74].
The Japanese writers of the Meiji-Taisho period, especially
poets, chose as “beacons” authors and schools from Western
literature that best met their spiritual demands. For example,
Japanese Romanticists of the Bungakukai group preferred
English lyrical poetry of the nineteenth century, such as that
found in the work of Wordsworth and the “Lake school”
Shelley, Keats, and other authors whose works revealed the
inner world of an individual through a deep contemplation
of nature (see [373]), while Doi Bansui, in his speculative and
meditative lyrical pieces, drew his inspiration from the poetry
of Goethe and Hugo. In contrast, the late Romanticists Kyukin
and Ariake, who also became pioneers of Japanese Symbolism,
had a bias for the English Pre-Raphaelites, reveling especially
in luxurious but vague imagery of D. G. Rossetti.
Kitahara Hakushu, Kinoshita Mokutaro, and other parti-
cipants of the bohemian “Pan Society” were, naturally enough,
inspired by the French decadents and praised the muse of
Verlaine and Rimbaud. Their early poems, which appeared
during the years of aggravated social struggle and cruel re-
prisals against socialists, presented a kind of escape from
the burning problems of the age into the realm of “pure art”
Symbolism held its positions in the Japanese literary world
for more than thirty years, remaining a shelter for all poets
who wanted to stay aloof from social movements, ideological
debates, and political struggles. Not only the Symbolists, but
also the humanists from the Shirakaba (“White Birch”) group
and the adherents of the “Minshushi” (democratic poetry) school
preferred to remain in the sweet captivity of their idealistic
28 Part 1. THE ROMANTICIST IDEALS
views and did not rush towards Marxism. Poets could be
fascinated by Tolstoy and Dostoevsky, or make translations
from Verhaeren or Whitman, but they regarded strikes and “rice
revolts”, which were shaking Japan in 1918, with considerable
reservation and even fear.
The ideas of Italian and Russian Futurism were very attractive
for avant-garde groups proclaiming the transformation of
the revolution of art into social revolution. Hirato Renkichi,
Kambara Tai, and Hagiwara Kyojiro felt like prophets of a new
era, but their courageous appeals, prompted by the manifestos
of Marinetti and by David Burliuk’s lectures (during his stay
in Japan in 1918), did not achieve their goal, being addressed
only to a narrow circle of fellow-bohemians. Meanwhile,
the Proletarian poets of the 1920s and 1930s spoke to a wider
audience and were heard by many; Nakano Shigeharu and
Oguma Hideo, who chose the revolutionary Russian poet
Mayakovsky as their spiritual guru, enjoyed considerable
popularity—at least for a time.
At every new stage in the evolution of Japanese poetry the
choice of models to emulate was determined by a complex
of historical, social, and cultural factors. Such a change of
“beacons” was also typical of the classical poetry of earlier
periods. For example, some tanka poets of the Edo period
preferred the “masculine and courageous” (masuraoburi) style
of the eighth-century Manyoshu, (Myriad of Leaves) anthology,
while others tried to imitate the refined poetics of the tenth-
century Kokinshu (Collection of Old and New Poems). At the
end of the nineteenth century, Masaoka Shiki sharply criticized
the poetics of the Kokinshu and praised the Manyoshu. Agitated
discussions on the priority of these two classics lasted for
another forty years and ended in the mid-twentieth century
with the victory of the Manyoshu faction, which led to the
further emancipation of tanka poetics.
Masaoka Shiki also made a daring assault on Basho’s
authority, declaring the superiority of haiku by Yosa no Buson
instead. However, such re-evaluations did not bring abrupt
1. THE AGE OF EXPLORATION 29
or radical changes in the traditionalist system of values. The
importance of Meiji reforms manifested itself in the fact that
the ideals shifted from the past to the present and the future.
It was not the number of books one read or the quality of the
translations into Japanese that caused structural shifts in
an artist’s mind, but rather an essentially new understanding
of the tasks and objectives of poetry and the arts. The poets
and painters of the Meiji-Taisho period accepted the Western
view on art, according to which “the importance and value of
a master’s new works are defined not by their affinity to his
previous works and traditional patterns but rather by how
much they differ from the old ones or by an original ‘message’
containing something new, important, and valid. Moreover,
this situation does not present an obstacle to the existence of
a coherent worldview but rather serves as its foundation”
(see [429, 329]). In this way the Japanese literary world, and in
particular the poets, received an incentive for development and
began their incessant quest for perfection.
The new Japanese poetry became an open aesthetic system,
unlike the conventional poetry of the past (i. e. tanka and
haiku), which preserved its genre isolation and was almost im-
penetrable to outside influence. The possibility and necessity of
both revolutionary change and evolution connected kindaishi
verse to a world-wide literary process, resulting not only in
Japanese poetry being open to the influence of Western litera-
ture but also arousing an interest in Japan among Western
writers and painters. The masters of kindaishi were opposed
both to the “national narrow-mindedness of islanders”
(shimaguni konjo) and to the uncritical copying of European
models. Aesthetic relativism, taken over primarily from the
works of Western Romanticists, added scale and scope to the
new Japanese poetry, which was now capable itself of crossing
borders. Having cast away the bondage of classical rules and
forms, the poet regarded himself as a cosmopolitan, an heir to
the unique and unalienable achievements of human civiliza-
tion. Following Byron and Hugo, Goethe and Pushkin, Japanese
30 Part 1. THE ROMANTICIST IDEALS
poets intended for the first time to perceive the whole universe,
or, as the great Russian Symbolist poet Aleksandr Blok put it,
“to immortalize everything around, to humanize the future,
and to implement the unrealized”.
The problems of space and time received in kindaishi poetry
a completely new interpretation compared to the treatment
of these categories in the tanka and haiku traditions. Classical
poetics tended to convey the inner world of an individual by
means of associations and allusions, or through the prism of
his immediate surroundings, as in a landscape picture or in the
details of real life found in haiku. Allusions were focused on
a more or less standard set of limited literary characters, poems,
and authors (see [362, 316–331]). In contrast, the kindaishi poet
freely uses the cultural background of various nations and
countries; his imagination could easily transport him from the
Sumida River in Tokyo to the banks of the Rhine or the Avon,
to the tops of the Himalayas or the Egyptian pyramids, or to
Dannoura Bay, where the Taira heroes perished in their last
battle. His heart felt the ties of the time, and he perceived the
history of mankind as a prologue to the great drama of the
present, of which he was a participant. Thus, Doi Bansui in his
poems addresses the sages of ancient Chaldea and the heroes
of classical China; Kitahara Hakushu and Kinoshita Mokutaro
revive exotic episodes of the “Christian century” (16th C) in
Japan; Muroo Saisei converses in his dreams with Dostoevsky;
and Horiguchi Daigaku and Takamura Kotaro accompany the
shadows of Verlaine and Rimbaud in their wanderings about
Paris at night.
The interest in Japanese literature and art of the premodern
period awakened under the impact of Western culture, made
the poets of kindaishi look differently at the culture of the
past. Indeed, many aspects of Edo-period culture which had
previously been regarded as entertainment for commoners and
certainly no match for classical poetry and painting were totally
re-evaluated. The poets of the Meiji period, well aware of the
role played by Edo woodblock prints in the formation of French
1. THE AGE OF EXPLORATION 31
Impressionism, unlike their fathers worshipped the works of
Hokusai and Hiroshige. They also enjoyed collecting the popular
songs (kouta) composed by the “geisha girls” of the licensed
quarters, a musical genre that poets of previous generations
had been oblivious to. Such songs provided abundant materials
for experiments with metrics in the new poetry, beginning with
the melodic shintaishi of Shimazaki Toson and continuing right
up to the gendaishi of Miyoshi Tatsuji. This experimentation
can be regarded as a Japanese response to the folklore vogue of
European Romanticism.
The attitude of the kindaishi masters towards classical poetry
was complicated and controversial. Of course, all of them read
and honored the Japanese classics. The majority of them, when
young, tried composing tanka or haiku, only to switch later to
non-traditional poetry. Nevertheless, a survey of numerous
authors’ biographies reveals that the poets of the Meiji-Taisho
and early Showa periods granted the right to be called “the great
companion” only to two geniuses of the past: Saigyo (12th C)
and Basho (17th C). Their choice was probably motivated by the
fact that these authors expressed best the features of traditional
Japanese poetry—sincerity, deep feelings, and simplicity of
form combined with a strong suggestive component. What was
perhaps even more important, the tanka of Saigyo and the haiku
or Basho ideally correlated with the historical images of these
poets as philosophers and wanderers who led lives of relative
poverty, following the elevated aspirations of their hearts.
The five-line verses of Saigyo and three-line verses of
Basho were a starting point even for those modern poets who
included in their own poetic “family tree” a Mallarmé or
a Whitman. It is not an accident that Basho became the central
figure in discussions about the “Japanese nature” of Symbolism
and about the role of suggestion in the new poetry. It was in
the work “About Basho” (Basho ni tsuite) that the renowned
modernist Hagiwara Sakutaro confessed his misunderstanding
of traditional poetry and his love for Western poetry:
32 Part 1. THE ROMANTICIST IDEALS
I was born and raised in the remote countryside, in Joshu,
so quite naturally, both purely physiologically and due to
environmental influences, I could not stand traditional
culture. The very fact that my destiny was to become a poet
should be attributed, firstly, to my lack of understanding
of this culture, to the antipathy that it provoked in me;
secondly, to an irresistible thirst for Western verse. If
I had been born in Kyoto instead of Joshu, or in Osaka
or Kanazawa—places where the local cultural traditions
were strong enough—then I would definitely have in-
dulged in composing traditional Japanese tanka and haiku
(quot. in [3, 360]).
Of course, Hagiwara’s words should not be taken too se-
riously, as he goes on to analyze the merits and drawbacks
of Basho with deep insight. However, it is the mere fact that
modern Japanese poets turned to the classics at this point that
is noteworthy.
The new creative dynamic not only helped the kindaishi
poets forge new views concerning haiku, ukiyo-e woodblock
prints, and kouta songs, but also impacted the way they saw
their contemporaries. The former standard poetics showed
a continuity of tradition and gave each author or group of
authors a certain place among the adherents, whether as
predecessors and successors, of the given tradition. The works
of the old masters were perceived as masterpieces worthy of
worship and imitation (see [362, 150]).
Meanwhile, in the poetry of the Meiji–Taisho period, as in
Western literature, the law of negation of negation came into
force. The chief characteristic of this phenomenon is succinctly
stated by the modern poet Ayukawa Nobuo.
The poets of kindaishi verse have always felt subconsciously
the necessity to deny the previous generation, and this
applies not only to the poets of modernism—participants
in the Proletarian Culture movement felt it too. Since the
era of shintaishi in the world of poetry such representative
1. THE AGE OF EXPLORATION 33
generations have emerged (perhaps it would be more
precise to say “currents” as schools and groupings often co-
existed) as Symbolists, members of the Democratic Poetry
school, Sensualists, Proletarian poets, various modernist
schools, and others; but between all these groups there was
almost no contact, no exchange of experience [6, 321].
In reality, the Symbolists denied the Romanticists, the Natu-
ralists denied the Symbolists, and the Sensualists denied all
of them, not to mention Proletarian poetry. At the same time,
all these groups represented a target for the furious attacks
of the nihilistic Futurists and Dadaists. However, it is hard to
agree completely with Ayukawa’s statement that there were no
contacts between the literary groupings and poetic associations.
Such contacts took the form in the first place of agitated
discussions in the journals and magazines, which often served
as the mouthpieces of certain schools or groups. There were
also frequent cases of poets “migrating”. For example, Kyukin
and Ariake shifted from Romanticism to Symbolism, while Miki
Rofu came to Symbolism from Naturalism. Hagiwara Sakutaro
found his place in the Sensualist movement, having made a start
with the Symbolist poetics of Hakushu. In the case of Tsuboi
Shigeji and Nakano Shigeharu, they joined the movement of
Proletarian Literature, skipping the intermediary stage of left-
anarchist Futurism. In general, the change of ideological and
aesthetic aims is typical of writers living in a period of historical
shifts, and the Meiji–Taisho period was definitely such an era
in Japanese history. Of course, it is impossible to disregard
the accelerated pace of cultural development occurring at this
time as a factor behind the coexistence of extremely diverse
poetic trends. Nevertheless, a motive force of the new poetry,
as indeed of all new art, certainly can be found in the pathos of
negation.
Although all kindaishi poets saw themselves as accomp-
lished modern authors, their understanding of the concept
of “modernity” varied greatly. For instance, Hakushu and
34 Part 1. THE ROMANTICIST IDEALS
his friends from the bohemian “Pan Society” acknowledged
modernity primarily in the use of new, bright, and exotic
forms, in following a literary vogue or, more often than not,
in inventing such a vogue (see [215, 309–310]). On the other
hand, Ishikawa Takuboku, who was not a stranger to kindaishi
(though definitely more successful as a tanka poet), assumed
that modern poetry should reflect progressive ideas of the time
and serve the interests of the working people. He demanded
of poetry actuality and vitality. This is why this trend, re-
presented by Takuboku and his friend Toki Aika, was called
the “Life Poetry school” (seikatsu-ha). In the perception of the
Sensualists (kanjo-ha) led by Hagiwara Sakutaro, “modern
poetry” is a penetration into the psychology of the modern
individual, whereas from the perspective of the authors of
Democratic Poetry it is a reflection of advanced humanist
doctrines, and for the Futurists it is “the revolution in art” and
the destruction of the foundations of conventional literature.
Each of these various conceptions of “modernity” was sup-
ported by a fair number of critics and readers.
Divergences between schools at the ideological level
were naturally reflected on the level of style and in the genre
characteristics of kindaishi poetry. Above all, the problems of
the poetic lexicon and the use of meter and rhythm were the
foci of disputes.
Throughout its twelve-century history, the classical literary
language, bungo, differed from the spoken language not only
in grammatical form but also, to some extent, in vocabulary.
The language of classical poetry, bungo was also used in prose,
early journalism, and official documents at least up to the
beginning of the Meiji period (as the language of bureaucratic
documentation it survived until the end of World War II).
However, by the beginning of the twentieth century the majority
of renowned fiction writers had joined the movement for the
so-called “unification of colloquial and literary language”
(gembun itchi) and started to use colloquial Japanese (kogo).
1. THE AGE OF EXPLORATION 35
But the bungo style was still widely used in critical literary
essays. Bungo also dominated in poetry during the period of
Romanticism, maintaining its positions at least up to 1908 when
the Naturalists, led by Soma Gyofu, challenged the old language
conventions. Ardent polemics concerning the abolition of bungo,
despite the intensity of the arguments, did not bring immediate
or radical change. It is true that the adherents of the colloquial
language eventually acquired the freedom to write in kogo, but
the Symbolists continued to use bungo until the beginning of the
1930s. And of course Bungo prevailed up to the late twentieth
century in the poetry of traditional genres, especially in tanka.
Takamura Kotaro, Hagiwara Sakutaro, Miyoshi Tatsuji, and
many other outstanding poets would quite often alternate
between bungo and kogo depending on the subject, the historical
situation, or simply for some personal reason. Bungo as the
language of elegant, “high-style” verse survived through the
years of modernist “Sturm und Drang” and was preserved
until the late 1930s, when it was suddenly resurrected in the
abundant pseudo-patriotic militarist poetry written by many
modern poets of all schools and genres.
However, during the post-war period, the poets of gendaishi
completely abandoned bungo, as the new system of education
had weakened language training at school to such an extent
that works written in the classical style became practically
inaccessible for the average young reader. This situation
ironically led to the conservation, by being transferred to
the category of “archival legacy” of many fine poems of the
first half of the twentieth century written in bungo. Though
numerous historians of literature continue to turn again and
again to that legacy, trying to revive it for contemporaries,
the language barrier interferes with their efforts. Whereas
tanka and haiku, which have mostly preserved the language of
bungo, are still—thanks to their brevity and lapidary style—
available for numerous fans of poetry after a short school
course of classical kobun grammar, the abundant sentiments of
the shintaishi, kindaishi and gendaishi poets written in bungo are
36 Part 1. THE ROMANTICIST IDEALS
almost as alien to the younger generation of Japanese readers
as kanshi, poetry in Chinese written by learned Japanese authors
of the pre-modern times.
It is universally acknowledged that the evolution of metrics
and rhythmical patterns in kindaishi verse took the path of
gradual emancipation, slowly breaking the traditional onsuritu
prosody and indulging in various alternative rhythms. Whereas
in the work of Toson and Bansui the 7–5 meter still prevails,
in the poetry of late Romanticists and early Symbolists like
Kyukin and Ariake we can detect meters of 7–7, 8–7, and 6–9
syllables. Hakushu, Rofu, and other Symbolists, who were
open to using all possible poetic devices, introduced along with
the conventional stable metric verse (teikeishi) numerous novel
rhythmical patterns that can hardly can be brought into some
strict classification. The poets of Sensualism, Dadaism, Futurism
and other modernist schools enriched kindaishi rhythms with
their own new discoveries, compensating with a vengeance the
absence of rhyme in Japanese.
The evolution from conventional prosody to free verse
can be attributed to the inner laws of a language that does
not have sufficient potential for the development of regular
metric forms (see [160, 14–18]). However, this tendency also
coincided in time with a similar trend towards vers libre in
European and, especially, American poetry, therefore making
Japanese poetry a natural participant in a world-wide literary
process.
In search of new techniques, the kindaishi poets greatly
enhanced the possibilities of new verse in terms of composition
design and the potenial for new genres. Thus Kyukin and
Ariake were the first to introduce into Japanese poetry popular
European poetic forms such as the sonnet (albeit with no
rhyme), which met a certain response and was later used by such
masters of modern gendaishi poetry as Nakamura Shinichiro
and Tanikawa Shuntaro (see [370, 229–230]). The genre of the
lyrical miniature poem (jojo shokyoku), also a product of the
convergence of Eastern and Western traditions, enjoyed great
1. THE AGE OF EXPLORATION 37
popularity among such authors as Shimazaki Toson, Muroo
Saisei, and Yamamura Bocho. Since the Meiji period many
typical techniques of composition (including crucial structural
elements) taken from Europe were introduced into shintaishi
and kindaishi poetry, especially in melodic, lyrical verse. Such
techniques include: the division of a poem into stanzas and
lines, the use of anaphora, epiphora, and refrain, and the use of
various grammatical and syntactical parallelisms.
The application of such popular Western techniques as
extended metaphor, hyperbola, litotes, and periphrasis dra-
matically enriched the kindaishi arsenal of tropes. Meanwhile,
in some kindaishi, rudimentary elements of classical Japanese
poetic devices such as the homonymic metaphor or pivot-
word (kakekotoba), the metonymic associative allusion (engo),
and allusive paraphrase of classical lines (honkadori) were also
sometimes employed.
Punctuation, too, can be considered a poetic device. Some
kindaishi authors eagerly used periods, commas, and exclamation
marks; others intentionally ignored them, preferring to merge
in this way the national tradition of writing poems without any
punctuation with the latest trends in Western verse.1
The exploitation of the “attached readings” (ateji) of Chinese
characters (kanji), usually reflected in the furigana explanatory
transliteration but occasionally just implied by the context of the
verse itself, was a truly indigenous device which played a very
important role in shintaishi and kindaishi. The use of such ateji
made it possible for poets to give a range of additional meanings
and overtones to their words, sometimes even enabling them to
construct complex literary allusions.
And finally, the imagery of the new verse became a mag-
nificent combination of indigenous classical elements, marked
by refinement and eloquence, with the unbounded imagination
of Western poetry.
1 For the sake of clarity the original punctuation is observed in most
cases.
38 Part 1. THE ROMANTICIST IDEALS
This variety of kindaishi poetic techniques laid a foundation
for the grand edifice of Japanese poetry of the twentieth
century, which itself has become an indispensable part of the
global literary process.
Still, we cannot assume that everything in kindaishi poetry
deserves high praise. Rather, many kindaishi poets shared the
same flaws and drawbacks, including the overuse of common-
places, the tendency toward excessively melodramatic senti-
mentalism or boring, pathetic monologues, the banality of
the landscapes, and the unlimited usage of an archaic, barely
comprehensible lexicon. However, can we ascertain that the
works of all the Western poets of the same period were flaw-
less, irreproachable masterpieces? Of course not! The point is
that we should judge every national poetic tradition by its best
achievements.
2. THE AESTHETIC THEORY OF JAPANESE ROMANTICISM 39
2 THE AESTHETIC
THEORY OF
JAPANESE ROMANTICISM
THE TIME OF CHANGES
The source of Romanticist philosophy in Japan can be traced
to the Movement for Freedom and People’s Rights (Jiyu minken
undo), which had united under its banner in the late 1870s
various liberal and popular democratic forces opposed to the
ideology of the clan-formed Meiji government.
Many men of letters supported the movement, seeing in it
the only way for the implementation of their dreams of freedom
and democracy. However, within some ten years the vanity of
such projects in Meiji Japan became evident. The authorities,
aiming at the formation of a monolithic modern military
superpower, managed to suppress the various strands of liberal
opposition.
Over 250 years of isolation had left a deep imprint on the
national mentality in the domain of social relations as well as
in culture and the arts. The Meiji government quite rationally
intended to use the heritage of the past in its own interests,
forging a new national identity on the basis of militant
nationalism by restoring and promoting the principles of
samurai morality (which had only shortly before been subject
to bitter criticism) and cultivating state-Shinto ideals as the
supreme spiritual values, thereby challenging both indi-
genous Buddhism and imported Christianity. On the other
hand, the government realized very well the necessity of
40 Part 1. THE ROMANTICIST IDEALS
modernization, which was launched under the symbolic
slogan “Japanese spirit — Western learning” (wakon yosai).
Borrowing some crucial elements of Western spiritual culture
was also acknowledged and fostered by the authorities as
a part of this process, along with the import of science and
useful technologies. It was mostly the problem of proportion in
the application of the newly arrived spirituality that bothered
the authorities, whose major concern was that Western culture
might be subversive and corruptive to the “body” of the nation
as conceived under the recently forged nationalist doctrine of
kokutai. The emergence of the Romanticist school was the bold
reply of young Japanese intellectuals to the restrictions of this
conservative regime.
In the 1880s, the influx of western philosophy, arts, and
literature was gaining momentum in Japan. A prominent
enlightener, Nishi Amane, summarized in his lectures on
aesthetics the achievements of classical German idealism. An-
other scholar, Nakae Chomin, explored the domain of French
positivism, translating some of the works of Rousseau and
Véron. In the meantime, a mighty current of literary translations
and adaptations of European literature continued to pour into
the country. Such names as Shakespeare, Dickens, Boccaccio,
Pushkin, and Tolstoy were introduced to the Japanese reader
for the first time [430, 307–308]. Learning European languages
(in addition to compulsory Chinese) helped many intellectuals
of the time enhance the scope of their literary interests and
preferences through the intense reading of the Western classics.
From the mid 1880s certain Enlightenment trends can be traced
in the choice of books for translation.1
By that time the chaotic and eclectic mixture of various,
mostly borrowed, styles in Japanese literature evolved into
an organized intellectual space where many new schools and
1 A detailed characterization of the literary life of the period is given in
“Lectures on Japanese Literature of the Meiji Period” by N. I. Konrad [430,
306–334]
2. THE AESTHETIC THEORY OF JAPANESE ROMANTICISM 41
groups were represented. The pseudo-classicist Kenyusha
(“Society of Friends of the Ink-pot”) under the leadership of
Ozaki Koyo and Yamada Bimyo gained great popularity for
their new kind of fiction. The novelists of Kenyusha, although
not quite alien to the process of Westernization, opposed
the overwhelming influence of European literature that was
resulting in a kind of inferiority complex by putting forth the
demand for the “preservation of the national essence” (kokusui
hozon). They revitalized interest in the masterpieces of the Edo
period, applying the techniques of Ihara Saikaku, Chikamatsu
Monzaemon, Takizawa Bakin, and many other renowned
pre-modern writers in their own works. The writers of the
Kenyusha group should be given credit for their endeavors,
but their social views played a negative role in the ideological
struggle of the time by providing a convenient base for the
reactionary proponents of the nationalist Japanism (nihonshugi)
doctrine in their crusade against the liberal-minded literati. The
Romanticists would regard the members of the Kenyusha group
as their worst enemies.
The first attempt to designate the new goals of literature in
the changing social environment was made by the young writer
and critic Tsubouchi Shoyo in his famous treatise The Essence of
Novel (Shosetsu shinzui, 1885), which challenged the traditional
vision of literature as mere entertainment. Advocating realism
as the only serious literary method, Shoyo emphasized the
importance of the writer’s mission in modern society and his
role in the improvement of customs and mores. This concept
influenced many men of letters, including the founder of
realism in Japanese fiction, Futabatei Shimei. However, the low
theoretical level and eclectic content of Shoyo’s treatise made
it vulnerable to various kinds of criticism. Besides, in the late
1880s Japanese writers were not yet ready to adopt realism as
their major method.
As had happened in Europe a hundred years earlier, Japan
during the Meiji period experienced a bourgeois revolution,
42 Part 1. THE ROMANTICIST IDEALS
which was followed by the rise and fall of the Movement for
Freedom and People’s Rights. The response of literature to the
crash of the liberal expectations evoked by the preachings of the
first enlighteners resulted—both in Europe and in Japan—in
the emergence of Romanticism. The naïve realism of the time
was not yet able to convey the complex sentiments of modern
intellectuals in their quest for elevated ideals in an age of great
transformations. Realistic tendencies growing in literature were
temporarily pushed aside by the mighty wave of Romanticism.
For the first time an explicit apology of Romanticism was
articulated in the journal Shigarami zoshi (“The Weir”), edited
by Mori Ogai. Besides indigenous spiritual teachings, the
origins of Japanese Romanticism can be traced to two major
trends of European philosophical thought—French positivism
and German classical idealism. Nakae Chomin introduced
to Japanese readers the philosophy of Rousseau and Véron.
However, it was the articles published by Mori Ogai in the late
1880s on German philosophy that became the real foundation
of the Japanese Romanticist school. As a student of medicine,
Ogai had spent several years in Germany, combining his major
occupation with an extensive study of European literature
and thought. He was deeply infatuated with the writings of
Eduard von Hartmann (1842–1906), one of the most popular
philosophers of the time, who in many ways summarized
the development of the extreme idealistic branch of German
philosophy in the nineteenth century.
After returning to Japan, Ogai started promoting Hartmann’s
ideas, and his campaign proved to be a great success. Young
writers and poets were mesmerized by the new concepts of the
inner life and the World Soul (Weltgeist) and enchanted by the
tragic pathos of the new teaching.
Hartmann’s doctrine, presented in his books The Philosophy
of the Unconscious and The Phenomenology of Moral Conscience, is
characterized by a fairly pessimistic worldview, which seemed
very appropriate to the first Japanese Romanticists raised
on a diet of Byron. Hartmann elaborated a specific ethics of
2. THE AESTHETIC THEORY OF JAPANESE ROMANTICISM 43
pessimism in which any hope of human beings for happiness
was treated as an illusion. He called this gloomy, pessimistic
conception of the human condition “teleological optimism” since
there was a way of negating suffering and delivering humankind
from the world of blind destiny, which lay in the annihilation of
the phenomenal world through a collective effort of will. One
cannot help seeing here some parallels with the basic concepts
of Buddhism, which probably was another attractive feature
for the Japanese literati. In Hartmann’s doctrine, commonly
referred to as “the philosophy of the unconscious” the ideal
substances of the material world are revealed in the categories
of the Unconscious and the Absolute Will, both of which can be
regarded as derivatives of Schopenhauer’s philosophy.
Creative activity, according to Hartmann, is the result of
an unconscious process that transforms Plato’s idea of Beauty
into concrete images. Ogai interpreted the major thesis of his
spiritual guru in the following formula: “Beauty in literature is
created artificially; the phenomena of reality are quite different
from beauty” [458, 234]. Therefore, from Ogai’s perspective, it
can only be the unconscious that drives the creative intentions
of an individual and gives him the idea of beauty. Hartmann’s
teaching was eagerly accepted by the emerging school of
Japanese Romanticism, which badly needed a philosophical
foundation. Additional concepts of this kind were found by Ogai
in works on literature by some other modern German critics and
scholars. Among his other favorites was Poetics: the Art of Poetry
and its Technique by Rudolf von Gottschall (see [91, 106]).
In the pages of Shigarami zoshi Ogai published a series of
articles criticizing the roman expérimental of Emile Zola and
other kinds of naturalism, and advocated instead the idealistic
theory of Hartmann. In 1891 he pointed his sharp criticism
against Shoyo’s article “Three Categories of the Novel”
(Shosetsu sanpa), rejecting the principle of classifying a work
of literature according to its formal characteristics, that is,
without first undertaking a complex in-depth analysis. Ogai
opposed to Shoyo’s approach the need for universal criteria
44 Part 1. THE ROMANTICIST IDEALS
in the evaluation of any literary product, suggesting as such
a criterion Hartmann’s abstract category of the “microcosm”
which evolves from the domain of the unconscious in the
form of concrete images (see [458, 237]). This choice was quite
predictable, since, in the words of the critic Nakamura Mitsuo,
“in a period when the whole of society is developing on the basis
of pragmatism, for people who do not accept this pragmatic
way of thinking there is no other way but to escape into the
inner world and introspection” [124, v. 14, 23]. Ironically, for
Mori Ogai and many of his followers, the infatuation with this
borrowed pessimistic philosophy of life resulted not in gloomy
mysticism but in intense enlightening activities, passionate
creativity, and an optimistic positivist worldview.
Ogai’s critical works denouncing primitive realism and
propagating idealistic spirituality laid a foundation for the
aesthetic theory of Japanese Romanticism, which became a
starting point for the new poetics of the twentieth century.
By the beginning of the 1890s, Romanticism, unanimously
supported by the poets of the Movement for Poetry in the
New Style (Shintaishi undo), was gaining popularity. However,
nationalist trends in social life, such as the spread of militant
ideology and the propaganda of state Shinto and the “Imperial
Way” had already put an end to the great expectations of
liberty and democracy. The scholar Yoshida Seiichi defines
their solution in these words:
As in real life the Romanticists were doomed to defeat, so
they tried to embellish reality; driven by subjectivism, they
would escape to the realm of dreams in hopes of living
an “art-bound” [geijutsuka sareta] life, creating deep in
their souls some illusive world that would meet their own
aspirations [214, 77].
In order for this inward turn to become a movement, however,
those of like mind would have to organize. It was thus left to
one of the small number of existing groups of literati to take the
lead in the formation of Romanticism as a school.
2. THE AESTHETIC THEORY OF JAPANESE ROMANTICISM 45
THE BUNGAKUKAI JOURNAL—
THE STRONGHOLD OF
ROMANTICISM
The school of Japanese Romanticism emerged from the milieu
of talented young writers, poets, and critics gathered around
the Bungakukai (“World of Literature”) journal. Another journal,
Jogaku zasshi (“The Magazine of Education for Women”), issued
by the Christian college Meiji Jogakko (Meiji Women’s School)
and aimed at promoting Western literature, can be regarded as
the forerunner of Bungakukai. In the year 1892, Jogaku zasshi split
into two independent periodicals: one became the magazine
of the feminist movement, and the other—changing its name
to Bungakukai—beginning in January 1893 became the major
literary journal of Japanese Romanticism.
Among the pioneers of Romanticism are such names as
Kitamura Tokoku, Hoshino Tenchi, Hoshino Yukei, Shimazaki
Toson, Baba Kocho, Hirata Tokuboku, Togawa Shukotsu, Ueda
Ryuson, Tayama Katai, and Miyake Kako. Later the ingenious
Higuchi Ichiyo and the “god-father of Japanese Symbolism”,
Ueda Bin, joined the club. During the five years of its activity 58
issues of Bungakukai were published. It was the poetry, prose,
and literary criticism contained in those issues that shaped the
image of Japanese Romanticism and also left its mark on the
subsequent Symbolist movement in poetry.
The profile of Bungakukai as a Romanticist journal was
determined by the aspirations and preferences shared by the
participants of the circle. “Writers of this kind can be likened to
the English Pre-Raphaelites”, asserts Kuni Matsuo. “Being all so
young and pure, they brought the passion of Romanticism into
their lives and their works” [290, 118]. However, it took them
some time to identify themselves as a coherent literary group
in quest of Romanticist ideals. Arguments on the program
of the school lasted for several months before the following
crucial principles were put forward by Kitamura Tokoku and
his friends: humanism (jinseishugi), inner realism (naimenteki
46 Part 1. THE ROMANTICIST IDEALS
rearizumu), artistic eloquence or aestheticism (geijutsushijoshugi),
and anti-vulgarism (hanzoku).
As for the principle of anti-vulgarism, this had been first
proclaimed several years earlier by Mori Ogai and implied
protest against those who “ignore scholarship, do not follow
the way of truth, and pursue only their own personal interests”
[100, 76]. This was the same meaning implied in the use of
the term by the members of Bungakukai. In fact, all the above
mentioned principles were meant to protect evolving Japanese
literature from dehumanization, primitivism, and utilitarianism.
Still, the elaboration of this common ground did not mean at all
the end of discussions. Novel aesthetic theory was born from
fierce polemics between the major factions of Romanticists,
each of which would suggest their own understanding of their
mission. It is only natural that the members of the Bungakukai
group, who dedicated their lives to the destruction of supposedly
outdated and backward traditions, were reluctant to elaborate
a new imposing canon of their own. They were discovering new
horizons, rejecting or revising the old, and creating a new lite-
rature in their constant pursuit of an unattainable ideal. As Shi-
mazaki Toson testified in Awaiting Spring (Haru o machitsutsu):
I knew only one thing on my hard way—a fierce protest.
I grew up in a gloomy time, when one could not yet see even
a ray of the dawning of a new way . . . Everywhere around
a menacing voice could be heard trying to guide us back to
the straight and narrow path, but that call did not arouse
any response in my heart. With my friends I would switch
from one revolt to another. I presume that these revolts
experienced in youth could not but have influenced greatly
the course of the rest of my life (quote by [46, 83]).
EAST MEETS WEST
Japanese Romanticism, which reached its climax on the wave of
total modernization, from the very beginning had to define its
attitude towards Western culture at large as well as its view on
2. THE AESTHETIC THEORY OF JAPANESE ROMANTICISM 47
the degree of European influence required in the reformation of
the national literature. The most comprehensive analyses of this
issue we find in an essay by Kitamura Tokoku entitled “Nation
and Ideas” (Kokumin to shiso):
The the world of ideas is getting smaller every day. A great
current is streaming from the East to the West and from
the West to the East. Any plan of directing this natural
current artificially would prove nothing but a vane dream.
Different parts of the world in fact just represent various
sides of the universal world of ideas. You cannot put a lock
on an idea. All the best achievements of human thought are
interconnected. It would be foolish to stick exclusively to
the ideas of the East or to become too infatuated with the
ideas of the West. Our creative forces have not yet drawn
their bow strings and shot their arrows. Meanwhile, the
forces of the past and the forces from overseas are fighting
with each other, and we can hear the neighing of their battle
stallions . . .. The nation does not know whom to support. So
follow the stream! What has to go forward should boldly
move forward; what has to retreat should retreat without
regret. Do you not see the truth—that creative force is born
from both currents?! [89, v. 3, 269]
Here, shrouded under the pathetic style typical of all Tokoku’s
writings, we find an amazingly clear vision of the interaction
between the countries of the East and the West and the
necessity of cultural synthesis. No doubt the sympathies of the
author lie not with the forces of the past but mostly with the
forces from overseas that embody democracy and progress.
It should not be forgotten that Tokoku, with his pacifism,
humanism, and cosmopolitan worldview, would always regard
militant nationalism (kokkashugi) as his worst enemy, while in
Western ethics and aesthetics he would find the basis for his
own philosophy as well as weapons for his struggle against
obscurantism. The literary scholar Ishimaru Hisashi points out
that the above quotation from “Nation and Ideas” is actually
only a version of the ideas first put forward by the members of
48 Part 1. THE ROMANTICIST IDEALS
the German “Sturm und Drang” movement (see [50, 44]). This
is true to a certain extent, but it is important to remember that
the “Sturm und Drang” of the late eighteenth century preceded
Romanticism, and that the influence received by Tokoku was
not limited to Schiller and Goethe. Like many of his friends
and followers, he was influenced by Western Romanticism at
large, which is quite evident from his many essays, articles, and
manifestos.
The concept of the “integration of ideas” articulated by
Tokoku was opposed in its cosmopolitan nature to the official
imperial kokkashugi doctrine. Romanticists were convinced of
the necessity to develop cultural communication with Europe
in the form of fruitful borrowing. As a prominent Japanese
scholar claims in his book History of Japanese Culture, “in Japan
a new culture was emerging, one provided with all the trends
of the culture of the new age. However, it was no more but
a foundation, a trunk for further evolution. The formation of
culture that can be called truly modern took place only after
young shoots of Western culture sprouted on this trunk” [416,
194]. That is probably the most relevant description of the roles
of Eastern and Western cultures in the period of transition
marked by the rise of Romanticism.
This correlation between Japanese culture and that of the
West suggests that Romanticism should perhaps be regarded
as a global trend that emerges at a certain stage of economic,
social and, cultural development. Japan reached that stage
in a period of “national Renaissance”, if we can employ here
the term that has been used to characterize Romanticism in
the countries of Central and South-Eastern Europe [451, 19].2
In Western Europe, Romanticism emerged earlier, at the very
beginning of the nineteenth century. This was also the period
2 Japanese scholars have also suggested other terms, such as “Roman-
ticist Renaissance,” “spiritual Renaissance,” “spiritual revolution” or “a revo-
lution of national identity” [289, v. 9, 188].
2. THE AESTHETIC THEORY OF JAPANESE ROMANTICISM 49
that saw the first signs of serious scholarly and poetic interest
in the Orient. For example, Friedrich Schlegel, one of the
leaders of German Romanticism, studied Oriental languages
and published a treatise On the Language and Wisdom of the
Indians. He also gained popularity for his brilliant translations
of Indian, Persian, and Arabian poetry. As we also know, the
famous West-Eastern Divan collection of poems by Goethe was
written under the direct influence of Hafiz.
The poem “Lalla Rookh” by Thomas Moore is also set
against an Oriental background, as are many poems by Byron
and a part of his Don Juan. Due to the influx of translations from
Oriental languages, many European Romanticists, including
Ludwig Tieck and Wilhelm Hauff, turned to plots from Oriental
folklore.
The French Romanticists paid tribute to the Orient in the
poetic collection Les Orientales by Victor Hugo, in Voyage en
Orient by Gérard de Nerval, and in poems by Alfred de Musset.
There are also many poems on the Orient by the Russian bards
A. Pushkin and M. Lermontov, and by other European poets
of the early nineteenth century who were attracted both by the
exoticism of Oriental cultures and by the splendor of the newly
discovered literary traditions.
Here a peculiar characteristic feature of the early European
Orientalism should be mentioned. None of the Western Ro-
manticists in the nineteeth century ever turned to Far Eastern
cultures, giving preference instead to the colorful images of
Persian or Arabian culture. At that time Japan, still an isolated
“closed country”, remained for the Europeans and Americans
an enigmatic alien kingdom, a true terra incognita. In the late
nineteenth and early twentieth century, i. e. in the heyday of
Japanese Romanticism, the situation in European literature
and arts changed dramatically in favor of Japan. But the trend
toward the accumulation of the heritage of world civilizations,
which later resulted in a certain “aesthetic relativism”, was
deeply rooted in European Romanticism from the first steps of
its evolution.
50 Part 1. THE ROMANTICIST IDEALS
No wonder, then, that Japanese Romanticists as well as
the Symbolists embraced the intercommunication of cultures
with their Western counterparts. Whereas Europeans regarded
the Eastern cultures as a source of ancient wisdom and exotic
imagery, the Japanese intellectuals tended to regard Western
civilization as the source both of an exotic, magnificent culture
and of unprecedented technological achievements. The latter
factor helped to double the effect of the radical reforms in
Japanese cultural life since the Meiji period.
In the meantime, from the second half of the nineteeth
century through the first two decades of the twentieth century
Japanese art and later also poetry gained enormous popularity in
the West. Well known is the infatuation of French Impressionists
and Post-Impressionists with the ukiyo-e woodblock prints,
which fed the pan-European vogue of Japanisme and had
an important influence on the development of the Art Nouveau
style. At the time when Tokoku was writing about “the great
current” streaming from the West to the East (and backwards)
Europe was discovering traditional Japanese poetry. The French
were charmed with haiku, which combined an extreme laconism
of form based on suggestion with a humanist philosophy—
elements that new European poetry was lacking. In England,
haiku drew the attention of the Imagists, and Ezra Pound
brought the tradition of haiku from France to America.3 In
Russia, poets and translators prefered tanka, which provided
some of the inspiration for the splendid poetry of the Russian
Silver Age. The impact of tanka poetics can be traced in the
collections of V. Bryusov, K. Balmont, V. Khlebnikov, and
other Russian poets whose works coincide in time with the rise
of Japanese Romanticism and Symbolism. The concept of the
“integration of ideas” coined by the bards of Romanticism and
Symbolism survived through the twentieth century and has
served as a basis for the globalization of culture in our age.
3 As a matter of fact, Ezra Pound developed an interest in Japanese
literature when he was young and lived in Paris.
2. THE AESTHETIC THEORY OF JAPANESE ROMANTICISM 51
If in the first two decades of the Meiji period “Westerni-
zation” was rather superficial and eclectic, in the 1890s the
studies of Western culture and, in particular, of literature,
were put on a firm academic footing. To understand the scope
of these activities we can turn to the list of scholarly studies
published in Japan from 1889 through 1900. On the list we
find “Dobrolyubov” by Hasegawa Futabatei, “Wordsworth”
by Tomizaki Koshoshi, “Goethe” by Takaki Isaku, “Emerson”
by Kitamura Tokoku, “Hugo” by Hitomi Itaro, “Byron” by
Komeyama Makoto, “Shelley” by Hamada Yoshizumi, “Carlyle”
by Hirada Hisashi, “Swift” by Fujino Kashujin, “Tolstoy” by
Tokutomi Roka, “Johnson” by Nakada Roan, etc. (see [43, v. 8,
10–44]). We deliberately do not include in this list many of the
particular works by Japanese Romanticists on Western classics
that will be discussed below.
TRANSLATION AND ABSORBTION
Numerous translations of European poetry from the Biblical
psalms to the great masterpieces of the nineteenth century
played a dramatic role in the establishment of Romanticism and
Symbolism in Japan. Fluent command of English and some-
times also French or German was a great advantage for the
young literati. Many of them graduated either from the Meiji
College for Women or from Meiji Gakuin University, which was
also a Christian school, with nine out of its eleven professors
English native speakers. This was probably the source of the
Anglophilia which was widespread among the Romanticists,
most of whom worshipped the English Romanticists or Pre-
Raphaelites.
At that time it was not easy to buy English books in the
country, but those that were available were well read. It is said
that a collection of poems by D. G. Rossetti owned by Toson
was for several months passed around from one member of
the Bungakukai group to another so that they could all read it
52 Part 1. THE ROMANTICIST IDEALS
(see [327, 185]). Overcoming difficulties in this way, the Roman-
ticists continued studying Western culture and mastering its
aesthetics.
For them art was the way of intellectual and spiritual per-
fection, and the quest for truth implied a simple, unpretentious
way of life. The spiritual elevation that impelled them to
sacrifice their lives to enlighten the dark corners of society made
them the conscience of society.
In the very beginning of their collective work the members
of Bungakukai were introduced to such books as History of
English Literature by the French scholar Hyppolyte Taine and
English Men of Letters by John Morley. These works helped
them to find beacons in the sea of Western literature, and
soon their preferences were established. Byron, Shelley, Keats,
Wordsworth, D.G. Rossetti, and Swinburne became the favorite
poets of the group [50, 47].
Certainly, however, the interests of the Romanticists were
not limited to these few authors. To show the rich palette of
spiritual attractions of the time we can list the titles of some
articles and essays published in the pages of Bungakukai:
“Beatrice” (Beatoriche), “The Later Years of Dante” (Dante no
bannen), “The Eloquent Songs of Gray” (Gurei no fuga no uta)
and “Early Italian Lyrical Poetry” (Itaria shodai no jojoshi) by
Hirata Tokuboku; “A Sketch of South-European Poetry” (Nan
yo shikei), “Ovid’s World of Nature” (Ovido no shizenkai), “The
Poetic Taste of Israeli Literature” (Isuraeru bungaku no shishu),
“Thoughts on the Renaissance” (Renesansu no omoi), “The Love
Poetry of Provence” (Purovansu no renga), “The Literature of
the Italian Renaissance” (Itaria no renesansu bungaku)4 by
Togawa Shukotsu, and “The Poetry of Rossetti” (Rossetti no shi),
“Dante Alighieri” (Dante Arigueri), and “The Poetry of Sappho”
4 This article by Shukotsu was published in Urawakagusa (“Young
Grasses”), which had split off from Bungakukai in 1896.
2. THE AESTHETIC THEORY OF JAPANESE ROMANTICISM 53
(Safo no shi) by Ueda Bin. After adding to this list “Emerson”,
“Manfred”, and “Faust” by Tokoku, we have an impressive, yet
not exhaustive, panorama of the literary research efforts of the
Romanticists in the field of Western poetry.
The abundance of works devoted to Dante, and to the lite-
rature of the Italian Renaissance as a whole, is worth special
mentioning. Here again we find evidence of the aesthetic rela-
tivism of the Romanticists and their attempt at the integration
of the ideas and best accomplishments of world civilizations.
Japanese writers who worked during this crucial period
of transition realized their specific role in shaping history.
Following the lead of their European predecessors, they
constantly aspired to track the connection between their own
art and the distinguished authors of the Renaissance, as well
as Homer, Ovid and other authors of classical antiquity. Not
without reason the Romanticists did not want to make special
preferences or focus exclusively on certain schools or trends.
They considered themselves cosmopolitans, citizens of the
world. For Tokoku, all supreme achievements of human
thought are interconnected. As scholars have noted, this belief
in the interconnectedness of human thought evoked a “deeply
personal, lyrically pathetic attitude toward the great artists of
the past, who were perceived as spiritual companions or alter
egos of the Romanticist writers” [388, 92]. Such “aesthetic
relativism” was in essence not at all different from the attitude
typical of the European Romanticists and their successors.
The interest of the young Japanese writers in Dante,
whose image and literary legacy were also influential among
European Romanticists, was not accidental. Schelling, Novalis,
Byron, Shelley, Keats, Slovatsky, Pushkin, and many other
outstanding writers of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries
also turned to Dante in their quest for an in-depth analysis of
human passions. In the history of European literature, such
a connection is natural enough and can even be seen as justified
by the demands of the Romantic age. The case is not that simple
in the case of the Japanese Romanticists, however.
54 Part 1. THE ROMANTICIST IDEALS
First of all, none of the Japanese Romanticists could read
Italian, at least not well enough to tackle the Divina Comedia. This
incapacity can be explained by the scarcity of cultural contacts
with Italy as well as by the absence of qualified teachers. Hirata
Tokuboku translated “The First Circle of Hell” part of the Divine
Comedy, but his translation was based on an English rendering
of the original [50, 40].
Furthermore, Japanese writers received their information
on Italy and the Italian Renaissance from dubious sources,
and, unlike their European colleagues, had no means and
opportunities to visit Italy and learn its culture and art firsthand.
Finally, works by the Renaissance poets, even in translation, were
not always comprehensible for Japanese intellectuals raised and
educated mostly on the masterpieces of Chinese and Japanese
literature. Therefore, the views of Japanese Romanticists on
European antiquity or Italian poetry of the Renaissance are
sometimes rather superficial. This is not surprising given that
their sources were scarce and often imperfect English versions
of the classic works. On the other hand, the best works by
Japanese intellectuals on English and American literature of the
modern era were written with considerable competence and
proficiency, showing both a profound knowledge of the subject
and literary skill on the part of the authors.
FACETS OF RELIGIOUS REFORMATION
It is quite natural that the Romanticists were eager to grasp
the whole complex of the philosophical and aesthetic heritage
of Western civilization. In addition to Western literature,
Christianity inevitably became part of their spiritual and ethical
foundation. For them, Christianity was a religion centered
on the inner world of the individual, giving an intensity and
vigor to spiritual life and defining one’s social duty and moral
conduct. It was also a religion that emphasized the “super-
conscious” elements of existence, thereby providing a solid
2. THE AESTHETIC THEORY OF JAPANESE ROMANTICISM 55
ground for the Romanticist worldview. However, while in
Europe Christianity was accepted by the Romanticists as
a universally acknowledged religion and generated a trend
of excessive mysticism, in Japan the concept of “Christianity”
referred predominantly to the spiritual revolution, to the
struggle for freedom against the vestiges of pre-modern morals,
which still survived in the form of Confucian restrictions and
out-of-date Shinto rites.
Christianity, which was “opposed by Buddhism and the
official ideology of the Neo-Confucian school of Zhu Xi” [433,
62], had been banned in Japan since the seventeenth century.
After the Meiji Restoration, when the newly emerged absolutism
was engaged in elaborating its ideological base, the traditional
religions were revitalized and re-evaluated. Shintoists aimed
at reviving the ancient beliefs and the position of the emperor,
and the doctrine of kokutai was widely promoted among the
common people. Meanwhile, Buddhism, which at first was
under pressure from Shinto and the government, soon restored
its position, drawing its strength from the faith that was deeply
rooted in the national mind.
“Only Confucianism failed to find the means for revival and
support”, writes Kiyohara Sadao. “Carried away by the waves
of the stream, Confucianism could not see the dawn of revival”
[91, 337]. However, this dawn was not far away: the Imperial
“Edict on Education” issued in 1891 was based on Confucian
principles incorporated into official Shinto doctrine. The
government was eager to use the traditional religions in order
to strengthen the new imperialist regime on the one hand, and
at the same time bring under control the growing influence of
progressive bourgeois ideology.
The attitude of the government toward Christianity during
the Meiji period was from the beginning mostly hostile,
although the official ban on Western religions was lifted. In the
1880s, the Confucian scholar Yasui Sokken sharply criticized
Christian dogma for violating piety, the cult of the ancestors,
and filial respect. By the beginning of the 1890s, during the
56 Part 1. THE ROMANTICIST IDEALS
period of preparation for the war against China, the government
launched a wide nationalist propaganda campaign directed
against Christianity.
The Romanticists defended Christianity for a number of
reasons. First, they saw in Confucianism the religious and
legal basis of the overthrown feudal regime, and in Shinto
a prop for the new militarist imperial power. Buddhism, with
its introspective analysis, its adherence to a philosophy of non-
action, and its attitude of tolerance, could not satisfy the spiritual
needs of youth during this tumultuous period. Secondly,
the Romanticists appreciated many aspects of Christianity,
including the concept of the inner world, the ethical pathos and
humanism of Christian dogma, its closeness to the problems of
mundane life, and, finally, the romantic image of Jesus Christ.
It is important to note the principles of internal independence
and personal responsibility that exist in Christianity and are
absent in traditional Buddhist and Shinto perceptions of the
world. According to Hegel, the original nature of Romanticism
is absolute internal life, and the form it takes is that of a spiritual
subjectivity comprehending its independence and freedom
(see [50, v. 2, 233]). For the first time in the history of Japanese
culture, Romanticism, buttressed by Christianity, placed the
individual mind in opposition to the collective mind and put
the burden of responsibility in the struggle between good and
evil on the individual5.
5 To clarify this idea, we can turn to the work by A. Y. Gurevitch “The
Categories of Medieval Culture” [411], which analyzes in particular the
correlation between the cyclic, pre-Christian, and eschatological Christian
perceptions of history. The author opposes the sacral understanding of history
in “pagan” society, i.e. as a repeated process independent of any individual
will and based on the cyclic nature of the seasons and the ancestors’ cult, to
the Christian understanding: “Earthly life and its whole history is an arena of
struggle between good and evil. But they are not impersonal cosmic forces,
they live inside man, and for the triumph of freedom in his soul and in history
a person’s free will is required. This inevitably dramatic Christian perception
of time and history comes from the fact of admitting the inner freedom of
choice in a person.” [411, 100–101].
2. THE AESTHETIC THEORY OF JAPANESE ROMANTICISM 57
Thirdly, the emotional zeal typical of Christianity corres-
ponded to romantic concepts, especially the division of existence
into spheres of the rational (material) and the irrational (ideal).
In Romanticism, faith is considered the highest manifestation
of spiritual force as well as the basis of any art or creative
activity. “If a person lives in hard times, if sorrows and need
follow him, is there anything left for him except religion?”
wrote Yosano Tekkan, the future head of the literary group
associated with the journal Myojo (“Morning Star”).
The will is the force which leads the heart to its chosen
goal. This goal is chosen by the intellect, but the aspiration
to choose it emerges from a deep feeling. Is it not religion
that is hidden behind this? Even if a person does not reach
happiness in heaven, the dragon from the domain of feelings
and faith will manifest itself in the inspiration of an artist
[150, 112].
Finally, one more reason the Romanticists defended Chris-
tianity—and this hardly needs to be mentioned—is the
fact that it was European culture that the young Japanese
intellectuals were eager to master, and that was essentially
Christian culture.
The Japanese Romanticists perceived Christianity as the
symbol of a spiritual revolution that entailed a reformation of
all social and cultural values. Within Christianity, they preferred
the Protestant creed to Catholicism, first, because they were
influenced directly by Anglican missionaries, and, secondly,
because they considered the principles of purity declared by
English Puritanism worthy of constituting a new humanist
moral code (see [229]). Fascinated by humanism and the
prospect of a new faith, Japanese Romanticists were not ready
to understand that the time of the Reformation had long since
passed. Protestantism in its modernized version could not be
as instrumental in their struggle for progress. This became
quite obvious later, and it is no wonder the majority of young
Japanese intellectuals began to turn away from Christianity at
58 Part 1. THE ROMANTICIST IDEALS
the beginning of the twentieth century, a period that coincides
chronologically with the decline of Romanticism. Nevertheless,
it remains a fact that during the period of “romantic revival” in
the 1890s, Christianity played a crucial role.
Although Christianity began to be promoted in Japan
by Western missionaries immediately following the Meiji
Restoration, the real surge of intellectual interest in Christianity
came only after August 1889, the date of publication of the
work Christianity and Youth, which summarized the experience
of a summer school for young Christians in Kyoto. The next
school of this kind was held in 1890 at Meiji Gakuin University,
and these events are described in the autobiographical novel
When Cherries Ripen (Sakura no mi no juku suru toki) by Shi-
mazaki Toson. The lectures by Onishi Hajime gained especial
popularity among the students attending the summer school.
Onishi developed the idea of subjective idealism, which repre-
sented a synthesis of Eastern and Western philosophy. How-
ever, his understanding of Western philosophy, according to
some scholars, was rather “superficial” [289, v. 9, 239]. Inoue
Tetsujiro, one of the authors of the renowned poetic collection
Shintaishisho, while staying in Germany during the 1880s came
to know the theories of Kuno Fisher, Edward Erdman, Eduard
von Hartmann, and other contemporary philosophers, which
he later tried to promote and apply to his analysis of the Neo-
Confucian system of values. Similarly, Inoue Enryo tried to
adapt the Buddhist teachings of the Kegon and Tendai sects
to Western philosophy. Miyake Setsurei, in his book Personal
Concepts (Gakan shokei, 1892), amalgamated the doctrines of
Taoism with the philosophy of Schopenhauer and Hartmann.
In fact, there were many attempts to create a blend of Eastern
and Western philosophy projected onto or through religion.
The writers and poets of Japanese Romanticism, however,
preferred Christianity in its pure form. “Young men and women
were especially fascinated with the spiritual freedom typical of
the Protestant church and with the missionary social activities
fostered by it” [31, 35]. Toson, in his novel Spring (Haru),
2. THE AESTHETIC THEORY OF JAPANESE ROMANTICISM 59
describes the enthusiasm with which his comrades would
sing psalms in times of joy and grief. Thus they sang a sad
song at the funeral of Tokoku [166, v. 5, 152]. Biblical psalms,
incidentally, influenced considerably the poetic works of Toson.
Sometimes, however, the infatuation with Christianity among
the Romanticists went to odd extremes. Kitamura Tokoku, for
example, not only converted to Protestantism but also joined
the Quakers, a sect which at that time counted no more than five
hundred members in Japan [71, 22]. Toson was undoubtedly
driven by the desire to find a pure form of Christianity suited
to his idealistic worldview. It goes without saying that the
Quakers were not able to meet his demands.
Christianity played a positive role in the Romanticists’
interpretation of war and of Japan’s military expansion on
the mainland. During the period of the great nationalist boom
that accompanied the Sino-Japanese war, the members of the
Bungakukai group continued to defend humanist ideas, which
they treated according to the principles of the Gospel, despite
the fact that in Europe the ideals of Christian humanism had by
this time already been buried. In the field of ideology, Japanese
Romanticists were taken to task by the “official” critic of the
Romanticist trend, Takayama Chogyu, who from the pages of
the journal Teikoku bungaku (“Imperial Literature”) called upon
writers to support with their works the policies of the Japanese
government. While Chogyu in his article “On the Ethical Ideal”
(Dotoku no riso o ronzu, 1895) put forth military slogans,
calling for the revival of samurai morals and criticizing severely
the hedonism and cosmopolitanism of the Bungakukai group,
a member of that group, Hirata Tokuboku, wrote:
In our time it would be absolutely stupid to take seriously
militarist novels. Although some of the writers describing
war may gain popularity for a while due to the mass
hysteria, in their writings there is nothing of lasting poetic
value. For writers to turn to war in their works would be
the equivalent of the masses abandoning everything for the
sake of war [289, v. 9, 266].
60 Part 1. THE ROMANTICIST IDEALS
It was the Romanticist Kitamura Tokoku who became the
initiator of the pacifist movement in Japan. In 1893, not long
before the beginning of the Sino-Japanese war, he established
the journal Heiwa (“Peace”). As Japanese scholars have
acknowledged, “In our country Tokoku was the first among
the writers who raised his voice in defense of peace; this step
deserves the highest appreciation” [419, 71]. However, we should
not ignore the fact that the pacifism of Tokoku is conceived in
terms of non-violence and non-resistance, and that the writer
was definitely influenced by the teachings of Leo Tolstoy. It
becomes evident upon reading his article “Count Tolstoy”
(Torustoi haku, 1892) how powerful the influence of Tolstoy’s
ideas were on the worldview of Tokoku. He treats non-violence
and non-resistance only in terms of Christian morals. Further
evidence of this can be found in other essays by Tokoku’s
published in various journals, including, in addition to Heiwa
and Bungakukai, the Christian journal Seisho no tomo zasshi (“The
Magazine of Friends of the Holy Scripture”). Examples include
the essays “Kingdom of the Sovereign-Peace” (Heiwa no Kimi
no sokoku, 1892) and “White Wings of Peace” (Heiwa no shiroki
ha, 1894). In later years, just before his tragic suicide, Tokoku
reveals a painful tendency to reinterpret the Bible. He published
one after another articles with such titles as “The Teachings of
Peace in the Scriptures” (Seisho heiwa no kyo, 1894) and “The
Teachings of the Holy Spirit” (Seirei no michbiki, 1893).6
THE LEGACY OF CENTURIES
If the infatuation of the Romanticists were restricted only to
Western religion, Western philosophy, and Western literature,
their creative activity, deprived of an indigenous foundation,
might soon have lost momentum. That did not happen,
however, and Romanticism enriched Japanese literature with
6 For Tokoku’s works on the issue of Christianity, see. [89, v. 3].
2. THE AESTHETIC THEORY OF JAPANESE ROMANTICISM 61
brilliant examples of poetry and prose that are decidedly not
epigonic productions. The success of the Romanticists’ best
works can be attributed to a natural synthesis of Japanese and
Western civilization, that is, to precisely what the champions of
the “spiritual revolution” had hoped to achieve.
“Received as heritage, we feel in our veins the blood of
ancient sages and in the depth of our soul the oriental sentiments
are burning”, wrote Kunikido Doppo in the preface to his first
poetic collection. He goes on: According to the records, we
were converted to Christianity, but in our tiny hearts we feel
the struggle of the feelings and thoughts inherited and acquired
in the process of education and which were transmitted to us
from both the East and the West. When you want to imagine
a rainbow, you can read the elevated poetry of Wordsworth;
when you hear the evening bell, you remember the sad lines of
Saigyo [53, 44].
In these words we see a sentiment typical of many writers of
Japanese Romanticism.
Mori Ogai once expressed his worry that “the acceptance of
European literature as it is, instead of giving new strength to
Japanese literature may on the contrary weaken it and lead to
the decline of national culture” [186, 104]. What Ogai feared,
however, never came to pass. Young writers soon turned to the
study of folklore and ancient and medieval classical literature,
and in a country like Japan with its own rich aesthetic tradition,
this was only natural. Shimazaki Toson, recalling the period of
Romanticism, wrote:
The young imagination rose from a long period of slumber
and turned to folklore. The old legends were revived.
Nature was seen with a new beauty, and new light was shed
on life and death. We became aware of the splendor of the
declining past [137, v. 1, 5].
The interest of writers in the past, as was proven by the
experience of European literature, was one of the characteristic
62 Part 1. THE ROMANTICIST IDEALS
features of Romanticism [388, 90]. Romanticist writers in the
West, having broken the bonds of classicism, rediscovered
for themselves the works of antiquity and of the Renaissance.
Likewise, Japanese writers inevitably came to the study of the
culture of the past in their quest for the Romantic ideal. Only
an indigenous aesthetic heritage, not one imported from abroad,
could become the true foundation of a new Japanese literature.
Christian humanism was just a shield which protected the
inner world of the Romanticists in their struggles. The world
concealed under this shield was rich with emotions and bold
aspirations.
The members of the Bungakukai group, both in their poetry
and prose and in the field of literary theory, borrowed much
from the Manyoshu, from the masterpieces of Heian literature,
from medieval tanka, from haiku by Basho, and from zuihitsu
(miscellanies) such as Essays in Idleness (Tsurezuregusa)7 Some
Japanese scholars think that for those associated with Bugakukai
the revival of ancient and medieval literature was attractive
only in terms of improving their own literary style. According
to Shioda Ryohei, the Romanticists were on the one hand
fighting against the pseudo-classicism of the Kenyusha group,
and on the other were interested in reviving the great poetic
potential of the Japanese lexicon [167, v. 10, part 4, 12]. In fact,
the interests of the Romanticists were not limited to questions
of poetic technique at all but were much broader. Evidence of
this can be found in the many essays penned by Romanticists
on renowned writers of the past, such as Kitamura Tokoku’s
“In Matsushima Reading Basho” (Matsushima ni oite Basho
o yomu), Iguchi Motoji’s “Saigyo the Monk” (Saigyo-hoshi)
and “The Abutsu Nun” (Abutsuni), Hoshino Tenchi’s “The
Pride of Sei Shionagon” (Sei Shionagon no hokori), and Hirata
7 The Manyoshu (8th C) was the first indigenous Japanese poetic antho-
logy; the Heian period (794–1192) was the period of flourishing aristocratic
culture centered on the imperial court in Kyoto (Heian); Essays in Idleness by
Yoshida Kenko (14th C).
2. THE AESTHETIC THEORY OF JAPANESE ROMANTICISM 63
Tokuboku’s “Yoshido Kenko”. In addition, there are numerous
references to the classics in Romanticist poetry and prose.
All the Romanticists of the late nineteenth century were
given a classical Confucian education which included the
study of the major masterpieces of Chinese and Japanese
classical literature and, consequently, of the Chinese and
ancient Japanese languages. Proficiency in these fields not only
extended the erudition of the young writers but also allowed
them to be more selective in their approach to the classics,
rejecting some works and accepting others. For example,
many of the Romanticist writers highly appreciated the poetry
of Saigyo, Basho, and Ikkyu, but would not acknowledge
the merits of the court lyrical poetry found in the twenty-
one imperial anthologies (chokusenshu), as it was bound by
numerous conventions.
The growth of individual consciousness in the period of
“spiritual revolution” defined the negative attitude of the
Romanticists to the problem of the poetic canon. Most scholars
believe that “the traditions before the Meiji Restoration in
general did not reflect the individual mind appropriate for
the new age” [37, 153]. Romanticists appreciated most those
authors whom they considered as forerunners and whose
works were marked by a conceptual boldness or distinct indi-
viduality. They singled out authors who did not accept the
conventional restrictions, like the Zen master Ikkyu (15th C),
or those who became founders of new schools (e. g. Basho).
This selective approach was also applied to classical Chinese
poets, especially to the poets of the Tang era: Li Po, Du Fu,
Bo Juyi, Wang Wei, and Meng Haoran8. Here again, as in the
case of the attitude of the Romanticists to the heritage of the
European Renaissance, we find the names of poets who lived
in periods of cultural revival and who dedicated their careers
8 The Tang Period (618–907) in China was an era of exceptional cultural
florescence.
64 Part 1. THE ROMANTICIST IDEALS
to the promotion of humanist ideas. However, according to
Yanagida Izumi, “the Western literature coming to Japan lost
its original image and was conceived mostly in the framework
of the Eastern, namely Japanese, worldview [197, 137].
Meanwhile Chinese classics were interpreted in direct
reference to the national tradition, being actually an indis-
pensable part of that tradition. Thus, the art of composing
kanshi (poems in Chinese) was from the Nara period included in
the program of education for the aristocracy. The practice was
later taken up by broader circles of intellectuals and survived
through the centuries. Even Romanticist writers like Shimazaki
Toson and Doi Bansui, among many others, turned to writing
kanshi from time to time, although none of them can be said
to have succeeded in creating real masterpieces in this foreign
language. Nevertheless, the benefits of studying Chinese
poetics and aesthetics and the effect this had on the best works
of shintaishi cannot be denied.
Thus, if we assume that the creative writings of the Roman-
ticists were fed by two sources—the culture of the East and
the culture of the West—we should include in the first domain
along with the works of Japanese writers also the heritage of
Chinese classical literature and philosophy. However, Roman-
ticists in Japan did not overestimate the role of this heritage.
They did not overtly oppose the classics to modernity or try to
establish the “cult of the past” as their Western counterparts,
the Sentimentalists and Romanticists, did in Europe. (One
should remember Macpherson with his Ossian in England and
Uhland with his “medieval” ballads in Germany.) For Japanese
Romanticists, and later for the Symbolists, it was important to
master equally the spiritual legacy of the European Renaissance,
the native literary heritage, and the Chinese classics. All three
components would contribute to the expansion of the horizons
of the new literature.
It is no wonder that Tokoku and his followers could not
abandon completely the traditional pantheist worldview inhe-
rent in the mind of every Japanese. While in the interpretation
2. THE AESTHETIC THEORY OF JAPANESE ROMANTICISM 65
of the issues of love and the relations between the sexes the
Romanticists adhered mostly to the Christian model, their
views on nature reveal the prevalence of the traditional app-
roach. Thus, by analyzing these two crucial aspects of the
aesthetic theory of Japanese Romanticism, we should be able
to achieve a more coherent picture of the Romanticist concept
of the individual.
AN APOLOGY OF LOVE
The discourse on the topic of love and relations between men
and women in Meiji Japan was probably even more vital for
the formation of the new mentality than the same theme had
been in the literature of European Romanticism, since it was
the issue of love, as one of the main problems of aesthetics,
that met the strongest resistance in a society not yet freed from
feudal attitudes. Having chosen love as an object of discussion,
and then trying to investigate its nature and define its role in
the life of the individual, the Romanticists thereby challenged
Confucian morals and the conventions of the past that still
dominated Meiji Japan.
To be sure, love as a topic of literature was never under
a ban. One might recollect the love poems from the Manyoshu,
the Kokinshu, and the numerous other anthologies, or the Ise
Monogatari, as well as the plays of Chikamatsu and many other
masterpieces of the Japanese classics. Still, a real romantic cult
of love was basically impossible in pre-modern Japan, where
Confucian values always prevailed over individual passions
and emotions.
Romanticists first of all rejected the Confucian formula of
female virtue: obedience to the father, obedience to the husband,
and obedience to the eldest son. From beings of a subordinate
nature—either as humble housewives or as objects of momen-
tary pleasure—women were turned into vessels of supreme
spirituality, at once objects of worship and sources of poetic
66 Part 1. THE ROMANTICIST IDEALS
inspiration. In other words, for the first time the cult of the Fair
Lady, la Belle Dame, to a large extent borrowed from the West,
emerged in Japan.
Before the Meiji period, the topic of love in Japanese literature
(i. e. professional literature, not folklore) had developed in
two directions: one was the sophisticated and refined court
poetry derived from the Heian and Kamakura imperial poetic
anthologies; the other, of much later origin, was rooted in the
ukiyo culture of Edo, in the plebian urban literature fostered by
the writings of Chikamatsu, Saikaku, and their contemporaries,
literature which propagated the cult of enjoyment (nagusami),
including the pleasures of physical love. By the mid nineteenth
century this urban literature had developed into a plethora
of popular fiction genres such as yomihon, sharebon, kibyoshi,
etc. The Romanticists, and later the Symbolists, too, in their
interpretation of the issue of love would rise against these low
genres and against any attempt at downplaying the role of
idealized spiritual love.
Idealists such as Tokoku saw in love both a universal force
guiding the spiritual life of human beings and an archetype of
the differences and similarities existing between the individual
mind in the East and the West (giving preference to the latter).
Tokoku wrote about love often, not only in letters to his wife-
to-be, Ishizaka Minako, but also in a number of philosophical
essays, including “The Poet-Pessimist and Women” (Ensei shika
to josei), “On the Inner Life” (Naibu seimei ron), “Contemplation
of Another World” (Takai ni taisuru kannen), and “Ideals of
Common People in the Tokugawa Period” (Tokugawa jidai no
heiminteki riso).
A Romanticist to the core, Tokoku perceived love as a certain
ideal existing in the material world but in no way belonging
to it, since it was a manifestation of supreme spiritual forces.
Can a man, whether young or mature, whose sincere
convictions in this transient world lead him to pessimism,
and who is unable to overcome that pessimism either by
2. THE AESTHETIC THEORY OF JAPANESE ROMANTICISM 67
faith or by life experience, find something that is not just
a transient illusion? Yes, there is such a soothing element,
one which appears truthful, permanent, and immortal: it is
love [88, v. 9, 142].
Denying the concept of love in feudal Japanese society, where
marriage was a kind of transaction sanctified by Shinto rites
and Confucian prescripts, Tokoku acknowledged the bonds
binding a man and a woman only in terms of a refined spiritual
dialogue. According to Tokoku, pure love towards a single
chosen object embodies the purity of thought absolutely vital
for moral perfection.
From his standpoint as the champion of Platonic love,
Tokoku criticized the fiction writing of the Tokugawa era9,
which promoted at once hedonistic views and pragmatic
values. He was particularly critical of the aesthetic principle
known as iki or sui (literally “elegance” or “stylishness”) which
became the foundation of the ukiyo (transient world) culture
of the Edo period and which defined the approach of the
bourgeois commoners to love and the major problems of life in
general. According to the definition of Hisamatsu Senichi, the
ground for the development of the iki principle was created
by the drive for money and sexual pleasures in the “licensed
quarters”. Eroticism or lust (koshoku), in other words, helped to
feed the drive for iki, and townspeople who considered iki their
life philosophy were eager first of all to become rich and enjoy
life in this impermanent world. Traditional aesthetic categories
such as sabi (the sad charm of existence) and wabi (simpleness,
rusticity) were more likely to be appreciated in the life of the
poor, while iki applied mostly to the way of life of wealthier
citizens (see [128, v. 6, 102]).
Whereas in “Contemplation of Another World” [88, v. 9,
186–190] Tokoku simply argues that in Japan love too often
concedes to lust and therefore cannot become for a writer the
9 The Tokugawa period (also called the Edo period), 1603–1867.
68 Part 1. THE ROMANTICIST IDEALS
basis of romantic conflict, in his other works he criticizes the
principle of iki for frivolity. “I was wrong when I suggested
that there should be a connection between iki and love”,
writes Tokoku in his article “The Dispute on Iki” (Iki o ronjite).
“Among the great writers of all times it is not easy to find one
who would compare love to a cloudless day. If love is really
unselfish, then suffering and grief await it. However, there
will be also happiness, hopes, and dreams . . .” [88, v. 9, 152].
Developing this argument, Tokoku criticizes one more category
of pre-modern aesthetics: kyo (literally “chivalry”), i. e. the
samurai virtue which has priority over all other sentiments or
concerns. For a man who lives by the code of kyo, there is no
place to run in this world, and there is accordingly no room for
a sentiment such as love.
Continuing the tradition from the times of Saikaku, and
expanding, as a creek flows during a spring flood into the river
that runs through the mountains and valleys of more recent
times, many writers aspired from the bottom of their hearts
to reflect in their works such creative concepts as iki and kyo.
Perhaps people love iki, just as they are fond of kyo, but certainly
the writers of the past are not free of blame for the fact that the
category of iki has become a worm in the body of the nation and
that kyo corrodes its flesh [88, v. 9, 152].
Тokoku’s treatment of Japan’s national literature is certainly
not without bias, and he quite naturally lays the blame for
its tastes and moral standards on that particular historical
period during which the concept of iki flourished, i. e. from
the Genroku era10 (1688–1704) through to the end of the Edo
period. He also has a clear understanding that in the European
literature of the Renaissance there were similar trends (see
10 The Genroku era (1688–1703) gave to the world such literary
masterpieces as the joruri puppet plays of Chikamatsu Monzaemon, the
stories of commoners and samurai by Ihara Saikaku, and the haiku poetry of
Matsuo Basho.
2. THE AESTHETIC THEORY OF JAPANESE ROMANTICISM 69
[90, v. 1, 255]). However, in idealizing Western “chivalry” in
an attempt to make a connection between the common people
and the aristocracy in the glorification of love, he refers to
such doubtful historical sources as Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales.
In general, we can say that in dealing with various ethical
problems such as love, the emancipation of the individual, and
the writer’s mission in society, it was Western ideology and
Western literature that became for the majority of Japanese
Romanticists a model. However, this admiration was often
non-critical and sometimes drove them to dubious conclusions.
In his essay “An Overview of Meiji Literature” (Meiji bungaku
kanken), Tokoku criticizes the aesthetic ideals of Edo urban
literature, contrasting it with the spiritual freedom typical of the
culture of the new age, which gives inspiration to the human
soul, especially where the ideal of perfect love is concerned. It
is this notion of elevated love that Tokoku considered to be the
touchstone of his basic principle: the denial of any compromise
in life. Thus, in Tokoku’s perspective, the only thing worthy of
the highest praise in all of Edo literature would be the double
suicide of lovers (shinju). According to Tokoku, if there were no
shinju, there could be no vows of faithfulness in the next world.
A passionate and sensitive person, he saw in such a death the
climax of love, the triumph of moral strength, and a noble-
minded spirituality, which could partially redeem the lack of
pathos in the image of the lovers.
Although Japanese Romanticism often tends toward
pathetic sentimentalism, in general it is much less pessimistic
than the more “passive” Western Romanticism, for which fatal
love and death were leading topics. For the Japanese poets,
the themes of awakening nature and the arousal of human
emotions are more typical than the themes of decline and
demise. Nonetheless, in his attempt to put a halo of martyrdom
on the concept of love, Tokoku sees the only real outcome of
true love in death. As he writes in the essay “On Katsuragawa:
Elegy in Connection with Spiritual Death” (Katsuragawa o hyo
shite seishi ni oyobu):
70 Part 1. THE ROMANTICIST IDEALS
All true intentions of a person are tested by love. Of course,
one can find some value in preserving peace of mind, but
how delightful this burning of the heart is. This burning
inflicts sincerity, and sincerity pushes a person to death. In
fact, death is dreadful, but there is a genuine sincerity in it.
And that is the magic of love [88, v. 9, 234].
Here we can see clearly Tokoku’s penchant for extremes,
which was no doubt one of the factors behind his own suicide..
In his attitude to love one sees also the misanthropy so typical
of many European Romanticists and hardly ever justified by
real life.
The young writers in Tokoku’s milieu as well as his later
followers inherited many ideas of their spiritual mentor,
but none of them would go to such an extreme as praising
suicide. The significance of Tokoku’s deliberations on love
lies in the fact that he helped his contemporaries overcome the
traditional conflict of feudal morals (“duty [giri] versus human
sentiments [ninjo]”), turning human sentiment into the duty of
an emancipated, independently thinking individual.
Meanwhile, the rationalistic ideas taken over by the
Japanese Romanticists from the European Enlightenment gave
to Togawa Shukotsu, Hoshino Tenchi, and other writers the
opportunity to approach the issue of love more objectively
and to avoid extreme solutions. These writers pointed out the
necessity of the emancipation of women, their liberation from
the chains of Confucian prescripts. In this they managed to
prove the similarity of sentiments in the East and the West.
Unlike the rhapsodic, idealistic Tokoku, they claimed that the
spiritual affinity of people in love must be in harmony with
a physical affinity. Love for them becomes not just a source of
purification by suffering but a source of joy, happiness, and
inspiration. This, however, did not necessarily mean the denial
of romantic suffering (nayami), of which shintaishi poetry is full.
The most distinct new understanding of love is revealed in
the lyrical poetry of Shimazaki Toson, especially in his poems
prompted by the plays of Chikamatsu. Toson and his friends
2. THE AESTHETIC THEORY OF JAPANESE ROMANTICISM 71
no longer denied the values of Edo literature, which in fact was
especially appealing to them. The concept of pleasure would
not evoke in them any resentment.
After Tokoku’s death in 1894, when the pathos of protest
in Romanticist literature began to wane, the splashes of
romantic passion also faded. The perfect love proclaimed
by Tokoku became in the works of late Romanticists clad in
idyllic attire. The development of this trend also heralds the
decline of Japanese Romanticism itself, which lacked the
potency to support the initiatives of the best poets and writers
of the time. Romanticism soon had to step aside, leaving the
arena to other literary schools and trends, which themselves
integrated some of the concepts of Romanticism. Still, many
of the masterpieces of poetry and prose in the twentieth cen-
tury are greatly indebted to the extensive discourse on the
issue of love initiated by the Romanticists and to their fine
lyrical love poetry.
For Tokoku and his followers, love is a universal creative
force which guides man in all his activities. Partially under
the influence of such European poets as Wordsworth, the
Japanese Romanticists projected “love” as an abstract notion
also onto nature, establishing thereby the connection between
human and cosmic forces and opposing this harmony to the
disharmony of society. Here we find the influence of tra-
ditional Zen Buddhist aesthetics, which emphasizes the role
of a spiritual drive typical of both animate and inanimate
objects: “Eternity is in the state of love with the transient
world, and this relation between man and the world is Zen;
Enlightenment [satori] is the climax of love” [232, v. 5, 101].
In this attitude to the surrounding world and nature, which
combines an ancient tradition with the latest achievements of
the Western philosophy of idealism, the peculiarity of Japanese
Romanticism is distinctly revealed.
72 Part 1. THE ROMANTICIST IDEALS
NATURE AND HUMANKIND
In the works of the artists of the Romanticist school, both in the
West and the East, two topics were dominant: Love and Nature.
Whereas in their infatuation with Christianity the Japanese
Romanticists seeking perfect love turned to Western culture and
attempted to cast off the vestiges of feudal morals, in their vision
of nature there were strong reasons for adhering to the Eastern
tradition. The traditional approach to nature in Japan, shaped
predominantly by Zen aesthetics and by the pantheistic Shinto
religion, was in fact quite close to the worldview of Western
Romanticists and has certain similarities with the doctrines put
forth by Schelling, Schopenhauer, and Hartmann.
For Europe and America,
in the process of formation of the Romanticist vision of
nature the shift in the human mind would play the major
role from the late eighteenth through the early nineteenth
century, when a new understanding of nature as a live orga-
nism articulated in the philosophy of nature by Schelling
replaced the mechanic and rational understanding of nature
dating back to the times of Newton [415, 204].
As a result, the so called “organic” theory of nature emerged,
which was characterized by the anthropomorphization of
everything existing in the world and by the aspiration to
perceive the “soul” of all things and the universal “world soul”.
All the poets of European Romanticism were fascinated to some
extent by this organic theory of nature. There evolved specific
forms of pantheism projected on antiquity, such as in the works
of Keats and Hölderlin. The cult of the Renaissance created by
the Romanticists also tended to “imitate antiquity”.
If we try to apply these characteristic features of Western
Romanticism to the Japan of the 1890s, we will see that these
concepts were mostly taken over by the Japanese Romanticists
not from the West but from the depths of their native culture.
The truth to which the Europeans of the early nineteenth
2. THE AESTHETIC THEORY OF JAPANESE ROMANTICISM 73
century would come after a long and not always successful
struggle with the mechanical view of nature had always existed
in Japanese traditional aesthetics. This conception of nature
evoked a kind of resentment on the part of some Romanticists,
since it belonged to the legacy of the hated “feudal past”. Within
the Bungakukai group, differences in the interpretation of nature
led to a split between the “Westerners”, who preferred the
rationalist approach to nature, and the supporters of Japanese
ways11, who preferred a more irrational attitude and who had
faith in intuition.
The views of the “Westerners” are well presented in the
article “My Understanding of Nature” (Shizen shikan)12 by
Togawa Shukotsu:
I have heard the argument that in the East thought is
subordinate to nature, while in the West thought tries to
overcome and subordinate nature. I do not dare to present
my judgment concerning the East in general, but I think
that these words are quite true as far as Japan and China
are concerned. As a matter of fact, human beings occupy the
most important place in this world. Although it is not proper
to praise oneself, since the world is human, we can assume
that everything in it was created for humans, that divinity
also exists in humans, and that everything in the world is
focused on humans. That is why man, who subordinates the
nature around him, must rule it.
It is a pity that thought in Japan bears the imprint
of submission to nature. I grieve deeply that that this
thought did not achieve the idea of God [i. e. a Christian-
like God, the Creator of nature who gives inspiration to
the artist]. However, unlike some critics, I prefer Man to
God, and though I am not quite competent to evaluate the
11 We accept this appellation only conventionally, in contrast to the
term “western adherents,” which was wildly used during the period [477,
257–260].
12 Shukotsu’s articles have not been published in a separate edition;
therefore, except for those presented in the collections, they are quoted from
other Japanese sources.
74 Part 1. THE ROMANTICIST IDEALS
development of creative thought in Japan, on the whole one
feels that the interest towards Man is weak and not deep in
this country. If we go into a thorough study of the history of
Japanese literature, it becomes obvious that there are very
few writers who, like Saigyo, passed through the fire of
“spiritual sufferings”, and as a consequence nature in our
literature occupies a different place in comparison with the
literature of Western countries [167, v. 10, part 4, 120].
Thus, Shukotsu criticizes especially the attitude of medieval
poetry, which presumes a lack of individuality and aims at
a complete fusion with the object of the poem or painting.
Such an attitude implies the “annihilation of the individual
ego” (mushin) of the artist, who in the act of creation simply
follows the canon through sheer intuition. This is one of the
main principles of the Zen aesthetic that promotes the non-dual
image of the world and the impossibility of its division into
negative and positive or subject and object. Though Shukotsu
in his opposition to traditional aesthetics does not call for a bold
imitation of the Europeans, in his praise of what he sees as
a humanist Western rationalism one can sense a certain narrow-
mindedness and misunderstanding of the basic concepts of
European Romanticism.
Shukotsu’s arguments correspond neatly with following
passage from an interesting article entitled “The East in the
West”:
In the aesthetics of Romanticism, the establishment of the
outstanding personality as a motive force in arts and the
quest for a specific poetic environment which can grant
divine inspiration, is quite different from Zen aesthetic
principles, which deny the hierarchy of human acts and life
situations [486, 52].
If we assume such an incompatibility, then Japanese
Romanticism, in which the principles of European Romanticism
were combined with the traditions of medieval Zen poetry,
could be said to have had no basis for existence. However, since
2. THE AESTHETIC THEORY OF JAPANESE ROMANTICISM 75
Japanese Romanticism did in fact gain its place in the history
of Japanese literature, one can conclude that the Romanticists
somehow found a way to combine the indigenous tradition
with the system of aesthetics borrowed from abroad.
The emergence of Japanese Romanticism as the product
of a synthesis of classical Western idealism and certain philo-
sophical and aesthetic categories of Zen-Buddhism was not
an accidental phenomenon, especially if we view it in a broader
cultural and historical context. If we look to see who among the
European poets had the most influence on Japanese Roman-
ticists as far as the understanding of nature is concerned, the
answer is clear: Wordsworth, Shelley, and Keats. The reason for
this undoubtedly lies in the relative proximity of their poetry to
the traditional Japanese worldview.
Thanks to the human heart by which we live.
Thanks to its tenderness, its joys, and fears,
To me the meanest flower that blows can give
Thoughts that do often lie too deep for tears.
(W. Wordsworth “Ode to Immortality”)
Even before Wordsworth, the German Romanticists of
the Jena school (end of the 18th C) had declared the necessity
of a deep “feeling of nature” (Naturgefühl). This reverent per-
ception of nature as a living temple is typical of the works of
many representatives of European Romanticism, including, in
addition to Wordsworth, Shelley, and Keats, the French writers
Hugo, and Lamartine.
In European Romanticism, Christian deism often yielded
to a pagan pantheism related to the mystical idea of a “world
spirit” or “world soul” embodying a universal creative element.
This notion was crucial to Romanticism. The turn to nature in
search of lyrical inspiration becomes an indispensable element
of the lyrical poetry of European Romanticists [478, 121].
However, the most explicit examples of this approach can be
found in the works by the above-mentioned English poets. In
76 Part 1. THE ROMANTICIST IDEALS
Wordsworth’s best poetry we can clearly see this fusion with
the surrounding environment, and his vision of the world is
determined by the purifying force of nature.
According to Zen aesthetics, nature is inherently poetic,
and the task of an artist is to reveal the “concealed mystic
meaning” (yugen) and “sad charm” or “pathos” (mono no
aware) of the surrounding objects and phenomena. Speaking
of Wordsworth, we could say that he understood mono no
aware, and the Japanese Romanticists would treat his poetry
exactly in these terms. For Keats, a human being cannot be
separated from nature, and a poet cannot be separated from
the surrounding world. This approach leads to thoughts which
correspond remarkably with traditional Japanese aesthetics.
For example, Keats stated that a poet has no ego of his own.
He is all and nothing. He has no character. He enjoys light
and shade, he feels the ecstasy of both the bad and the good,
high and low, rich and poor, the trivial and the elevated (see
[413, v. 3, 793]).
In his “Endymion”, Keats turns to the Platonic ideal of the
beautiful as an eternal idea preceding all concrete phenomena.
He tries to find a new ideal of beauty that can save mankind
from hardship. His ideal is embodied in the phenomenon
of nature, in the Moon, and in Endymion’s beloved, and the
fusion with her brings him happiness. Keats uses the myth of
Endymion to bring out the sensation of a deep inner unity with
nature—it must be with him or he will die (see [381, 54]).
For comparison, we can see how these ideas of Keats’s are
reflected in Tokoku’s essay13 “A Few Words About Flowers”
13 Such essays by the Japanese Romanticists in style and in language come
close to the best examples of medieval zuihitsu, about which N. I. Konrad
wrote: “Their characteristic feature is a fusion of the elements of poetic
emotions and philosophical meditation in a single whole . . . Sometimes
the lyrical element recedes to the background, and reflection comes to the
forefront”. The best essays by the Romanticists are marked by a refined
narration, an irreproachable literary language, and an abundance of poetic
reminiscences.
2. THE AESTHETIC THEORY OF JAPANESE ROMANTICISM 77
(Tai ka shoroku), which was written against the “Westerners”
and in praise of the “organic” perception of nature of the early
medieval poets.
Now we have a certain philosophy, if that is what you may
call it, according to which the ways to true knowledge are open.
In ancient times there was no other way to the understanding
of the true essence of the universe except through the human
heart. That is why in giving in to the charm of flowers or in
getting close deep in one’s soul to the phenomena of the other
world, here, under the floating moon, listening to the wind or
looking at the rain, we are just perceiving the essence of the
universal existence of nature. Saigyo as a poet had a heart that
was alien to anything coarse.
In a flower there is the truth of a flower, in the moon there is
the truth of the moon, but the light of truth often casts a shadow
on itself. All truth and all the changes of the seasons can be
revealed in one poem:
I look up and see—
In the night sky
Between the flowers on the branches
As if between the clouds
The shaded disc of the Moon14
[89, v. 2, 192–193]
From the standpoint of a Japanese poet, “the light of the
truth casting a shadow on itself” is the tendency of European
aesthetics to explain the inexplicable, to comment on the
most natural things, and to conceive nature not only in one’s
heart but also in the mind. Even those European Romanticists
who openly acknowledged the priority of feeling, intuition,
and spontaneous inspiration, asserted, like Shelley, that the
14 Here and further the poems by the Japanese poets, unless indicated
otherwise, are presented in the author’s translation.
78 Part 1. THE ROMANTICIST IDEALS
conception of a work of art is like “a mirror which reflects” the
light of the imagination, while the realization of the work in
its material form is like “a cloud that enfeebles”, but both are
equally necessary parts of the creation [413, v. 3, 785].
A Japanese poet does not consider it inevitable to have to
obscure the feeling cast by nature. The “pathos” or “charm” of
things, from his point of view, is implied first of all in the things
proper, not in their artistic reflection. The traditional conception
of nature penetrated deep into the mind and flesh of the Japanese
Romanticists, forcing them to aspire to the comprehension of
the “soul of things” (monotama), the “soul of words” (kotodama),
the eternal element in the floating world (fueki ryuko), and the
splendor of the universe in small, everyday things.
The traditionalist wing headed by Kitamura Tokoku, unlike
the “Westerners”, defended the native view on nature and tried
to combine it with the culture of the new times. Great traditions
never die, and this is proved by the works of the most famous
modern writers in Japan who took over the major principles of
the indigenous aesthetic tradition. It is quite understandable
that among the European poets chosen by the Japanese Roman-
ticists as their beacons and models there were masters who,
like Wordsworth, tried to give the charm of novelty to the phe-
nomena of daily life, looking at them from a different angle,
emancipating the mind from the lethargy of rigid customs and
traditions, and paying attention to the insignificant details of
the surrounding world.
The great Romanticists of the West who treated nature in
a “European” way did not influence the Japanese poets of the
1890s to the same extent. For example, Byron, who claimed that
nature with its landscapes was not sufficient for an artist, who
has to recreate it completely in his work, was not as popular
among the Japanese Romanticists as Shelley or Keats. Byron
allocated more importance to intellect and fantasy then to
intuition and true devotion to nature. Japanese writers and
poets were especially attracted to English Romanticists like
Wordsworth, Keats, and, in part, Shelley, due primarily to
2. THE AESTHETIC THEORY OF JAPANESE ROMANTICISM 79
these poets’ efforts to eliminate the contradiction between man
and nature and to their incessant longing for diffusion in nature
[413, v. 3, 781].
The Japanese traditionalists who loved European poetry and
studied and translated Western literature, also emphasized the
value of the best native traditions and views on nature, calling
for the revival of Japanese culture on its own native ground.
As Shimazaki Toson wrote in his polemic article “The Excessive
Fragrance of the Flowers of the West” (Saika joka):
Since the Manyoshu, nature has presented to the poets of all
times beautiful flowers, which gave them an inexplicable
consolation. When the spring comes and the flowers bloom,
does the nature we see around us look so barren that we
have to plant alien flowers? Are the poets so indifferent to
the nature that makes us happy when we see the sunshine
in the daytime and the moonlight at night that they cannot
do without the light of alien stars? [41, v. 1, 77]
In this article Toson makes what at first sight might be consi-
dered a trivial point, that the poetry of every nation has to be
closely related to its own environment, has to be fed from the
sources of its native soil, and that the mission of this poetry is
to inspire in people love for their native land. Some reactio-
nary critics from the journal Teikoku bungaku, misinterpreting
Toson’s ideas, called him a narrow-minded xenophobe who
knows nothing about Western poetry and blindly defends
everything in the Japanese poetic heritage. But in fact Tokoku,
Toson, and their adherents were actually putting forward
the more appropriate and advanced concept of a synthesis
of Eastern and Western cultures, but on the basis of national
culture and employing indigenous creativity. Beginning with
their attitude to nature, they would spread their views also on
the understanding of the role of art in society and on the poet’s
mission on earth. They rightly assumed that the re-evaluation
of traditional standards is possible only when spiritual values
are also revised, edited, and improved.
80 Part 1. THE ROMANTICIST IDEALS
THE ARTIST AND SOCIETY
Tokoku and Toson did not look for criteria for the evaluation
of a work of art in the nationality of its author or in whether it
could be said to belong to the civilization of the East or the West.
This is how Toson illustrates his position in the essay “Reflecting
on Human Life While Riding a Horse” (Bajo jinsei o omou):
A Person who is really capable of objectively perceiving real
life is neither pessimistic nor optimistic. There is an infinite
spring in his heart, and a certain imperceptible taste for art
always keeps him on the brink between heaven and earth.
This brink can be called immeasurable, resistant, boundless,
optimal, perfect, elevated, divine [13, 120].
Who stands on this “divine brink”? The answer, of course, is all
great artists, irrespective of nationality, time or place.
Thus, if the moon and the flowers possess perfect beauty, if
Christ is a perfect creation of the deity, and even the running
waters reveal the image of perfection, then do not Saigyo,
Basho, Dante, and Shakespeare also represent an ideal of
beauty? [13, 120]
We can look for the sources of Toson’s relativist approach in
the West, where the Romanticists have always claimed that
they depict in their works the “man of all times” and “the
passions of the human soul, invariable throughout centuries”
[438, 147]. Following the lead of their European predecessors,
the Japanese Romanticists considered the main criteria of
a work of art its “sincerity” and the “talent” of the artist. Since,
according to their view, the universal “world soul” unites
artists of all times and nationalities and their works, the Ro-
manticist conception is implied in any “sincere” work15. The
15 The demand for the artist’s unconditional sincerity came into
Romanticist aesthetics mainly by way of the philosophy of Thomas Carlyle,
who was concerned with exposing the falseness of bourgeois democracy.
2. THE AESTHETIC THEORY OF JAPANESE ROMANTICISM 81
mystical concept of “the world soul” that emerged in German
Romanticism impressed the Japanese writers by its scale, giving
them the opportunity and the right to conceive themselves as
participants in the world literary process. However, the views of
the Japanese Romanticists on art also imply the desire to protect
their own literature from the unhealthy pessimism of the West
and to preserve the best achievements of Japanese aesthetics.
Regarding the issue of pessimism, Togawa Shukotsu wrote
in 1895 the following:
We have replaced our interest in the teachings of Spenser
with the philosophy of Schopenhauer and Hartmann. This
school has been enthusiastically welcomed everywhere . . .
As for Western poetry, we prefer first of all Byron . . . Many
writers are eager to imitate his unhealthy pessimism.
I am resolutely not against Schopenhauer and Byron, and
consequently will accept a little bit of their pessimism with
pleasure. After all, in poetry this trend has achieved brilliant
results. But some writers are inclined to adopt such painful
pessimism thoughtlessly, and this attitude is especially
dangerous . . . [185, v. 1, 263]
Shukotsu also criticizes young writers for their excessive
idealism and their separation from reality, asserting that in the
course of creation “a true thinker feels the contradiction be-
tween the spiritual world and the material world deep inside”
[185, v. 1, 263].
If this is the view expressed by the “Westerner” Shukotsu,
it should be obvious that the traditionalists Tokoku and Toson
approached the pessimistic ideas of Western philosophy (and
to some extent poetry) with even more caution, concerned
as they were to protect “healthy Japanese culture” from
detrimental influences. Nevertheless, they treated Western
writers and philosophers as their allies, not as their opponents,
since they believed that their main enemy was the narrow-
minded pseudo-classicism of the Kenyusha group, which was
hostile to Romanticist doctrine. In criticizing the members of
82 Part 1. THE ROMANTICIST IDEALS
Kenyusha, the Romanticists at the same time aimed at exposing
all conservative forces in society that sought to hinder creative
progress and replace the fruitful synthesis of cultures with the
sheer imitation of pre-modern Japanese models in the name of
“preserving the national identity”.
Sometimes, however, this criticism reveals a biased attitude
toward a group of writers that actually did much for the
development of Japanese literature.
The Kenyusha group was the favorite of the era, ready to
satisfy all its demands. We can say that the world at the
time was the world of youth, and it was only through
the deeds of notorious youth that the poetry of that time
could become a kind of home-grown remedy . . . Thus,
the “Westerners” of that time can be called “Westerners”,
but they became so in name only, concealing under their
Western masks Confucianism and Buddhism. Among
them were many writers, poets, painters, and philosophers,
both young and old, who proclaimed themselves “Wester-
ners” simply by using the character “new”. But meanwhile
a snake was hiding in the cradle of the Kenyusha group [164,
v. 1, 259–260].
Toson, rejecting in this passage the “falseness” of the Kenyusha
group, emphasizes the importance of Romanticism as the only
“sincere” trend in the national literature capable of imple-
menting the ideals of the Meiji period and meeting the demands
of young people, who were being betrayed by the pseudo-
classicists. It is from this prospective that the Romanticists
analyzed the art and literature of their time.
Wherein lies the novelty, or perhaps we should say,
revolutionary attitude, in the Romanticist elaboration of new art
concepts for Japan? Japanese literary critics point out that “the
process of formation of a new modern mind in Japan took only
50 years, whereas in Europe the same process required some
500 years, from the Renaissance to the twentieth century” [34,
v. 2, 253]. In fact, the contrast is even more striking if we take
2. THE AESTHETIC THEORY OF JAPANESE ROMANTICISM 83
into consideration the fact that in early-modern Europe an indi-
vidual mind had ample opportunities for self-improvement and
development, while in the traditional Japanese system of values
influenced by Confucianism, Buddhism, and Shinto a person
did not exist apart from his place in the hierarchical structure
of society: “All the activities of the people, including industry,
public and family affairs, and even their personal life, have
reason and approval as long as they follow the ideal models
preset at the beginning of time” [411, 87].
Accordingly, all aspects of culture—science, ethics, philo-
sophy—are endowed with value only as far as they promote
the realization of these values in a group, but not individually,
not inside one’s own mind. That is why the revolution in public
consciousness during the third decade of the Meiji period
influenced, first of all, views on the role of a personality in public
life and the creation of artistic values. It marked the transition
from the conventional corporate mind to the individual mind,
from the medieval “school and guild” art and literature to the
modern individual artistic mentality.
So, a person is always in search of his “ego”, but one’s
personality is a part of the universe, and the universe is
a part of one’s personality. Actually, one’s personality
cannot be comprehended absolutely, and that is why, in
unveiling the secrets of nature or studying history, a person
perceives only himself. Isn’t it better to turn from studying
the surrounding world to perceiving one’s inner world?
[13, 110]
These ideas of Shukotsu clearly reveal the influence of Euro-
pean subjective idealism. But while Shukotsu accepts the
importance of personality in general, along with other Japanese
Romanticists he tends to reject the concept of elite art, the
theory of the “genius” as an exceptional personality. This
is because the Romanticists were eager to apply to their own
country the progressive elements of bourgeois philosophy.
But in a country bound by Confucian morals, burdened by
84 Part 1. THE ROMANTICIST IDEALS
patrimonial and class hierarchy, the very declaration of personal
freedom meant a powerful attack on public consciousness and
on the conservative ideology of “Japanism” promoted by the
government. Thus the Japanese Romanticists never associated
personal freedom with freedom from society. On the contrary,
they treated a personality as an inseparable part of society and
considered instead the struggle against spiritual and physical
slavery as their primary goal.
“The truth is that a human being should defend freedom”,
Tokoku writes in his “Ideals of Common People in the Tokugawa
Period”. “If we study more attentively the course of history
up till now, how many examples we will see illustrating that
freedom was gained at the cost of blood, endless sufferings, and
torments!” [90, v. 1, 248]. The struggle for freedom by means of
“the brush and the sword” is a major topic in Tokoku’s works,
although it is often accompanied by the gloomy premonition of
an inevitable defeat. While any attempt at democratization of
the social order in those years was inevitably doomed to failure,
the democratization and emancipation of the individual mind
in the milieu of the Meiji intellectuals was quite successful, due
largely to the influence of the Romanticists’ works.
In his article “The Perversity of Blind Acceptance and
Groundless Negation” (Ganshu mohai no hei), Tokoku reveals
considerable understanding of the contradiction between the
traditional Japanese “pagan” model of the uniform world and
the dual philosophy of Christian idealism, clearly expressing
his sympathy with the latter. As a matter of fact, the problem
put forward by Tokoku, the issue of the evolution of ethical
priorities in a society, was elaborated by many theorists of
European Romanticism and originated with Schiller’s article
“On Naïve and Sentimental Poetry”, in which he means by
“naïve” poetry primarily the literature of pagan antiquity, and
by “sentimental” poetry that of emerging Romanticism [465, v.
6, 440]. This problem was repeatedly studied by the scholars of
Western Romanticism [485, 72–73], but with reference to Japan
their conclusions definitely required some amendments.
2. THE AESTHETIC THEORY OF JAPANESE ROMANTICISM 85
First, Japanese Romanticism emerged later than the similar
schools in the countries of Europe and in America. Secondly,
Christianity was not capable of dominating and changing
completely the worldview of writers who lived in a country with
a different religion (or to be more precise, different religions).
Thirdly, due to the shift in the chronological borders and the
accelerated pace of the formation of new schools, Japanese
Romanticism could at the same time support many rationalistic
ideas of the Enlightenment, unlike what had been the case in
Europe, where Romanticism represented in a certain sense the
rejection of the Enlightenment [451, 30–31]. And finally, the
traditions of Japanese classical literature and folklore, due to
their specific character, differed considerably in spirit from the
European classical heritage. All this motivated an alternative
attitude among Japanese Romanticists towards the problem of
“naïve” and “sentimental” poetry.
As we know, in Europe in the eighteenth century the theory
of “natural rights” gained great currency. The idealization of
a “natural” condition of mankind in a patriarchal classless
society, like Rousseau’s call for a “return to nature”, influenced
all the bright minds of the time.
Schiller in his work, however, rejected the idealization of
a “natural” society. He criticised Rousseau and his followers
for their attempt to lead mankind back to a primitive condition
lacking high ideals and true cultural values. Schiller warned
the young Romanticists against the excessive worship of
a supposedly “harmonious” antiquity. Later the Romanticists,
referring to the issue put forward by Schiller, expressed their
regret concerning the tragic split in modern culture, which
resulted in the introduction of pessimism into Romanticist
writings.
A. W. Schlegel formulated the differences between “naïve”
and “sentimental” art as follows:
The Greeks assume that human nature finds satisfaction
in itself. They did not feel any uneasiness and never aspired
86 Part 1. THE ROMANTICIST IDEALS
to any other perfection, except the one they could gain them-
selves . . . With the advent of Christian views everything
changed: the contemplation of the infinite destroyed the
definite; life turned into the night world of shades, and
only the next world revealed the dawn of true existence
[442, 217].
All classical German idealism is based on the conviction that
the ideal in real life is unattainable. This doctrine defines in
general the concept of the individual in Romanticism, as well
as the attitude of many Romanticists to art and to creativity in
general.
The Japanese Romanticists, despite their fascination with
Schopenhauer and Hartmann, nevertheless criticised the ex-
treme idealism of their views. No wonder Shukotsu urged his
compatriots to protect Japanese literature from the influence of
Western decadence. As active players in a young, developing
society, the Romanticists claimed that the basis of life and
poetry is enthusiasm or zeal, and that no creativity is possible
without it. In his essay “Enthusiasm” (Netsui), Tokoku asserts:
If we withdraw such a basic element as “enthusiasm” from
human life, the poet in his activity will be not able to bear
the burden of glory. If humanity did not possess such
a category as “enthusiasm”, mankind would not have any
history, and men would resemble four-legged animals [88,
v. 9, 231].
It is by assuming this perspective on enthusiasm and on the
necessity of fighting for one’s ideals that Tokoku attempts
to overcome the narrow-mindedness of a more pessimistic
Western Romanticism.
An explicit desire for social progress drives the Japanese
Romanticists away from the idealization of the culture of
the past (the role of “antiquity” in the theory of Japanese
Romanticism is assigned predominantly to the culture of the
Heian and Kamakura periods). They were attracted first and
2. THE AESTHETIC THEORY OF JAPANESE ROMANTICISM 87
foremost to new, progressive ideas. Their artistic creativity was
considerably influenced by Rousseau’s views, but at the same
time they could not but admire the muse of the Zen poets of the
Tokugawa period who had achieved absolute freedom in their
spiritual experience. As Togawa Shukotsu writes in his essay
“Reflecting on the Characters of the Haikai Poets” (Haijin no
seiko o omou):
They wander in the heavens yet feel no restraints imposed
by moral dogmas. They breathe the air of freedom, avoiding
all moral restrictions [i. e. the rigid prescripts of Confucian
ethics]. They do not care if it will bring them disgrace. They
reside in a different world, described by an ancient poet:
The peach blossoms fall
And disappear
Into a different world
Where no human can be seen.
The definition of their world is in these words:
“The happiness in which the soul bathes is the feeling
that overwhelms the precision of thought”. Those who
mock them may rot in misery. Who will take over the
accomplishments of those poets in the Meiji era? [13, 122]
According to Shukotsu, the concept of “natural inspiration” is
embodied in a person nourished by the spirit of free creativity,
who lives an intense “inner life”. Shukotsu’s ideal is that of
an independent intellectual, a bunjin of a new type, one who
has mastered Rousseau’s ideas, placing spiritual freedom above
the laws and regulations of society. His ideal is not only a Zen
haikai poet, but also Li Po, who was considered “an immortal,
expelled from heaven”, as well as Byron and many other
“spiritually emancipated” poets. According to Shukotsu, the
writers who will continue the traditions of the poets of haikai
verse in the Meiji period must combine in a harmonious way
their creative individuality and the quest for the romantic ideal
with the spiritual freedom inherited from the ancestors, who
were content with the minor joys of life.
88 Part 1. THE ROMANTICIST IDEALS
At first sight, Shukotsu’s call to follow the lead of the ancient
sages, submitting only to the needs of the heart, reminds us
also of the slogans of European Romanticists, who called on
the poet to step away from “the crowd” and the “common”
people. However, the intention of Li Po and Japanese Zen poets
to cultivate their inner life and “merge with nature” is no more
than a poetic declaration, behind which there is a sensation of
ties with the people, the call of “blood and soil”. For example,
it is difficult to find in the history of Japanese literature a writer
closer to the common reader than Matsuo Basho, who lived in
a lonely “Banana-tree hermitage” or wandered the mountain
paths far from the cities. In fact, the genre of haikai emerged in
the milieu of “the third class” as a late medieval reaction to the
development of the aristocratic poetry of tanka [430, 293]. Thus,
the essay by Shukotsu points more at the ideal of a democratic
art than at the elite concept of creative activity so popular in the
West since the period of Romanticism.
Kitamura Tokoku, in his article “On the Inner Life”, more
accurately articulates the concept of “ideological art”, opposing
both the pragmatic approach to literature found in the teachings
of Yamaji Aizan and the complete withdrawal from reality.
Tokoku asserts that the basic mission of art is to elevate the
human spirit, appease human suffering, and open the path
to spiritual purification. He claims that the writer’s role is to
express truth and justice:
“A poet’s goal is to convey in his words the inner mind and
internal experience, modified in a creative way. The highest
mission of the poet, who is also a philosopher, lies in the
opportunity to tell the readers about his own inner life”
[88, v. 9, 229].
Тokoku urges writers to turn from describing sketchy characters
and situations to solving important complicated social, political
and, philosophical problems by means of art, where the author
projects his “internal life” on the phenomena of the surrounding
2. THE AESTHETIC THEORY OF JAPANESE ROMANTICISM 89
world. At the same time, Tokoku defines the concept of “prose
fiction” (bungei), and claims that its function differs essentially
from philosophy, on the one hand, and from entertainment, on
the other. The noble principles proclaimed by such literature
have to be vested in an adequate form:
It is neither necessary nor possible for literature to turn
directly, like religion or philosophy, to vital problems.
Literature is a phenomenon that unites ideology with
art. If a work has ideas but lacks art, it is not fiction; if
a work has art, but has no ideas, it can also not be fiction
[88, v. 9, 228].
Tokoku’s understanding of the categories of form and content
is rather pragmatic. While some European Romanticists are
called the forerunners of “pure art”, Tokoku and his followers
did not at all cherish such an ideal.
Shelley, arguing for the priority of poetry over all the other
kinds of art, claimed that poets are the unacknowledged rulers
of the world (see [466, 434]). His words are in tune with the
views of Tokoku concerning the role of fiction in transforming
the spiritual world of an individual in the new age. In the
article “The People and Ideology” (Kokumin to shiso), Tokoku
urged Japanese writers to promote progress and to reveal the
national identity of the people who inhabit the country, since it
is they who possess the specific spiritual values that unite and
create the nation [419, 65]. Tokoku sees in the people the source
of creative power, the creative energy that would feed the new
culture born of the fusion of East and West.
However, Tokoku’s goal of constructing a new doctrine
of national art remained incomplete for two reasons. First,
although he believed he was acting on behalf of the whole
nation, he actually only expressed the interests of the advanced
intellectuals. While he reflects on the misery of common
people in the Edo period, he fails to evaluate the real situation
of the masses after the Meiji Restoration, the period that saw
the beginning of modernization and the accelerated growth
90 Part 1. THE ROMANTICIST IDEALS
of capitalism. Secondly, while calling for a native approach
in literature, Tokoku at the same time sharply criticized the
movement for the Unification of Literary and Colloquial
Language (gembun itchi) initiated by Futabatei Shimei. He in
fact set the pattern for other Romanticists of writing poems in
the traditional bungo style, which was difficult for the common
reader to understand.
Tokoku’s fascination with the history of the Japanese people
and his acquaintance with the works of the great Russian
writers of the nineteenth century such as Tolstoy, Dostoevsky,
and Turgenev induced the Japanese author to look, at least to
some extent, on the problem of “the individual and society”
from a materialistic point of view. Thus, in his article “The
Murderer’s Crime in Crime and Punishment” (Tsumi to batsu no
satsujin tsumi), Tokoku argues the point that human characters
depend on social conditions and not on innate immorality or
morality. In his critical analysis of the novel The Torments of
Hell (Abura jigoku), written by his contemporary Saito Ryoku,
a member of the Kenyusha group, Tokoku speaks against
pseudo-classicism, calling for literature to be brought closer
to public life. Yet such ideas in Tokoku’s works are more often
than not contained within naïve romantic forms. They have
only a faint resemblance to the principles of realism developed
by the novelist Futabatei Shimei on the basis of his knowledge
of the Russian classics.
Tokoku totally accepts the Romanticist method of depicting
reality. In his essay “Passion” (Jonetsu), he argues that
realism, which is supposed to reflect everything faithfully
and objectively, lacks real passion and inspiration. He claims
that only a Romanticist16 can be really inspired by a deep and
sincere belief:
16 It is common knowledge that the Romanticists believed that at the
heart of the works of great poets of the past such as Dante and Shakespeare
lies a romantic method of creative activity.
2. THE AESTHETIC THEORY OF JAPANESE ROMANTICISM 91
A great poet always has his own belief, his faith, his own
religion, his own understanding of the divine. In Homer
we feel the spirit of the ancient Greek gods, in Shakespeare
we feel the faith of medieval England; Saigyo has his own
religion, and so has Basho [88, v. 9, 241].
Tokoku did not insist on Christian monotheism when it came
to art. He admits the right of any artist to have his own faith,
one which represents a certain theism, even if not necessarily
a religion in the proper sense of the word but simply a form
of spirituality, an embodiment of the unconscious. Influenced
by Hartmann’s The Philosophy of the Unconscious, Tokoku assu-
mes the primacy of the irrational over the rational. While in
the field of ideology the Japanese Romanticists managed to
overcome the gloomy pessimism and passive worldview of
Hartmann, in the area of creative technique, the “philosophy of
the unconscious” provided them with a model, an outline of the
intuitive approach to reality. Even such a progressive Roman-
ticist as Tokoku, whose goal was to fight for national ideals,
follows the ideas of classical German idealism in acknowledging
the unconscious as the only means of achieving his goals.
At the same time, it is important to remember that intuition
also lies at the core of traditional Buddhist metaphysics, and that
it thus forms part of the essence of the centuries-old Japanese
literary tradition. If we compare in particular Zen intuition
to the irrationalism of Western philosophers, we will be able
to comprehend more distinctly a problem that the Japanese
Romanticists and their successors had to face when choosing
their creative techniques.
According to the principles of Zen aesthetics, any creative
activity has to be impulsive, spontaneous, influenced by intui-
tion, and directed at establishing contact with an external world
by involving a counterpart (a listener, a spectator, a reader) in
an interactive creative process. Absolute freedom and natural-
ness are the necessary prerequisites of the deepest self-realiza-
tion and self-expression [340, v. 1, 18–19]. The indispensable
92 Part 1. THE ROMANTICIST IDEALS
condition that makes it possible to create a truly valuable
artifact or poem is the earlier accumulated potential that a mas-
ter has acquired in the course of lengthy practice. An ingenious,
impromptu masterpiece is unattainable for a layman or a novice
in art, just as a neophyte in Zen cannot reach satori. The priority
of feeling over reason, of intuition over rational knowledge,
provides Zen aesthetics with the same features of subjective
idealism that attracted the Romanticists to the theories of
Schopenhauer and Hartmann.
The Russian scholar F. de la Bart defines the basic concept of
creative activity from the perspective of European Romanticism
in the following way: “Only the mystically inspired feeling of
a poet is able to conceive the perfect ideal . . . It is feeling that
discloses the meaning of reality, which in itself is dead” [437,
431]. This definition can be also applied to the ideas of the Zen
masters. The difference lies only in the final goal of the act of
creation. A Zen master’s goal is in his creative activity per se;
he does not separate aesthetics from ethics. The act of creation
becomes, on the one hand, a way of self-expression and self-
improvement of the artist’s personality, and, on the other hand,
a way of being united with the world, with nature, and with
others. An artist is not eager to escape from reality, but he also
does not seek to solve the world’s problems or influence his
reader intentionally. The poetry of allusion that emerged on
the basis of the intuitive perception of the world, appeals, in its
turn, to the intuition of the counterpart (the reader or spectator),
inviting him to participate in the discovery of the “the pathos of
things” and the hidden, mystical sense of life.
Of course, Western Romanticists perceived the goals of their
creativity differently. Wordsworth, for example, considered
that the role of art is to teach (or preach) about life, to purify the
spiritual world of a man, just as religion does, and to bring truth
to the hearts of the readers. Edgar Allan Poe, on the contrary,
stood for “pure art” and rejected any moral imperative in
poetry. We will not try to specify to what extent the work of
either of the poets objectively corresponds to their ideas. The
2. THE AESTHETIC THEORY OF JAPANESE ROMANTICISM 93
important thing is that all Western Romanticists are united by
their aspiration for the ideal, by their ardent desire to taste the
mysteries of the spiritual life. Before the Meiji Restoration, in
Japan “a writer was more interested in the supreme laws of
reality than in a person himself or his inner world. The person
became a symbol and stopped being a real person living on
the earth” [403, 136]. The cultivation of the idea of a perishable
world, the absence of tragic conflict (as noted by Tokoku), the
rejection of passions in favor of simple emotions, these are
the features of traditional Japanese literature which curbed its
intensity and fettered its psychological attitude.
There was no place in the traditional system of spiritual values
for an active transformation of the world. Generally speaking,
the Zen aesthetic that was rooted in Japanese art deeper than
any other aspect of Buddhism can be considered a doctrine of
the golden mean, a way for humans to achieve harmony with
the world. This approach was attractive to many at various his-
torical junctures and stages of social development. But by the
end of the nineteenth century the Buddhist ideal of non-action
(Chinese wuwei; Japanese mui) had been exhausted, and this fact
was reflected not only in the works of the Japanese Romanticists,
but (later) in Chinese Romanticism as well (see [367, 185]).
The Romanticists for the first time in the history of Japanese
art aimed at perceiving the human being as an individual,
exposing his psyche, his inner world, his thoughts and senti-
ments. They turned to the idealist doctrines of the West and
realized that the old methods based on an intuitive, sensual
perception of the world were also quite admissible and helpful.
However, the artistic techniques, methods, and conventions
of the past were not sufficient or acceptable for a new art. This
revelation was crucial for modern Japanese literature in terms
of finding the way to further development. Even if the Roman-
ticists had not managed to create outstanding art themselves
(i. e. poetry of undeniable beauty), their achievement, from the
point of view of literary history, would nonetheless have been
of great significance.
94 Part 1. THE ROMANTICIST IDEALS
The Romanticists rightly observed that the transition from
“non-action” to action and the creative activity of an artist
implied considerable reduction of the suggestive element in
verse. Regardless of whether a poet wishes to transform the
world or to escape into the sphere of “pure art”, he needs the
relevant effective poetic techniques. One can express “eternity
in a flower cup” by one stroke, but to convey the doubts
and disappointments of the restless soul of a poet seemed
possible only by means of abundant imagination and skillful
description.
If we treat the creative act not as a means of perceiving
the ephemeral charm of an object but as the way for an artist
to achieve self-expression through the comprehension of the
beauty of the world, then poetry, according to Shelley, can
prevail over the curse subordinating us to casual impressions
of reality [466, 432]. Even when trying to merge with nature,
the Romanticists do not focus on isolated, particular objects
but are eager to generalize and perceive the beauty of nature
at large. “The sentimentalist concept of nature as a benevolent
teacher of truth and kindness promoted the descriptive element,
which became the means of describing nature in its beauty and
graceful splendor in Japanese Romanticism” [439, 229]. This
approach was applied not only to perceptions of nature, but to
all spheres of Romanticist poetry.
For the Western poet as well as for the reader, especially in
the period of Romanticism, elevated poetry always represents
a kind of religious rite. But in Japan, classical poetry was always
only one of the ways to achieve a natural harmony with the
world. We should not be surprised by the comparisons of poetry
with a palace or a temple, by the attempts to draw a parallel
between poetry and architecture or painting. In fact, the same
situation can be observed in the attitude of the Japanese to
traditional poetry, which has always existed in a harmonious
combination with painting, calligraphy, ikebana, etc. However,
the general aesthetic principles that form the foundations of art
forms in the West and in Japan are different. The magnificent
2. THE AESTHETIC THEORY OF JAPANESE ROMANTICISM 95
massiveness of medieval European architecture is incompatible
with the transparent lightness of structures made of wood
and paper. It would be just as inappropriate to compare the
paintings of Poussin with the landscapes of Sesshu. The same
holds true for poetry.
The Romanticists, reconsidering aesthetic principles in ge-
neral and penetrating into the nature of the creative activity of
their European predecessors, assumed from the very beginning
that poetic minimalism and the consistent maintenance of
self-restrictions in matters of technique and form had become
obsolete. After all, the Western poets treated this kind of laconism
critically. According to Keats, poetry should first of all impress
by its beautiful excessiveness, not by its singularity. Secondly, in
its beauty there must not be any reticence that takes a reader’s
breath away but does not leave him contented. The images
should rise and move before him naturally, bringing light and
then dying away in strict solemnity and magnificence, like the
sun, leaving him in a wonderful twilight (see [413, v. 3, 793]). The
allure of such a prospect so captivated the imagination of young
poets in Japan that they dared to sacrifice the rigid refinement
of the old forms for the sake of “exquisite excessiveness”.
Romanticist shintaishi poetry emerged as a natural result
of the search for descriptive forms capable of containing the
feelings and ideas of a person of the new age. This search partly
succeeded, but the lack of a solid foundation, the weakness of
the tradition, inevitably led to the unsteadiness of the acquired
forms. Having abandoned the well balanced harmony of the
old art, the Romanticists could not carry out to the end their
ideal and achieve real perfection in their new undertakings.
Like the giant Antaeus who remained invincible as long as he
was touching his mother, the earth, but lost his power when
Hercules lifted him up in the air, a poet is strong and almighty
only until he leaves the ground of reality, and becomes
powerless when he starts to float in a blue fog.

3 THE WAY TO
NEW POETRY
POETIC IMAGE
AND CANONIC REGULATIONS
Considering the origin and development of modern Japanese
poetry, we encounter first of all the problem of overcoming
the historically developed literary canon. The rejection of the
traditional canon in the arts and literature of new times is not
a specific feature of Japan. On the contrary, Japanese poets
at the end of nineteenth century followed here the suit of
European Romanticists, who had given up the rigid restrictions
of classicism.
The scholars of classical Japanese literature R. Brower and
E. Miner emphasize three characteristics of traditional Japanese
poetry which have also played roles as “basic formative
elements” in the development of the tradition:
The first characteristic is constancy; there are certain cons-
tants—the language itself, prosody, rhetorical technique,
imagery, and a social concept of poetry—that distinguish
Japanese poetry from the poetry of other nations. The
second is the recurrence of certain patterns of change in
poetic concerns and motives, patterns that are repeated
over the centuries with striking regularity. The third is
the cumulative effect of the poetic tradition, the temporal
sequence of development which makes every poet mindful
of his place in the history of the tradition [238, 124].
3. THE WAY TO NEW POETRY 97
The characteristics, in other words, facilitate the maintenance
and coherence of the tradition, such that, even as the tradition
develops, there is a continuity, which each poet both maintains
and adds to.
Thus Japanese poetry, with rare exceptions, was the domain
of rigid poetic canons up to the Meiji Restoration. For each
genre (tanka, choka, wasan, renga, haiku, etc.) there were strict
regulations and written poetics, supplemented by the oral
instructions of the head masters of each individual school.
The numerous schools and their branches would periodically
introduce slight “innovations” in the formal characteristics of
this or that genre. Even such a popular poetic form as haiku,
which had emerged among the common people and in the
beginning was not overly rule-bound, gradually came to be
codified and canonized. Matsunaga Teitoku (1571–1653) turned
haiku into a strictly regulated genre, which was later perfected
by other masters. Moreover, despite considerable distinctions
between the genres in the area of imagery, all of them, in
particular tanka, renga, and haiku, had much in common as far as
the choice of topics was concerned. The topics for these major
genres were defined predominantly on the basis of seasons.
In 1914, the Russian poet and scholar G. A. Rachinsky wrote
about the specific feature of Japanese lyricism:
In fact, these people sing, like the birds in the trees, the frogs
in the water; the elements of poetry are not separated from
life. The refined forms are created in the current of history,
but they are immediately absorbed by the people, penetrate
into their daily life, and serve to convey their moods and the
impression of beauty in nature and in their souls [460, 6].
Despite such spontaneity in perceiving nature, the pre-modern
Japanese poet would immediately distribute his acquired
impressions in accordance with what the Russian scholar of
historical poetics Yu. Lotman called “the small knot principle”.
This gave rise to the notorious suggestive techniques of
Japanese art and poetry. To illustrate this principle we can take
98 Part 1. THE ROMANTICIST IDEALS
at random a list of seasonal topics created by the founder of the
linked-verse renga, Nijo Yoshimoto (1320–1388):
First moon: lingering winter, snow not yet melted, plum
blossoms;
Second moon: plum blossoms, cherry blossoms. Cherry
blossoms can become a topic from the moment people begin
to wait for them, and then they become the preferred topic
in the Third moon. This remains an important topic until
the cherry blossoms fall;
Third moon: cherry blossoms;
Fourth moon: the cuckoo, fresh green buds on the trees,
dense grass;
Fifth moon: the cuckoo, early summer rain, orange
flowers, irises;
Sixth moon: summer showers, the wind, summer grass,
cicadas, mulberry worms, the evening coolness;
Seventh moon: images of early autumn, clover, the
Tanabata festival of lovers, the moon;
Eighth moon: the moon, various flowers, wild ducks;
Ninth moon: the moon, yellow leaves, images of late
autumn;
Tenth moon: frost (up to 12th moon), early winter rain,
fallen leaves, sadness at the first snowfall, winter grass (up
to 11th moon), the cold wind;
Eleventh moon: the snow;
Twelfth moon: the snow, the end of the year, early plum
blossoms
[344, 40].
Thus, mentioning the plum blossoms in a three-line poem
would be enough for a reader to see the picture of a December
day, as all the accompanying details he would be able to
imagine by himself. In other words, the contact between the
author and the reader is realized on the basis of “sympathetic
understanding”, which, according to M. P. Brandes, is “a con-
crete realization of one of the trends of our mind, making it
possible to expand the comprehension of meaning in a given
context through disclosing the code of this meaning” [363, 86–87].
3. THE WAY TO NEW POETRY 99
Similar rules and conventions developed in dozens of poetics
for tanka, renga, and haiku over the centuries were so deeply
rooted in the minds of the people that they are perceived by
everyone, including Western scholars, as the natural outcome
of the indigenous Japanese poetic genius1. There were strict
regulations that limited the choice of words to the “eloquent”
poetic lexicon and did not permit the use of “vulgar” vocabulary
in tanka or renga. For haiku their were similar, albeit less rigid,
rules. The compatibility of the images, the poetic techniques,
the choice of words and characters—everything was regulated
in detail and included in the canon. The participants of poetic
tournaments acquired a thorough knowledge of the canon,
which ultimately made possible the collective, interactive
creative activity that characterizes the field of renga (linked
verse) composition, where success was measured not so much
by individual talent as by the general poetic erudition.
All these factors resulted in a considerable loss of indi-
viduality for the poet, in the dissolution of distinctions, and
in the production of a huge mass of poetry lacking the specific
author’s touch. As the highly “Westernized” poet and critic
Noguchi Yonejiro put it in his overview for European readers,
Uniformity was their special virtue, individuality was
regarded by them to be little short of vulgarity. Their poems
turned to be the expression of an etiquette whose formality
took the place of life and beauty; no sudden change was
permitted in their old kingdom . . . The limitation which
originated as a test of strength now degenerated to
a confession of weakness [307, 90].
Such a situation could not satisfy the poets of the Meiji period,
who were eager to express their inner world, indulge in com-
plete personal freedom, and solve the acute problems of the
time in their poetry. As an alternative to the rigidly restricted
1 We deal here with the attempts to reform poetry, undertaken, for
example, by Basho in the seventeenth century. His innovative ideas were
also canonized by his disciples.
100 Part 1. THE ROMANTICIST IDEALS
classical Japanese genres, the poetic tradition could only offer
kanshi, which was more liberal in terms of form and content.
But these poems in Chinese were not able to compensate for
the drawbacks of traditional Japanese poetry, and in the Meiji
period they provided little more than imitation of the old models,
which was quite inappropriate for an age of great reforms.
In this most intense period of development for both native
literature and translations from abroad the time had come to
create an essentially new poetry. Before considering the evo-
lution of “new-style poetry”, we shall try to track its historical
roots, to define the basic components of its internal structure,
and to provide an exact definition of shintaishi.
One of authors of the first collection of shintaishi verse,
Inoue Sonken, emphasized the independence and originality
of new-style poetry and compared it with all the previous
achievements of the Far-Eastern poetic tradition: “The poetry
of the Meiji period has to be the poetry of the Meiji period; it
cannot be the poetry of the past. The Japanese shi must become
truly Japanese, not Chinese . . .”. Moreover, the author assumes
that shi of the new era differ so radically from the ancient ones
that the foreign name “poetry” is more appropriate for them.
The point is that until the Meiji period the term shi meant in
general only classical kanshi. Sometimes it implied the imitation
of a certain genre of Chinese poetry, shi, and sometimes simply
poetry in Chinese as a whole. As a rule, the traditional shi were
interpreted in terms of the definition by Mao Chan:
Shi is an object of the aspiration of thoughts. Having
transformed everything collected in the heart into thoughts,
we transform them, vesting them in words, into verse. The
movements of the heart are embodied in words. When what
we have said is not enough, we sigh. When the song is not
enough, we break into a dance, clapping our hands and
stamping our feet2 [160, 6].
2 On the interpretation of this view by Mao Chan in China and his
influence on Chinese poetry, see [401, 136].
3. THE WAY TO NEW POETRY 101
In other words, shi must be an embodiment of live poetry,
connected with song and dance. In Japan, however, we find
an early natural division into literary verse (kanshi) by the
scholars of the Chinese classics and the live poetics of uta (song),
including all versions of traditional Japanese waka poetry.
Eventually the role of kanshi was limited to creating medi-
tative landscape verse or civic lyrical poetry, since in waka
relevant techniques for this kind of verse simply did not exist.
Such poetry was hardly accessible to the public at large. It
served basically cognitive interests in a general system of
classical Confucian education. Nevertheless, it remained the
model of “high style” literature, and many masterpieces of
kanshi were composed in various periods.
Before the Meiji Restoration, Japanese literature was regu-
lated by a complex of antinomies, such as “graceful / vulgar”
(ga / zoku), “high / low” (ki / san), etc., and thus the introduction
of a generally democratic Western poetics as a model was apt to
cause a shock. The new poetics did not manage to reconcile shi
with uta. Even on a new stage, Japanese shi, which was already
transformed in shintaishi and completely lost its resemblance
to kanshi, would remain a strictly professional genre, meant
for experts and their fans. Only in due course, thanks largely
to the efforts of Kitamura Tokoku, Shimazaki Toson, and Doi
Bansui, was shintaishi turned into a truly national poetry, shika,
which “emerged from a complicated process of synthesis of the
Chinese poetic tradition and European verse” [137, v. 26, 12].
Of course, the sources of shintaishi should be traced not
only to kanshi, which, more likely, only defined the place of
new-style poetry in the minds of a reader as a certain version
of shi. Nothing would come of the synthesis of the Chinese
poetic tradition with European verse without the techniques
of Japanese poetics. The real sources of shintaishi in terms of
rhythm, compositional structure, imagery, and lexical selection
were the ancient classical choka (long poem), imayo folk songs,
and Buddhist hymns (wasan). At the same time, the topics of
many shintaishi, the greater part of their stylistic means, and,
102 Part 1. THE ROMANTICIST IDEALS
finally, the concept of the author’s individuality, all came to
Japan from Western poetry. On the whole we can agree with
the definition of shintaishi given by Fujimura Tsukuru: “This is
a new form of verse [shikei] . . . which apprehends the spirit and
formal features of Western poetry and imitates the form and
freedom of the ancient choka, while distinctly showing its right
for independent existence” [126, v. 2, 683].
As Fujimura’s comprehension of shintaishi corresponds with
the majority of definitions accepted in the field of Japanese
literary criticism, we shall take it as our basis, keeping in mind,
however, the influence of certain other ancient poetic genres.
It is also important to note that the traditional element is
dominant in the formation of the specific features of the metrics
and rhythm of shintaishi.
THE OMNIPOTENT METER
In the 1920s N. I. Konrad, the father of Russian Japanology,
wrote:
At this point it is extremely difficult to say something
definite about the rhythm (in the narrow sense of the term)
of Japanese verse, or, for that matter, its tone. These areas
are so undeveloped in the European sense of the terms
that so far we have had to confine ourselves to accept their
existence and the role which they, undoubtedly, play in
a poem. The only thing that can be discussed is the metrics
of Japanese verse [431, 37].
Since then some studies have appeared that partially explore
the issue of the rhythm of classical Japanese verse, but the
results have been unsatisfactory. What is more, these works
usually do not treat at all the poetry of the post-Meiji period.
In this section, we shall analyze the content of the discourse
on lyrical poetry in Japanese literary criticism and attempt to
outline the basic principles of the rhythmic structure of the
poetry in new forms.
3. THE WAY TO NEW POETRY 103
In the development of the movement for new-style poetry,
numerous attempts at the theoretical placement of shintaishi
poetics were undertaken. These efforts were actively promoted
by the emerging field of literary criticism (bungakuron), which
itself was becoming an independent literary genre. In the late
1880s, the issues of poetics were extensively covered in the
course of discussions on literary theory. By this time such works
as “On Japanese Poetry” (Nihon inbun ron) by Yamada Bimyo,
“A Few Words About Poetry” (Koku shi ron) by Isogai Umpo,
“A Glance at Poetry” (Inbun shoken) by Miyazaki Koshyoshi,
and “The Study of Shintaishi” (Shintaishi gaku) by Owada
Kenjyu had been published.
Later, in 1890s, the essays “On the Form of Shintaishi”
(Shintaishi no katа ni tsuite) by Shimamura Hogetsu, “On
Poetry” (Inbun ni tsuite) and “Refined Literature and Poetry”
(Gagen to shika) by Shimazaki Toson, “To the Poets of ‘The
Misty School’” (Moro-ha no shijin ni atau) by Takayama
Chogyu, and “Vague Silhouette” (Jinkei) by Togawa Shukotsu
were added to the discourse on shintaishi poetics.
Yamada Bimyo was the first to introduce the term inbun
(“versified or rhythmic text”), and he tried to explain the
concept of “rhythmic form” (inkaku). Bimyo’s views on the
form of verse are presented in his general concept of poetry.
As a pseudo-classicist following the precepts of the Kenyusha
group, Bimyo proclaimed the priority of intuitive and
suggestive Japanese poetry over the Western poetic tradition.
He asserted that the progress of logic in the West narrows the
imagination of a writer, and that the poison of agnosticism
destroys the sincerity of a poet towards nature. However, in his
opinion, the suggestiveness (yojo) of Japanese poetry weakened
the connection between verse and philosophy and gave rise to
pretentiousness and an excessive intricacy of forms. Therefore,
he considered it necessary to promote the movement for new-
style poetry. Subjective interpretation of the aims of shintaishi
finally led Bimyo to serious formalistic errors. After he had
carried out a comparative analysis of the Japanese, Chinese,
104 Part 1. THE ROMANTICIST IDEALS
and European poetic meters, he was convinced that the tones
in the sounds of the Japanese language depend on the length
of a syllable (mora), and on this basis he elaborated as a kind of
guide for poets twelve types of meter (short-long, long-short,
etc.). Bimyo’s attempts to introduce his artificially designed
models into living poetry naturally failed3.
Bimyo’s metric constructions were criticized by many poets
and critics of the time. A group of literary critics led by one of
the authors of the Shintaishisho, Toyama Chuzan, advocated
freedom in choosing the meter and rejected in general the
necessity of accurate metrics in verse. Other poets, such as those
centered around Nayashi Onata and Takayama Chogyu, stood
for the priority of content and rejected the search for formalistic
devices altogether. The majority of poets, however, following
Shimamura Hogetsu, considered that meter is absolutely
necessary in poetry, and that the main task of a poet is to
apply correctly the existing rules of metrics in his work. This
assumption became the basis of shintaishi and kindaishi poetics
and survived for over thirty years.
In 1892, as a result of the various discussions, it was accepted
that meter in Japanese poetry had to be defined by the number
of vowels in a word, and that it would be best to adhere to the
traditional meter known as go-shichi cho (5–7 rhythm)4 based on
the rule of alternating lines of a different number of syllables
(onsuritsu). This conclusion confirms the view of the renowned
Russian theoretician of poetics G. Shengeli, who asserted
that there can be no poetic regulations in forms introduced
from outside. There are certain objective conditions behind
3More useful suggestions for changing the lexical and grammatical
structure of the language were introduced by Bimyo in the article “Gembun
itchi ron gairyaku” (“General View on the Issue of the Unity of Spoken and
Written Language”, 1888). However, they did not have much influence on
the poetry of the time.
4 In Japanese literary criticism, according to tradition, the poetic meters
were defined only by the number of syllables in a line, grouped in certain
intonation units, as there is no tone accent in the language.
3. THE WAY TO NEW POETRY 105
the construction of poetic speech, and these are involved in
a complicated interaction with the subjective aspirations of the
creative mind [468, 8].
In Japan, the “creative minds” who were trying to adopt
the achievements of European literature as quickly as possible,
would face serious obstacles. In the West it is almost always the
case that “the laws of art development, the force of tradition,
and the poetic education of the literary audience determine
the domination of this that or that metric system at any given
time” [475, 11]. Meanwhile, in the Japan of the Meiji period, the
violation of traditional rules and conventions due to the mixture
of influences became an impediment to the development of
shintaishi, and eventually led to the decline and degeneration of
metric verse.
Some scholars came to the conclusion that “the Japanese
language is a refined but ungrateful tool, as its sounds are not
numerous enough and their combinations are limited. So it
is hardly possible to reproduce in Japanese strong or refined
rhythms or refined models of harmony” [328, 140]. One should
not dismiss this statement as simply the biased evaluation of
a Western scholar. After all, we find even more negative views
in the article “On Poetry” by the greatest poet of Japanese
Romanticism, Shimazaki Toson, who criticized not only the
phonetic structure, but also the lexicon of his mother tongue:
The words in a poem can be compared to instruments in
music . . . Just as an imperfect musical instrument cannot
produce a beautiful melody, if the words are imperfect we
can hardly expect that fine poetry will appear on its own
accord . . . In the poetry of this country, the lack of variety of
tones, such as exist in Western poetry and in kanshi, appears
to be a weakness . . . Could the reason for the meagerness
of our poetry be the notorious imperfection of the lexicon?
[163, v. 7, 29–30]
In another theoretical work, “Refined Literature and Poetry”,
Toson again addresses the “meagerness” of Japanese verse in
106 Part 1. THE ROMANTICIST IDEALS
comparison with Western poetry. The principal reasons for
the unsatisfactory condition of Japanese poetry Toson finds in
the Japanese language itself: the limited number of vowels, the
difficulties in connection with tonic accent, the “rule of open
syllables”, and the relative irrelevance of the poetic lexicon (see
[166, v. 5, 283–297]).
There is definitely an element of unjustified self-abasement
in these commentaries by Japanese poets and critics on their
national poetry.. In fact, to evaluate classical tanka in accordance
with Western poetic standards is as ridiculous as to evaluate
the work of Byron following the rules of tanka composition.
However, this is exactly what the famous literary critic
Tsubouchi Shoyo does:
Japanese is so imperfect in comparison with Western
poetry . . . Saying this, I probably slander Japanese poetry,
calling it immature, but, in the course of the general develop-
ment of culture and knowledge . . . our feelings cannot help
but change, becoming more complicated in the process.
In ancient times people were simpler and therefore they
could express all their feelings in 31 syllables. As for us, we
are not able to express everything we feel in so few words
(quote in [34, v. 1, 93]).
It may be true that the speculations about “the simplicity of
feelings” of the ancient poets and the primitiveness of their
imagery are absolutely ungrounded, but Shoyo is right in one
thing: small forms were no longer capable of satisfying the
modern poet.
The comparative meagerness of Japanese verse is ascer-
tained also by such an expert in classical poetry as Miyamori
Asataro, who published in the 1930s several anthologies of
tanka and haiku in English translation.
Not only almost all pure Japanese words, like Italian words,
end in vowels, but also every syllable in them terminates in
a vowel; so they sound smooth and musical; but since there are
3. THE WAY TO NEW POETRY 107
only five vowels, there could be only five rhymes, the constant
reiteration of which would be intolerably monotonous. It is
true that Japanese words of Chinese origin called kango are
sometimes employed in modern tanka for the sake of vigour
of sound and of variety of expression, but they are never used
for rhyming purposes. Again, there is but little stress or force
accent in the Japanese language, and in consequence there is no
metre in Japanese poetry in general [302, 5].
European verse possesses the potential for a rich rhythm
absolutely unattainable in the Japanese language. For Japanese
poetry, the coexistence of several meters is impossible; neither
modifying the rhythm (e. g. with the help of spondee and
pyrrihic) nor changing the rhythm by means of accent shifting
(enclitica and proclitica) are possible. The rhythm in a Japanese
verse is influenced by the syllabic structure of the language and
by tone accent, which impose their regulations on the poetry.
Some scholars assert that in a Japanese poem logical rhythm,
the rhythm of separate phrases and sentences, replaces tone
rhythm. This conclusion is correct for free verse (jiyushi), but not
for shintaishi. A similar conclusion could be made concerning
the characteristic of formal rhythmic division in European
poetry, where
the presumption that a verse line is a unit of poetic
rhythm is, undoubtedly, well-grounded, as it is as a whole
relatively independent semantically. The indicator of
completeness is a pause finishing the line, and without it
the rhythm of a poem is broken, as the border between its
units is erased and we cannot perceive the rhythm of their
alternation [468, 69–70].
In Japanese classical poetry and in shintaishi of the early period
(for example in Kitamura Tokoku’s verse), the line could not
be a unit of poetic rhythm because a poem was written out
uninterruptedly, without breaking it into lines. It was also
recited in a rather monotonous manner. The alternation of two-
syllable and three-syllable groups motivated by the structure
108 Part 1. THE ROMANTICIST IDEALS
of the wago (classical Japanese) lexicon apparently imposed
on authors and performers a division in accordance with
intonation into 5–7-syllables units, with a caesura between
them.5 The articulation of this phonetic complex was probably
as natural as the articulation of iambic meter in traditional
European poetry.
The “rule of open syllables” that exists in the Japanese
language provides the poetry with additional specific features.
Rhythm, as a certain combination of syllabic sounds, is born out
of “the interaction of the natural properties of speech matter
with the composite rule of alternation, which is not always
consistent due to the resistance of the speech matter” [425, 16].
In order to specify the connection between real speech flow,
meter, and rhythm in the Japanese language, we can accept the
classic pattern that includes: 1) the natural phonetic properties
of the given speech matter; 2) the meter as an ideal rule for
strong and weak (in Japanese, accordingly, long and short)
sounds in a verse; and 3) the rhythm as a real alternation of
strong and weak (long and short) sounds, appearing as a result
of the interaction of the natural properties of speech and the
metric rule (see [425, 18]).
If we take into consideration the fact that the presence of
a tone accent eliminates both the force and the variety of rhythm,
the tendency in the rhythm of classical Japanese verse towards
the ideal structure of a universal meter will become obvious.
Let us compare, for example, the choka by Hitomaro (8th C) “On
Parting from His Wife” and the shintaishi by Shimazaki Toson
“Do You Know?” (“Shiru ya kimi”).
5–7 meter 7–5 meter
kumoma yori kokoro mo aranu
watarau tsuki no akidori no
5
This topic requires a special diachronic analysis. For more detailed
information about the factors that have influenced the evolution of metric
patterns in Japan, see [203, 44–58].
3. THE WAY TO NEW POETRY 109
oshikedomo koe ni morekuru
kakuroikereba hitofushi o
amatsutau shiru ya kimi . . .
iroha sashinure . . .
Toson [137, v. 1, 127]. Hitomaro [102, 40].
Reciting a Japanese poem deprives the listener of the
opportunity to hear the difference between the 5–7 and 7–5
meters, as the alternation of equal syllabic units in the flow of
speech will be perceived in both cases almost identically.
Later, Toson tried to prove this assertion:
When I think of the history of waka and haiku in the system
of our language, it seems to me that the stages of their
development cannot be separated from the specific features
of the language itself. Many people assert that the intonation
of the Japanese language emerged form the combinations of
two and three sounds. According to this theory, the meter
7–5 emerged on its own accord from the natural properties
of speech. To emphasize this meter, our poets, following the
example of the Chinese poets, usually would mark it out
in writing. Hence, the more ancient the poem is, the more
difficult it is to define the actual rhythm that is implied by
an author, judging only by the characters. For example, in
the 14th book of the Manyoshu, in the section “Songs of the
Eastern Lands”, there is a tanka that reads as follows:
natsu so hiku una kamigata no
oki tsu su ni fune wa todomenu
sa ya fuke ni keri
But the same tanka may be read in a different way:
natsu so hiku
una kamigata no oki tsu su ni
fune wa todomenu saya fuke ni keri
In the first reading, the 5–7 meter dominates, while in the
second the dominant meter is 7–5. It is difficult to determine
which of the two reflects the author’s intention. In other
words, the characters per se do not define anything. Readers
110 Part 1. THE ROMANTICIST IDEALS
in subsequent ages would understand it in accordance
with their own feelings. Our experiments in the new poetry
were aimed at bringing a new form to the reader. Further,
with the help of word order and line division, we were
eager to expand and enrich the implications of words
as well as to express what was impossible to say in words
[165, 223–224].
But it is the same Toson who argues: “If we rely only on the
meters of 7–5 and 5–7, the tone of the verse will not have enough
high and low pitches, long and short sounds” [163, v. 7, 30].
Therefore, quite often in shintaishi we encounter deviations from
the rule, modifications where the meters 7–6, 7–7, 8–6, 8–7, etc.
are used. Usually, when the strophe is broken in shintaishi, the
extended lines are used for emphasis at the climax of a poem;
less often, they are used at the end of a stanza as a rhythmic
variation. The role of the additional syllables resembles closely
the role of anacrusis and epicrusis in European verse. Here we
can draw a parallel with the two lines in 7–7 meter preceding the
final five line poem (hanka) in the ancient choka of the Manyoshu.
For example:
shikitae no
koromo no sode wa
toorite nurenu
Hitomaro [102, 40]
omoi hanarete
aa, koi no
chisuji no kami no
nami ni nagaruru
Toson [137, v. 1, 19]
While in choka such a structure was accepted once and for
all, in shintaishi it was simply one of several options Never-
theless, the above-mentioned analogy confirms once more the
traditional nature of the Romanticists’ poetics as far as into-
3. THE WAY TO NEW POETRY 111
nation and meter are concerned. This was conditioned both by
the specifics of the Japanese language and by the nature of
metrics in general. As for the lexical, semantic, and compositional
characteristics of shintaishi, here we can find much greater
freedom in poetic technique. Quite often the obviously
traditional nature of shintaishi meter would cause a literary
critic to speak of a “choka revival” or a “return to ancient times”.
It is certainly true that classical choka played a role in the
formation of shintaishi, but, as is typical of anachronisms, the
choka was unable to form the basis for a new poetry, and
Japanese writers understood this very well.
In the late 1880s, during a period of animated disputes on
prosody, there occurred a discussion “On the Choka Revival”
between Sasaki Nobutsuna and Sasaki Hirotsuna, on the one
hand, and Yamada Bimyo, Ishimaru Tadatane, and Umie
Tanehira on the other. Both parties came to the conclusion that
it was necessary to study choka, but that choka poetics should
be applied in modern poetry cautiously and moderately. Sasaki
Nobutsuna, in his article “On Improving Choka” (Choka kaizen
ron), wrote:
The scholars of recent times, specialists in ancient literature,
while composing choka in 5–7 meter, revive the old genre6
However, the tones and melodies have to change with the
times. The Heian poets could not compose choka because
the literature developed in kana, and therefore the choka,
naturally, was abandoned. The choka that have been written
lately by the fans and admirers of old times can bring us joy,
but they are no more than imitations of the ancient works.
It would be more desirable to create poems on the basis of
imayo with a 7–5 meter . . . [28, 27]
6 Actually, the poets of the Meiji period were inspired not only by the
choka of the Manyoshu period, but also by the experience of their immediate
predecessors. Poems in the style of the choka can be found in the works of
Ryokan and Kagawa Kageki, the most famous poets of late eighteenth and
early nineteenth centuries.
112 Part 1. THE ROMANTICIST IDEALS
In response to this article, Bimyo published his work
“Reading ‘On Improving of Choka’” (Choka kaizen ron o
yomitsutsu), in which he gave particular attention to the
metrics issue, especially to the distinction between the 5–7
meter (“strong rhythm”) and 7–5 meter (“weak rhythm”),
emphasizing the merits of both. As time has shown, however,
“the aspiration to create a new form of a verse manifested itself
mainly in the transformation of 5–7 meter into 7–5” [96, 441].
Despite the—from the Western reader’s point of view,
meager—differences between the two basic meters of shintaishi
within the limits of a uniform 5–7 meter prosody, Japanese
literary critics since Bimyo’s time have made a clear distinction
between them. The most comprehensive definition of the
differences was given by Koyama Shinichi:
Some shintaishi poems written in the 5–7 meter bear
a strong resemblance to choka, except that the final five-
line hanka is omitted. The 5–7 meter has a rigid rhythm
and is characterized, as in choka, by the long-sounding,
monotonous meter, which can bore the reader. Meanwhile,
the 7–5 meter has an easy and smooth flow [96, 441].
Actually, the 7–5 meter is not an invention of the poets of the
Meiji period. It was widely adopted in the Middle Ages in the
folk imayo and in wasan hymns. It was used to a much more
limited extent in classical poetry, but still some examples of its
use can be found in the Diary of the Waning Moon (Izayoi nikki,
1278) by Abutsuni, in some poems of the Kokinshu, and even
in the Manyoshu. Nevertheless, in opting for the 7–5 meter, the
shintaishi poets were limiting themselves to a transition from
the more popular meter of professional poetry to a less popular
one having a direct connection with folklore.
During the late stage of Romanticism, works by the poets
Susukida Kyukin, Kambara Ariake, and Yokose Yau were
marked by the active introduction of “non-standard” syllabic
meters, such as 7–7, 8–6, and 8–7. Such meters were rare
exceptions in the poetry of Toson. Here we cannot but agree
3. THE WAY TO NEW POETRY 113
with the conclusion that “depending on the cultural situation
in which a work of art exists, either an invariant or a variant
rhythm may be foregrounded” [483, 83]. However, in the case
of shintaishi poetry, pursuing an “invariant” rhythm can be said
to have been the wrong choice, as is suggested by the fact of
shintaishi’s rapid decline after the introduction of “free” meters
and the further transition to the essentially new rhythmic
structure of vers libre.
Why then, in trying to expand the potency of verse, did the
Japanese Romanticists, including the most talented of them,
remain faithful to an imposed meter rather than turning at
once to free verse, especially given that some experiments in
this field had been quite successful? In order to answer this
question, two factors need to be considered: cultural evolution
and literary developments.
As to the first, it is important to keep in mind that in
Romanticism the trend toward a rapprochement between
professional literature and folklore and indigenous poetic forms
was ubiquitous. Folklore had been the source of inspiration
for Arnim, Brentano, the Grimm brothers, and many other
Romanticists. In the poetry of Uhland and Walter Scott we
can feel the fascination for medieval lyrical poetry and folk
songs, which are transformed and embellished, of course, by
the professional skill of the poets. In Japan, beginning in the
eighth century, i. e. since the time of the first written poetic
monuments7, the interdependence and mutual influence of
folklore and professional poetry have been fundamental to
the poetic tradition. Although tanka eventually came to be
considered an elite genre, haiku turned into a popular genre,
and wasan took on the character of national religious hymns. All
of these genres, however, and this phenomenon seems unique
in the history of world poetry, do not go beyond the bounds of
a uniform, limited metric system.
7 The most vivid example is the Manyoshu, which includes numerous folk
songs alongside the poems by professional poets.
114 Part 1. THE ROMANTICIST IDEALS
Whereas in the fine arts the preference for asymmetry, in
which a complicated internal rhythm brings together outwardly
disproportional constructions, has been a basic principle of
Japanese aesthetics, in poetry we observe the reverse, i. e.
the tendency toward a rigidly regulated rhythmic form in all
genres, from the classical to the folk and popular (e. g. imayo
and kouta). This results in an unequivocal solution to the
problem of lexical selection, leading to the total domination
of the traditional wabun (native Japanese) lexicon in shintaishi
poetry. However, even in the heyday of classical shintaishi we
can occasionally find in the poems of some authors the so-called
“mixed style” (wakankongoshi) where kango (Chinese-derived
vocabulary) would slip in. This fact reveals the poets’ natural
desire to expand and enrich their vocabulary, using the internal
resources of the Japanese language.
One of the participants in the discourse on the literary
problems of the late 1880s, Ikebukuro Seifu, published in the
journal Kokumin no tomo in 1889 a long essay entitled “Criticism
of Shintaishi” (Shintaishi hihyo), in which he urged poets to
clear their lexicon of kango, to learn from classical choka and
folk songs, and to make a careful distinction between refined
words (gaji) and vulgar ones (zokugo). These suggestions
were accepted by the majority of shintaishi poets, which
again shows the influence of tradition on the young literati,
who were seemingly so eager to liberate themselves from the
canon. Actually, as the history of modern Japanese literature
attests, the passionate desire to acquire access to Western
civilization (even at the cost of sacrificing the indigenous
culture), which was especially typical of the writers of the early
Meiji era, was always of a rather abstract nature. For these
writers their national identity was always concrete enough,
as was their understanding of the basic differences between
Western and Eastern aesthetics and poetics. Seifu, accepting
the necessity of poetry reform in general, recommended that
poets follow, wherever possible, the lead of the old masters, as
“the people of Japan and China enjoy natural beauty (tennen
3. THE WAY TO NEW POETRY 115
no bi), while the Europeans and the Americans are always
in search of an artificially reproduced beauty (sakui no bi)”
[34, v. 2, 96].
Some shintaishi poets who wanted to imitate the ancient
authors or incorrectly interpreted the essence of folk poetry
did in fact try to take the path of reviving the choka. Besides
Sasaki Nobutsuna’s early experiments, history has preserved
some works by Ochiai Naobumi, Nakamura Akika, Owada
Kenjyu, and Onakamura Yoshizo. Nowadays these imitations
of choka have no artistic value. They were accepted by contem-
poraries with reticence as poems in which “the ideas, spirit,
and rhythmic structure are archaic” [45, 188]. This outcome
was quite natural, as in literature the principle “the new is just
the well forgotten old” can hardly lead to the emergence of
true masterpieces.
Nevertheless, the attention of young poets was drawn to
the ancient literary forms, as there was much there to adopt for
shintaishi poetics. As the renowned Russian poet and scholar of
verse V. Bryusov put it,
The gazella, the canzone, the Japanese tanka (here any
other stable verse form could be included.—A. D.)—all of
them have been tested by centuries and are acknowledged
as perfect structures consisting of a certain number of
rhythmic lines that present an ideal combination of formal
balance and imagery to express feelings and reflections
[364, v. 2, 313].
Hence probably comes the Romanticists’ interest in the works
of the haiku poets, their excessive fascination with the ancient
choka and tanka, and finally their debilitating attachment to
traditional metric patterns.
Ultimately, the answer to the question as to why the 5–7
meter was preserved in the period of Romanticism should
probably be sought in the analysis of the tone and melody of
shintaishi verse and its gradual transformation. Under tone we
imply only the tone system, i. e. the combination of intonation
116 Part 1. THE ROMANTICIST IDEALS
units embodied in syntax. In this case, intonation acts not as
a language phenomenon but as a phenomenon of poetic style,
and consequently we consider its role in poetic composition but
not its phonetic nature.
Classical shintaishi verse, as well as choka, presents a lyrical
poem of the melodic type where intonation is the dominating
element. In the Japanese language this feature is aggravated
by tone accent. As the intonation segments actually represent
the grouping of speech elements in accordance with accent,
the marking of some metric group as a unit is the simplest
and the basic thing to do [473, 54]. In shintaishi this is, as a rule,
a 12-syllable group in two versions: 5–7 and 7–5. Melodic lyrical
poetry, to which we can rank the ancient classical and folk
Japanese poetry (as well as the ancient poetry of many other
countries) is based only on metric verse of fixed form (teikeishi)
and necessarily contains the musical element. In the case of
Japan and its system of prosody, the 5–7 meter was always
the most preferable, and this confirms once again the general
rule of melodic lyrical poetry: “Rhythmic mobility more likely
contradicts the principle of tone and melody than helps it. Not
wonder . . . the periods of development of melodic style coincide
with the flourishing . . . of some meters, the rhythmic variety of
which is very much limited” [386, 332].
It is a fact universally acknowledged that the poets of
European Romanticism, who created within the limits of
classical meters brilliant samples of harmony, aspired towards
melodiousness and musicality. German Romanticism, for
example, generated a cult of music, as the development of
melodic lyrical poetry was naturally accompanied by the desire
to spread the “spirit of music”. Both in the West and in Japan,
the musical image was appreciated by Romanticists due to its
lack of overt didacticism and its ability to evoke high feelings
and reflect “the languor of the soul”. The musical image could
also serve as the best means for the transfer of the harmonious
unity of color, sound, and word, which was a major principle of
both Romanticist and Symbolist poetry.
3. THE WAY TO NEW POETRY 117
If we take a poem by Shelley, “Eolian Harp” by Coleridge or
any example from the collection Les Feuilles d’automne (Autumn
Leaves) by Hugo, we will feel everywhere the element of
music influencing and enriching the poetry. The harmony of
the rhythm emphasizes the author’s powerful imagination. In
European poetry there are various ways to improve the musical
arrangement of a verse: variations of the meter, euphony,
alliteration and assonance, and numerous other compositional
techniques (anaphora, epiphora, repetition, etc.).
The specific features of the phonetic structure of the
Japanese language preclude the use of many of the musical
techniques mentioned above. However, there are some means
to compensate for this. Thus, the majority of the scholars
consider that Japanese poetry is completely deprived of rhyme
but that it possesses rich euphonic capabilities. However,
G. Bonneau, assuming that Japanese verse has alliteration,
assonance, and sound repetitions, includes rhyme along with
them: “I assert that in the Japanese language there are not only
sound repetitions similar to our rhyme, but also real instinctive
rhyme, prompted by the syllabic nature of Japanese verse” [234,
33]. As an example Bonneau presents a tanka from the Kokinshu
where the syllables no-do-wo and zu-mu are said to be rhymed.
In this connection, the Japanese literary critic Seki Ryoichi
comments: “Sometimes the lines in a poem involuntarily end
with the same vowel or even with the same syllable due to the
limited phonetic nature of the Japanese language. Probably, it
results in some sort of primitive rhyme (tanchona kyakuin)” [160,
16]. Still, except for the occasional poor rhyme, Japanese poetry
does not have real rhyme. The attempts to introduce it in the
Meiji period failed due to the specific phonetic features of the
language. “The beauty of the Japanese verse is in alliteration,
assonance, and in euphony (kuchuin)” [234, 13].
The Japanese Romanticists concentrated their efforts, above
all, on the development of verse structure, its composition
(a result of the acquaintance with European poetry), on the
expansion of tropes, and on the careful observance of 5–7 meter
118 Part 1. THE ROMANTICIST IDEALS

(with some variations), without which a shintaishi verse would

simply dissolve into a chaos of concepts and sounds. The very
fact that shintaishi appeared to be the only adequate form for
4 KITAMURA TOKOKU—
IN SEARCH OF
the poets of Romanticism presents an evident demonstration A MAGIC LAND
of the rule of conformity between the form of the work of art
and its content. Such an outcome, certainly, could not have
been the result of logical analysis or theoretical research alone.
Rather, the emergence of Romantic shintaishi would not have
been possible without the experiments undertaken by poets
themselves.

Numerous participants in the movement for “new-style

poetry” helped lay a solid foundation for the emergence of
the Romanticist school in poetry through their poetic experi-
ments and essays on literature. For the new, post-restoration
trends in Japanese art, the 1880s was a period of stabilization,
during which their respective credos were developed. Still, the
pre-Romanticist period did not produce any brilliant examples
of creative individuality capable of rallying the young literati
and mounting a talented and original challenge to classical
poetry1.
Kitamura Tokoku (1868–1894) was a forerunner of the new
art and the leader of the Romanticist school both in the field of
theory and poetic practice. As Ito Shinkichi put it,

In using the notions of “poems”, “poetry”, and “poetic

spirit” in connection with Tokoku, we refer not just to
a poet, but to a person who shaped the literary trend of his
epoch and disclosed the spirit of modern poetry and literary
criticism to his compatriots [137, v. 26, 13].

Tokoku’s overwhelming influence on the poets of Japanese

Romanticism can be explained not only by his poetic talent, but

1 The only exception might be Mori Ogai, but his poetic interests were

focused on translation.
120 Part 1. THE ROMANTICIST IDEALS
also by the magnetism of his personality. His short life devoted
to the struggle for humanist ideals and his dramatic suicide
provide the perfect stereotype of the Romanticist poet. His
name in Japan evokes the same romantic image that adheres
to the names of Western poets such as Byron, Shelley, Keats,
Lermontov, Petöfi, and Poe, all of whom also died young.
Perhaps it is this image that enables the influence of such poets
to extend not only through geographic space but also through
time, allowing them to become intermediaries between cultures
and sources of inspiration for poets of later periods. Yet it is in
the literature of his home country that the image and literary
works of a poet preserve their influence longest. Thus, in
Japan during the period of Romanticism, the figures of Byron
and Shelley were extremely popular, but they were replaced
a decade later by other idols. In contrast, the influence of
Tokoku, who was a truly national poet, would continue in
Japanese literature for many decades.
A short but concise characterization of Tokoku’s creative
activity is provided by Kimura Ki, a specialist in Meiji culture:
Tokoku, who died at the age of twenty seven, unfortunately
did not leave any great masterpiece in the true sense of
the word, but his articles and essays are still invaluable.
He was a poet of sharp observation; his literary works and
his social criticism were excellent—they always managed
to penetrate into the essence of an object instead of sliding
around on the surface [288, 146].
Scholars have evaluated Tokoku’s role in the development of
modern Japanese literature in various ways. Some believe that
his main merit was his aspiration to embody in literature the
concepts of the “Movement for Freedom and People’s Rights”
[151, 190]. Other scholars praise his efforts at deconstructing
the traditional Confucian principle of “encouraging good and
punishing evil” (kanzen choaku) in Japanese literature [209, 75].
Some assert that his major contribution was the promotion of
the freedom of spirit and pure love [46, 44], while still others
4. KITAMURA TOKOKU—IN SEARCH OF A MAGIC LAND 121
appreciate his active resistance to the pseudo-classicism of the
Kenyusha group [53, 44]2. Despite the differences in evaluation,
the majority of scholars agree that the “modernization of
Japanese verse started with Tokoku” [185, 125]. Since in this
book we have not set ourselves the goal of analyzing all aspects
of Tokoku’s literary activity, we shall focus primarily on his
most characteristic poetic works, those that had a direct impact
on the formation of the poetry of Romanticism.
During his short life Tokoku applied his talents in various
genres: publicist sketches, literary criticism, literary biography,
historical and cultural research, essays, epistolary messages in
prose, tanka, haiku, poetic drama, and shintaishi verse. However,
among his poetic experiments only several works of his late
period can be called really successful, at least for his time.
As for the traditional genres, all of Tokoku’s tanka and
haiku, which were written in his youth during the second half
of the 1880s, are sheer imitations born out of his infatuation
with the classics. Tokoku’s first serious attempt to create
poetry in new forms was a long poem entitled “The Poem of
a Captive” (Soshu no shi), published in 1889. The poem, which
consists of sixteen parts, presents variations on the theme of
Byron’s “The Prisoner of Chillon”. Like Byron’s poem, it is also
structured as a monologue. Critics suggest that the motivation
for writing the poem may have been the arrest of some of
Tokoku’s friends and fellow participants in the Movement
for Freedom and People’s Rights. The poem criticizes unjust
laws and glorifies the “eternal spirit of the chainless mind”,
thus echoing Byron’s masterpiece. In the poem the evil that
the hero confronts takes on a real appearance in the flesh. This
evil, however, which is associated with oppression, can be
opposed and defeated.
2 Tokoku’s life and creative activity have been analyzed in such works
as Shioda Ryohei’s Kitamura Tokoku (1932) and Odagiri Hideo’s Kitamura
Tokoku and the Development of Contemporary Literature (Tokoku to kindai
bungaku no seiritsu, 1954). As far as I am aware, there are no specialized
works on Tokoku’s poetry.
122 Part 1. THE ROMANTICIST IDEALS
Kitamura
Tokoku
The poem in general is optimistic and reflects Tokoku’s ideas
at the beginning of his literary activities. Regarding its form,
however, “The Poem of a Captive” is still rather imperfect.
In its metrics, although the tendency to use 7–5 meter is
noticeable, 7–5–5, 7–4, and 5–4 meters often occur, which gives
an impression of confusion instead of the graceful harmony
intended by the author. The diction, rich in kango and dazzling
with archaisms, complicates and hinders the perception of the
meaning. Finally, the many emotional outbursts of the character
come across as naïve, at least for the modern reader. An expert
in Romanticist poetry of the Meiji period, Hinatsu Konosuke,
regards the poem as “little more than a collection of absolute
defects” [34, v. 2, 161]. The failure of the poem can be attributed
to Tokoku’s lack of experience, but it also reflects the low level
of shintaishi technical developments at the time.
Tokoku’s only outstanding poetic work is the verse drama
The Song of a Magic Land (Horaikyoku)3, published in 1891. The
Song of a Magic Land is the exact antithesis to the positive and
3 Horai (Chinese: Penlai) is the name of a legendary mountain on
an island floating in the ocean; according to Chinese beliefs it is the home of
the immortals.
4. KITAMURA TOKOKU—IN SEARCH OF A MAGIC LAND 123
hopeful “The Poem of a Captive”. It is perhaps the gloomiest
example of Romanticist dramatic art ever written. Some scholars
assert that it has to be analyzed as a free interpretation (yakuan)
of Byron’s poetic drama Manfred [54, 101]. Tohoku would have
been familiar with Manfred from the translation of a fragment
of it in the popular collection of poetic translations from the
European classics, Vestiges, edited by Mori Ogai and published
in 1887. He may even have known the original. There can be
no doubt that Manfred provided a source for Tokoku’s drama.
The overwhelming grief and misanthropic moods of the main
character, Yanagida Motoo, seem in particular to be indebted
to Byron’s work. However, it would be incorrect to trace the
tendencies found in Tokoku’s work to the influence of Manfred
alone, as the plot and composition have very little in common
with Byron’s drama.
In The Song of a Magic Land the evil forces that the character
confronts are of a universal nature, extending to the macrocosm
(Devil) and microcosm (i. e., the inner world of the character
himself). Yanagida Motoo suffers from the perversity of the
world around, from the dreariness and emptiness of life, and
from his own deplorable weaknesses:
I wish I could fall asleep on a bed of light-winged cicadas!
But even in sleep only the eyes will be quiet—
The heart does not doze, eternally grieving, eternally mourning
And damning the inconstancy of the world4.
Motoo is disappointed in faith, in people, in hope, and in his
love for the beautiful Tsuyu-hime. Still, while damning life, he
cannot give up his love and sympathy for people:
The people doze everywhere in a gloom
Under the power of the Devil,
And only I on my bed spill tears like dew, mourning them . . .
4 Here and elsewhere Kitamura Tokoku’s poetic works are quoted in [88].
124 Part 1. THE ROMANTICIST IDEALS
Motoo is not a romantic “super hero”; there is a softness
and sentimentality in his character, which emerge from the
“sensitive emotional outbursts” of Tokoku’s personal poetic
style.
Tokoku’s softness [amasa] is a reflection of the youth of the
epoch, of his own youth . . . This “softness” was one of the
creative possibilities discovered by Tokoku for modern
literature. Meanwhile, many literary critics failed to sense
the “softness” filling The Song of a Magic Land, emphasizing
only its gloomy nature [kurasa] and severity [kibishisa]
instead [46, 309].
Eventually, in the collision of love and hatred, love wins,
and Motoo challenges the vicious Devil in combat. Seeing his
weakness and being unable to offer his help to the suffering, he
welcomes death in despair:
Oh death! Come sooner with a smile!
Come, come, pierce me with your needles!
All is growing boredom;
I have comprehended the essence of things . . .
And I am leaving . . . You, death—already . . .
Oh death, I love you!
Death, nothing is easier . . .
Farewell!
In the basic conflict of the drama and in the motivation
of the protagonist’s actions we can obviously perceive the
influence of such works as Milton’s Paradise Lost, Byron’s Cain,
and Shelley’s Prometheus Unbound. One other source for the
drama was Goethe’s great masterpiece, of which Tokoku wrote:
“Applauding Faust, I decided to create my interpretation of that
work . . .” [88, v. 9, 249].
Nowhere else is exposed with such force Tokoku’s inner
world, his aspiration for the ideal of “spiritual freedom”, his
love for mankind and hatred of bourgeois reality, and the
4. KITAMURA TOKOKU—IN SEARCH OF A MAGIC LAND 125
incessant torments that led the poet to his tragic end. In his
recollection of Tokoku, Shimazaki Toson wrote:
“Rebellious spirit” (doyo seshin) is the term that can be
applied to Kitamura-kun [i. e. Tokoku]. He would drink sake
with his friends and then go to write about Shakespeare’s
dramas, spend all night over articles on modern literature,
and then next day go to perform missionary work. That
was Tokoku . . . In his soul the struggle between deep
religiousness and the “freedom of spirit” never ceased [137,
v. 26, 14].
The echoes of this struggle are heard in The Song of a Magic
Land.
Tokoku attached great importance to his drama, considering
its publication to be the beginning of a new stage in the history
of Japanese literature. Using an allegorical image, he wrote in
the preface:
“From time immemorial the magic mountain Horai has
been an invariable source of poetic spirit in the Great East.
It gives inspiration to the peasant, and thanks to it a student
becomes a poet, just as I was turned by it to poetry . . .” [88,
v. 9, 260]
Tokoku’s hopes partially came true. The Song of a Magic Land
created a stir and found an appreciative resonance in poetic
circles, though due to its excessive complexity it did not spawn
any imitations and never could become a real classic.
Designed as a drama in verse, The Song of a Magic Land was
not meant by the author to be performed. Perhaps the reason
for this was the absence of a modern theatre in Japan capable
of staging such a piece. In writing the play, Tokoku may have
been motivated by the desire to create a lengthy verse form
on the European model. His own words on the topic—“My
rather complicated poetic style perhaps deserves to be called
shi, perhaps not; but anyway, that does not worry me” [88, v. 9,
126 Part 1. THE ROMANTICIST IDEALS
260]—suggest that he did not intend to adhere to the classical
shintaishi form that had already taken a definite shape by this
time. As in “The Poem of a Captive”, the rhythm in The Song of
a Magic Land is characterized by a certain liberty, but it largely
keeps to a 7–5–5, 7–5 metric pattern.
The Song of a Magic Land is the only poetic work by Tokoku
in which his understanding of the concept of tragedy as
based on the theory of European drama is presented to a full
extent. The themes of the choice between good and evil and
the responsibility of the individual for the destiny of mankind
disappear in his late poems, giving way to Buddhist tolerance
and detachment. Thus, The Song of a Magic Land, despite its
technical drawbacks, can be called in a way the apogee of
Tokoku’s literary career.
One of the mysteries of Tokoku’s biography is the strange
divergence between the mood of the essays written during his
last years, which continue to proclaim the desperate struggle
for liberty, and that of his scarce lyrical poems of the same
period, which are full of bitter disappointment and monastic
humility. An even more striking contrast can be seen between
these poems and the poems preceding them.
The reasons for Tokoku’s spiritual crises should be sought
primarily in the writer’s inner world. In the last years of his
life, Tokoku not only started to feel sharply the discrepancy
between his efforts and their results, he also had doubts
whether the way he had chosen was indeed the correct one. He
felt that his attempts to glorify spiritual life to the detriment
of “the instincts” eventually hinders the comprehension of
nature and contradicts the principle of internal harmony,
just as the reckless infatuation with Western culture can be
damaging to native culture. His fanatic belief in the correctness
of the Christian worldview began to reel, undermined by
the traditional polytheistic view of nature and by a new,
profound, and coherent perception of art, best revealed in his
essay “Voices of Nature and the Poet” (Banbutsu no koe to
4. KITAMURA TOKOKU—IN SEARCH OF A MAGIC LAND 127
shijin): “Religion is perfect and universal, but isn’t art perfect
and universal? Therefore, some divergence between art and
religion is inevitable” [88, v. 9, 239].
Tokoku’s despair becomes evident in his famous essay
“On the Inner Life”, and in his lyrical pre-death revelation,
“Meditations of One Evening” (Isseki kan):
Looking at myself, I see only my body, and peering more
deeply, I am struck by a huge gap between myself and
nature. Its destiny is immortality, my destiny is ageing,
illnesses, and death. I am so ashamed of my vulnerability
when I compare it with the freshness, beauty, and gentleness
of nature!.. When it is sad I feel sad myself; when it sings,
I begin to sing myself . . . But if one looks at everything
differently, then one will see that nature does not exist in
the same way as I do. In nature there is only the boundless,
far-distant sky with its uncountable stars [88, v. 9, 242].
More and more he becomes preoccupied with the thought that
“everything in nature is filled with life and feelings” [88, v. 9,
233]. Giving up the anthropocentric Christian worldview, he
gradually realizes that “nature is a huge ocean, and a person
is but a tiny drifting islet in it” [88, v. 9, 239]. Not only does he
start to hear the “voices of nature” (banbutsu no koe), but he also
feels that “the seas and the continents, mountains and waters,
are the part of the soul [kokoro], and the soul is their element”
[88, v. 9, 238]. However, such a fusion with nature for Tokoku
was possible only as an ideal. As Yoshida Seiichi justifiably
observes, “to achieve full interpenetration of the individual
and nature, it is necessary to apprehend both of them fully.
Tokoku knew everything possible about the human soul, but
his knowledge of the essence of ‘great nature’ was not so deep”
[62, 212].
His doubts and fluctuations, his feelings awakened by
nature, Tokoku would try to express these in poems that did
not match the form of heroic or romantic poetry. Love and
nature had to acquire a voice in this new poetry, the poetry of
128 Part 1. THE ROMANTICIST IDEALS
the inner world. Tokoku’s love poetry is limited to two or three
poems, of which perhaps only one, “I Approach the Pavilion of
the Old Wisteria” (Kotoan ni enki su), is worthy of attention, as
it became the beginning of a new tradition of lyricism in Japan.
In general, Tokoku’s experiments in this genre might seem
too naïve and sentimental, but in his case the background to
such poetry was not naïve at all.
A poet does not live for his own self, he is born for the
mystery that surrounds him. The poet’s voice is the voice
of the small universe surrounding him . . . He is the only one
who can express the grief and pleasures of the world . . . The
autumn cicadas unburden their grief to a poet, the birds
from heaven sing to him about their freedom . . . The whole
universe is only art, and who but a poet is able to present
this miracle to the people? [88, v. 9, 240]
In art Tokoku would try to find the way to the human heart,
and at the same time he sought in it that fusion of the “natural”
(nature) and the “supernatural” (divinity), which alone could
provide consolation for all the sorrows of life and provide
a basis for improving and ennobling humankind. But the source
of art, according to Tokoku, is always in life at large: “Things in
nature possess a voice. And if they have a voice, it means that
they have their music” [88, v. 9, 237]. We see the reflection of
this concept in his poem “Playing the Lute” (Dankin), which
contains also the echo of some of Wordsworth’s ideas.
In his essay “Ideas and Dreams” (Sosho to kuuso), Tokoku
writes: “A person, who does not listen to the beautiful and
wonderful music of another world becomes an animal un-
worthy of life . . . Therefore, even an innocent baby listens to the
sounds of music, and a coarse peasant imitates the whistling of
birds” [89, v. 2, 132]. In Tokoku’s later works we perceive more
and more often a conception of nature as the primary basis of
creativity. This is a result both of the influence of the native
tradition and the poet’s acquaintance with the poetry of English
Romanticism.
4. KITAMURA TOKOKU—IN SEARCH OF A MAGIC LAND 129
The theme of Coleridge’s “Eolian Harp” is typical for Tokoku
in his later period and is reflected in his notion of the “voices of
things”: “In the universal space there is a harp that has an echo
for everything: the sufferings, hardships, and pleasures of the
people find a voice in the tunes of that harp” [88, v. 9, 238].
A poet, according to Tokoku, is similar to the “Eolian Harp”.
He responds to the voices of things and people, turning them
into the beautiful music. This concept was appealing for the
poets of the new generation, who eagerly developed it in their
works. However, in the “music” of Tokoku’s verse there is not
a single joyful sound.
Beginning in 1891, Tokoku wrote the poems in the
form of shintaishi that actually constitute his major lyrical
heritage. These include “The Song of an Earthworm” (Mimizu
no uta, 1891), “Snowfall” (Yuki ga fure, 1892), and several
others. All of them are sustained in gloomy tones and leave
the impression of hopeless despair. This is “poetry of a new
type filled with sufferings that have deep roots in life as their
basis” [38, 250].
In “Snowfall”, images depicting nature are still immature
and rare to find. Man is opposed to the abstract cruel world,
where there is no place for the weak and the destitute. The
main character of the poem, lonely and homeless, wanders all
over the world, filled with sorrows and rejected by people. He
has only one wish:
Not to wake up
Any more,
To fall asleep blissfully
On a sad grassy headboard.
The shadow of death, symbolizing the triumph of evil, is
always present in Tokoku’s poems. Tokoku’s followers, led
by Shimazaki Toson, who picked up and developed the theme
of romantic wanderings, were more optimistic. They did not
sympathize with this praising of death, and therefore romantic
130 Part 1. THE ROMANTICIST IDEALS
pessimism in the form of a focus on the topic of death in the
poetry of Japanese Romanticism remained a distinctive feature
of Tokoku’s lyricism alone.
A passionate Romanticist, a devout Christian, and the author
of grief-filled poetry, Tokoku eventually returned to the sources
of the indigenous tradition, to the lap of Buddhist beliefs. His
theory of the “voices of things” reflects primarily the Buddhist
concept that all living things possess a soul and the ability to
be transformed after death. Thus, according to Tokoku, the
animated images of insects and plants can express the sad
destiny of humankind best of all. Why insects and plants?
Certainly it is because they are the symbols of ephemerality,
of the extreme caducity and fragility of human life. The bulk
of Tokoku’s poems, in fact, represents a version of traditional
Sino-Japanese poetry in the style of “flowers, birds, wind and
moon” (kachofugetsu)5, but the poems do have some differences
typical only of sentimental-romantic poetry, and they also
contain an innovative lyrical note.
In Tokoku’s poems there is a relative relaxation of emotions,
a “sensitiveness” typical of the poetry of Sentimentalism. There
is also a willingness to diverge from the strict canon of poetic
techniques and an effort to apply the experience accumulated
by earlier poets of the shintaishi movement. These factors helped
promote the popularity of Tokoku’s poems, which were the first
examples of professional sentimental-romantic poetry in the
history of Japanese literature. The style elaborated by Tokoku
gained wide recognition among the Romanticists.
Tokoku’s poetry is remarkable for its emotional reflection
and the psychological approach in the arrangement of poetic
images. As for the poetic form, the specific feature of his style
can be seen in the metonymical depiction of a feeling as a self-
sufficient experience. Tokoku’s poetry, the most representative
of the style that served actually as the foundation for shintaishi,
5 The style of “flowers, birds, wind, and moon,” which has its roots in
Chinese antiquity, was widely spread in classical poetry and art.
4. KITAMURA TOKOKU—IN SEARCH OF A MAGIC LAND 131
gave some critics reason to call the leader of Japanese Roman-
ticism “a dreamer and a melancholic” [290, 118], which he in
fact never was.
The characteristic features of Tokoku’s poetry are better
expressed by four poems in the genre of “flowers and birds”
that formed a small elegiac cycle: “Glowworm” (Hotaru),
“The Way of the Butterfly” (Cho no yukue), “Separation of
Two Butterflies” (Socho no wakare), and “Sleeping Butterfly”
(Nemureru cho). Written one year prior to the poet’s suicide, at
the time when he was publishing fiery essays one after another,
these poems contain a foreshadowing of his tragic end.
According to Homma Hisao, they “demonstrate the poet’s
bitter fatalism. If we ponder the motives behind his suicide, it
will become obvious that this last step was a result of the same
bitter fatalism which Tokoku applied to life and which fills his
poetry” [40, v. 2, 389].
From the description of aimless and careless wanderings in
“Glowworm” and “The Way of the Butterfly”, Tokoku passes
to the topic of separation. In the poems one can perceive the
feeling of doom, the approach of death destined by “fate” or
by “God” (kami). The helplessness of the living falling prey to
relentless fate is the basic theme of the cycle. Turning to the
words of his favorite poet of ancient times, Saigyo, Tokoku
tries to comprehend the “secret meaning of things” (yugen),
to merge with the world of nature: “When the flowers laugh,
I laugh together with them, when they drop, I will fall down
with them” [88, v. 9, 238].
The stylistics of the poems are typical of the sentimental-
romantic trend: images of autumn dominate, and the events, as
a rule, take place at twilight. The poetic techniques serve the
basic aim of expressing a presentiment of the withering and
death of the frail world. With special care the author chooses
“sensitive” epithets depicting the signs of coming autumn: the
“ice-cold” (samushi) wind and “lonely” (sabishi) meadows of
“Separation of Two Butterflies”, the “sad” (kanashi) songs of the
cicadas in “Sleeping Butterfly”. As an antithesis to the gloomy
132 Part 1. THE ROMANTICIST IDEALS
landscape, the author presents the carefree butterflies by means
of complicated verbs of motion: “turning in a dance” (“mai
yuku”), and “flits carelessly” (“tazunete mayou”) in “The Way
of the Butterfly”, and “wandering flies” (“mayoi izuru”) and
“drink-revels” (“yoi yoi”) in the dew in “Sleeping Butterfly”.
As concerns their lexical-rhythmic composition, Tokoku’s
poems present classical examples of shintaishi, written in pure
wabun and for the most part in 7–5 meter. This refers only to
the cycle on butterflies, as earlier Tokoku experimented with
the use of other meters; for example, 7–7 in the ominous and
mystical “Dance of the Skulls” (Dokuro mai), a rather weak
imitation of the “demonic” poetry of European Romanticism,
and 7–5–5 in “The Song of an Earthworm”.
It is possible that the idea of creating allegoric images in
the style of “flowers and birds” occurred to Tokoku through
his acquaintance with a basic feature of Chinese shi poetry,
the principle of zito (“sense shifting”). In any case, the
influence of Chinese poetry on Tokoku’s work should not be
underestimated, taking into consideration his infatuation with
the classics of the Tang and Song dynasties6 and with the earlier
poetry of Tao Yuanming7.
The romantic pessimism of Tokoku possessed such
magnetism for the literary-minded youth of the time that it
became the basis of the Japanese Romanticist school, then
emerging around the experiments in shintaishi verse. Having
opened a window into the intimate spiritual world of their
leader and guru, Tokoku’s late poems, full of the anticipation
of death and followed soon by the suicide of the author himself,
made a strong impression upon his fellow Romanticists. Now
they could appreciate the depth of his words: “In the world
of joy there are few people of passion. Passion is a friend
of misfortune. Passion is a neighbor of grief” [88, v. 9, 232].
Tokoku’s swan song continued to excite the minds of his
6 The Song period (10th—13th C).
7 Tao Yuanming lived 365–427.
4. KITAMURA TOKOKU—IN SEARCH OF A MAGIC LAND 133
followers and admirers for many years after his death, as did
his legendary image.
In nasty weather, when the sky is full of clouds, suddenly
the clouds will break and the lightning instantly die. The
same happens in society. In the midst of the storm a poet
suddenly appears and with his own shining heart shows
people the way out of the darkness. Kitamura Tokoku was
such a poet [407, 108].
THE WORLD OF POETRY
AFTER TOKOKU’S DEATH
The success of the activities of the Bungakukai group in the years
1893–1894 provided a stimulus for the formation of other poetic
associations of a Romanticist bent. Although the poets who
were members of these groups can be characterized as minor
and their works do not represent real artistic value for the
modern reader, they do reflect original features of the literary
life of the period.
One of the most influential poetic associations was that
which grew up around the Tokyo Imperial University journal
Teikoku bungaku (“Imperial Literature”), established in 1895.
The Teikoku bungaku group played an important role in the
development of poetry in the late 1890s. It included: the poets
Takejima Hagoromo and Shioi Uko; Inoue Tetsujiro, one of
authors and editors of the historic first collection of new-style
verse, Shintaishisho (1882); the distinguished literary critic
Takayama Chogyu; and a future star of Romanticist shintaishi
poetry, Doi Bansui. The basic orientation of the group was
the return to antiquity. Infatuated by the successful growth of
the newly emerged Japanese Empire, the members of Teikoku
bungaku, imitating the patriotic undertakings of the scholars of
the “Nativist School” (kokugaku) of the Edo period, tried to find
in history and in mythology the grounds for the divine origin of
Japan and its role in world history.
134 Part 1. THE ROMANTICIST IDEALS
The real popularity of Teikoku bungaku was not the result
of the mediocre poetry it produced, but the talented, though
often tendentious, articles and critical reviews by Takayama
Chogyu. It was these essays that had a decisive impact on the
formation of the nationalistic trend of “Japanism” (kokkashugi)
in poetry.
Chogyu, definitely a man of talent, changed his preferences
many times. In the beginning of his literary career, from 1895
to 1896, he adhered to Romanticist views very close to those
of the Bungakukai group. In his article “On the Ethical Ideal”
(Dotoku riso o ronzu, 1895), he defends the value of the
individual and the necessity of freedom of spirit. However,
Chogyu also asserted that morals were the basis of both the
inner world of a person and of society at large. Considering
metaphysically the state headed by the emperor to be the
embodiment of morality, he thereby, following the Confucian
tradition, subordinated the interests of the individual to the
interests of the empire. In this point, Chogyu’s concept of
personality was completely different from that of Tokoku, and
it helped prepare the ground for the emergence of a quasi-
patriotic nationalist trend in Romanticism. From 1897, after
the end of the Sino-Japanese war, Chogyu’s views were rather
widely accepted among conservative writers. In 1901, however,
Chogyu himself departed from Japanism and turned to the
worship of Nietzsche.
Another group, this one associated with Waseda Univer-
sity, was very close to Teikoku bungaku. Established in 1896,
it existed for less than two years, breaking up after the pub-
lication of its only collective anthology, Songs of Evening
Crickets (Matsumushi, suzumushi). The members of the Waseda
group, which included the poets Miki Tenryo and Shigeno
Tenrai, supported the preservation in poetry of the “national
essence” and, above all, “Japanese sensitivity”. Their poetic
experiments in the field of shintaishi are in an exaggerated form
that reproduces the manner of Tokoku’s elegies on flowers and
butterflies. By 1897, after the publication of Shimazaki Toson’s
4. KITAMURA TOKOKU—IN SEARCH OF A MAGIC LAND 135
collection Young Grasses, the naïve works of the Waseda poets
could no longer satisfy readers.
The appearance of Toson’s Young Grasses coincides with one
more event in the poetry world of the period—the publication
of the Romanticist shintaishi anthology Lyrics (Jojoshi) by the
members of the Kokumin-ha (“The People’s school”) affiliated
with the Kokumin shimbun (“People’s Newspaper”). It was this
collection that introduced into circulation the term “lyrical
poetry” (jojoshi) for the first time.
The most remarkable section of the anthology is the part
written by the brilliant Kunikida Doppo8 and entitled “Songs
of a Lonely Wanderer” (Doppo gin). This includes Doppo’s
famous poem “Freedom Lives in the Mountains and Forests”
(Jiyu wa sanrin ni sonsu):
“Freedom lives in mountains and forests!” —
These words make the blood boil.
Freedom lives in mountains and forests—
Why am I not there?
I have chosen a path of mundane vanity,
I have spent years in the dusty city,
My native land is thousands of leagues away,
Where the mountain tops are covered with snow . . .
This poem, despite some imperfections in the meter and
a surplus of kango, has been included among the list of master-
pieces of Japanese Romanticist poetry along with the best
works of Shimazaki Toson and Doi Bansui [57, 16]. Lines from
the poem are even engraved on a memorial to Doppo in Chiba
Prefecture. “Freedom Lives in the Mountains and Forests” was
written in 1895 when Doppo, after leaving the capital, went
with his sweetheart, Sasajiro Nobuko, to Hokkaido in search
8 The monograph by T. P. Grigoryeva is devoted to Kunikida Doppo’s
life and creative work, but does not deal with Doppo’s poetry.
136 Part 1. THE ROMANTICIST IDEALS 4. KITAMURA TOKOKU—IN SEARCH OF A MAGIC LAND 137

of a romantic “dwelling place of freedom”. This was in fact the introduction of spaces between words only complicated
the beginning of the trend of “hometown poetry” (furusato no comprehension. What is more, Homei’s poetic talent left much
shi) in Romanticist shintaishi verse. It was a trend to which the to be desired, and thus in the history of Japanese literature he is
majority of poets of the time paid tribute. Doppo, who in the mid much more famous as the author of critical works and articles
1890s was under the strong influence of Wordsworth, shared on poetry than as a poet. Subsequently Homei joined the circle
the view of nature as a wise tutor that heals man’s soul. The associated with the journal Myojo.
poems included in “Songs of a Lonely Wanderer” are hymns This, then, was in general the poetic world which provided
to nature in all its forms: to the seas and rivers, the mountains the background against which the literary activities of the most
and valleys, the flowers and grasses, and to the clouds and the talented masters of Japanese Romanticism would develop.
sun. Toson and the late Romanticists developed this theme of
Doppo’s in their own works. Perhaps if he had continued to
write poetry Doppo, whose “Songs of a Lonely Wanderer” still
reveals a certain immaturity in the poet’s talent, would have
achieved even greater success. As it is, comparison with the
poetry of Toson’s Young Grasses, which appeared at the same
time, does not turn out in Doppo’s favour.
Very similar in spirit to the poetry of Doppo and other poets
of the Kokumin-ha were the works by members of the Bunko
(“Small Library”) association. The official date of the formation
of this group is considered to be 1895, the year when the journal
Shonen Bunko (“Small Library for Youth”) was established. In
1889 it was renamed simply Bunko. The group included some
renowned poets of the time: Kawai Suimei, Yokose Yau, and
Irako Seihaku. Each of them published several collections of
shintaishi poems and, according to the critics, “managed to
develop their own, comparatively original style, and to create
many interesting works” [169, 285].
Among the poets of the Bunko association the name of Iwano
Homei seems worthy of special mention. In his numerous poetry
collections, The Frozen Dew (Tsuyujimo), Evening Tide (Yujio),
Sad Love, Sad Songs (Hiren hika), published at the beginning of
the twentieth century, Homei tries to bring the form of shintaishi
as close to European verse as possible. He strictly observed
rules of punctuation, for the first time introduced the separation
of words in writing, and mastered non-standard meters.
However, for a Japanese reader the abundant punctuation and

5 SHIMAZAKI TOSON
AND “THE GOLDEN AGE”
OF SHINTAISHI
THE EMERGENCE OF A BARD
The work of Kitamura Tokoku had brought new life to shintaishi
Romanticist poetry. “The romantic revival”, as well as any
movement during the development of a new national culture,
generated many masterpieces. The collections of poems by
Shimazaki Toson (1872–1943) definitely count among them.
It would not be an exaggeration to say that studying
Toson’s work is equivalent to studying all the new Japanese
literature, for thanks to his efforts modern literature has
developed in Japan. Even though Toson was not a pioneer
in elaborating the ideas and the stylistic techniques of his
works, at the very least he absorbed all the accomplishments
of his predecessors [292, 182].
If Tokoku was the prophet of the age, Shimazaki Toson can be
called its bard.
No matter how talented a poet might be, it is the rarest of
poets that is honored to become the voice of his time. In later
centuries people will judge by the poet’s works the spiritual
world of his generation. This was the role that Shimazaki Toson
was destined to play. His poetry was conceived by his vibrant
environment, by the age he lived in. As his contemporary, the
poet and literary critic Noguchi Yonejiro recollects,
5. SHIMAZAKI TOSON AND “THE GOLDEN AGE” OF SHINTAISHI 139
He began his work at the right time when it was easier for
a poet to sing, and at the same time for us to listen; it was
in the idyllic years . . . those four or five years we enjoyed
before the China-Japan war which changed abruptly the
aspect, atmosphere, and aspiration of the country, vivified
the sense of life, and raised the question of the relation of
man with man as well as of country with country [307, 95].
All together, Toson published four collections of poetry. The first
and the most famous, Young Grasses (Wakanashu), appeared in
August, 1897. It was followed by The Lonely Boat (Hitohabune,
June, 1898) and Summer Grasses (Natsugusa, December, 1898).
Three years later, in August, 1901, came the last collection,
Fallen Petals of a Plum Tree (Rakubaishu). Later, Toson selected
the best poems from the four books and in 1904 issued them in
the Collected Poems of Toson (Toson shi-shu).
In his best poetry Toson’s muse is alien to the collision of
titanic passions, to themes of awful despair and great happiness,
gloomy hopelessness and blind inspiration—in other words, it
is alien to those extreme emotions without which we hardly
can imagine the world of the best European Romanticists.
Toson is always guided by taste, and taste in his opinion is
inseparably linked with a sense of proportion. Might this be
a Japanese interpretation of the concept of the “genius”? An
intended incompleteness, a regulated naturalness, an emotion
apprehended as an aesthetic experience—might these be the
basis of an indigenous aesthetic tradition, one to which Toson
was linked by the bonds of blood? But was not the same also
promulgated by many thinkers and poets of the West? Not
without reason Toson presents his poetic debut in his memoirs
in the following way: “In my young heart there were the words:
‘Poetry is experience recreated in quietude’1. My lips, silent
hitherto, opened, and the poems started streaming from my
breast” [165, 23].
1 These are Wordsworth’s words from his famous preface to the poetic
collection Lyrical Ballads.

140 Part 1. THE ROMANTICIST IDEALS
Toson was the first Japanese poet of the new age who did
not concern himself with the theoretical justification for the
revival of literature but actually manged to put his ideas on
poetry into practice. He understood that the spirit of modern
culture required the reformation of aesthetic values, and first
of all, the expansion of the semantic borders of the word. Later,
in the essay “The Art of the Word” (Kotoba no takumi), Toson
wrote:
All efforts to destroy the old words are fruitless. Indeed,
when we give to a word a new meaning, the old one drops
away of itself. This was the idea that guided me.
After all, there was a time when I assumed that the
form of the shi was no good for the Japanese language and
that only waka and haiku would be suitable . . . The world of
words was so dark, so tight when we began to follow this
path [166, v. 22, 17].
The Australian scholar J. Ackcroyd presents her own version
of the new, Romanticist use of some concepts found in Toson’s
poetry. She interprets kokoro as “a measure of things”, a “center
of life and action”, a “transcendental essence”, according
to Tokoku’s definition in the essay “Voices of Nature and
the Poet”; she interprets hikari as “the heavenly light that
condescended to a person”, a “state of self-knowledge and
inspiration reached in stimulating the inner life by elevated
love”; she interprets otomegokoro as “the embodiment of divine
femininity”, again in accordance with Tokoku’s ideas [216, 175].
Yet in Early Spring (Soshun) Toson himself points: “For
me writing poems in a new way meant using the words.
Using the words in a new way means, for the most part,
making the sleeping words come awake . . . In this respect,
the ancient poets of the Manyoshu and Basho were my kind
teachers” [165, 95]. In other words, Toson’s achievement lay
not only in giving expression to Romanticist concepts, it was
above all a technical achievement, one which drew heavily
from native resources.
этот ли?
5. SHIMAZAKI TOSON AND “THE GOLDEN AGE” OF SHINTAISHI 141
Shimazaki
Toson
Thus it is his interpretation of the Romanticists’ newly de-
fined aesthetic categories that characterizes Toson’s poetry
and gives it its special features. The reformatory essence of his
poems is revealed primarily in depicting new matters by means
of a radical reinterpretation of the old.
Toson’s infatuation with poetry began when he was a child.
His father, Shimazaki Masaki, owner of a post station on the
state road in Kiso, had quite a good library in his house, and
his son Haruki (Toson’s real name) became well read, paying
particular attention to classical Japanese poetry.
At the age of seventeen Toson moved to Tokyo and
entered Meiji Gakuin University, where he studied from 1888
to 1892. He devoted much of his time to European literature.
Shakespeare, Milton, Burns, Wordsworth, Keats, Byron, Shel-
ley, Symons, Carlyle, Dante, Goethe, and Rousseau make
up the list (not quite complete, of course) of the authors that
had the greatest impact on the formation of the young poet’s
worldview.
Meiji Gakuin, founded by missionaries in the early 1880s,
was one of Japan’s first universities of the Western type. It
accounts for both the fact of Toson’s passionate, youthful infa-
tuation with Christianity and the traces of Biblical images in
142 Part 1. THE ROMANTICIST IDEALS
many of the poet’s works. His assiduous study of European
literature, especially poetry, and his grounding in his own
native classical heritage led Toson to the idea that a synthesis of
cultural traditions might be possible, even necessary.
In his early immature dramas such as A Storyteller with
a Zither (Hikyoku biwa hoshi), as well as in Toson’s early poems
published in Bungakukai such as “New Star” (Atarashiki hoshi)
and “Separation” (Betsuri), we feel the obvious influence of
Kitamura Tokoku’s poetry, especially in the lyrical miniatures
“A Butterfly and a Flower” (Cho to hana) and “A Flower on
a Meadow” (No no hana). A close link between the work
of Tokoku and Toson is indisputable, but the extent of the
influence of Tokoku’s poetry on the evolution of Toson’s poetic
individuality remains debatable. The majority of scholars,
nevertheless, agree that Tokoku’s literary and social criticism
became the main incentive for Toson’s poetic works, pointing in
particular to such essays as “The Pessimistic Poet and Women”
and “Voices of Nature and the Poet” [97, v. 1, 201].
The publication of Young Grasses marked the advent of the
“golden age” of shintaishi verse. Toson not only won reader’s
hearts with his bright lyricism, youthful spontaneity, and
psychological depiction of the inner world, his work also gave
rise to a re-assessment of values in poetry at large as well as
in other spheres of Meiji culture. The two leading topics of his
poetry—nature and love—at times merge in a joyful hymn,
but at times we hear the sad song of days gone by.
In a period of raging nationalism, when the government,
dizzy with the success of the Sino-Japanese war, was making
preparations for new campaigns for the brain washing of the
people, Toson’s poetry appeared like a bold challenge to the
authorities, a refusal to follow the militant “Emperor’s Way”.
Among the four large poetic cycles included in Young
Grasses—“Autumn Thoughts” (Aki no omoi), “Six Maidens”
(Rokunin no shojo), “Dawn of Life” (Inochi no akebono) and
“A Wanderer Deep in the Woods” (Shinrin no shoyo), the “Six
Maidens” sequel seems to be the most original.
5. SHIMAZAKI TOSON AND “THE GOLDEN AGE” OF SHINTAISHI 143
In “Six Maidens”, as well as in many other poems by Shima-
zaki Toson, an important tenet of the Romanticist worldview is
revealed: “Glorifying the ‘eternally feminine’ element; the Ro-
manticists interpret it as human emotions, broad-heartedness,
inner generosity, and a wonderful force for the rapprochement
and enlightenment of the people” [478, 142].
The poems of this cycle made the critics start talking about
the emergence of the image of a “Japanese Beatrice”.
In glorifying the gentle, loving female heart (onna gokoro),
in describing the generousity and unselfish nature of woman,
her complex inner world and her undeserved sufferings,
Toson spoke to his readers in a new, unfamiliar language alien
to traditional Confucian morals. This is how Miyoshi Tatsuji,
a famous poet of the twentieth century, evaluates the cycle:
“‘O-Yo’, ‘O-Kinu’, ‘O-Sae’, ‘O-Kume’, ‘O-Tsuta’, and ‘O-Kiku’
present a sequential account of six girls of different types. Тоson
glorified in this poem the heart of the maiden full of tender
feelings and called for the emancipation of woman” [137, v. 1, 30].
The versatile stylistics of “Six Maidens” illustrates Toson’s
intense creative search for new means of expression. For
instance, the two best poems of the cycle, “О-Yo” and
“O-Kume”, arranged in the form of a poetic monologue, not
only differ in emotional coloring, but also present an example
of the contrasting images of the “traditional” and the new,
liberated female characters.
The humble resignation of O-Yo is opposed to the passion
of O-Kume, to the romantic inspiration which ennobles a per-
son. “O-Kume”, in a way young Toson’s poetic manifesto,
anticipated the blossoming of the new love poetry in the works
of Yosano Akiko. O-Kume represents the rebellious spirit of
her time. She is a stranger to the sad meditations of О-Yo, to
her innate shyness and lasting doubts. In the poem the flame
of love drys uprivers, the waterfall of tears floods the earth . . .
In the cascade of hyperboles O-Kume’s love appears as an all-
conquering force, but the triumph of love inflicts an inevitable
sacrifice—the death of the heroine:
144 Part 1. THE ROMANTICIST IDEALS
Love is my temple, and you rule there,
My idol, my god!
I will give my life
To entering your chamber!
The theme of a “sinful love”, carrying a person away in
a chasm, sounds in many poems by Toson like “Mirage”
(Nigemizu) from Young Grasses or “The Charm of the Things is
to Blame” (Tsumi nare ba mono no aware o) from Fallen Petals
of a Plum Tree. All these works are far from gloomy pessimism;
there is no feeling of hopelessness or, despair in them. On the
contrary, the force of love helps the characters to endure the
sufferings that await them and to look fearlessly into the face
of death:
Hand in hand,
With you, my darling friend,
I would be happy to go
To an absolute hell.
“Mirage”2
The interlacing of religious topics and love topics in Toson’s
poetry is not accidental at all. The religious coloring of many
poems is the result of Toson’s fascination with Christianity.
If we turn to European poetry of, say, German Romanticism
for comparison, we will see that the conflict between faith
and love was as typical for it as the conflict of duty/human
feeling (giri—ninjo) was for premodern Japanese drama3. The
love that destroys the sacred thing and subdues all thoughts
is glorified in many masterpieces of European Romanticism.
Toson transferred the faith—love conflict to Japanese ground,
2 Sasafuchi Tomoichi points out that this poem was more likely influenced
by the description of the love between Paolo and Francesca in the Dante’s
Divine Comedy [154, 56].
3 V. M. Jirmunsky’s book contains a detailed analysis of this topic in the
works of German Romanticists [426].
5. SHIMAZAKI TOSON AND “THE GOLDEN AGE” OF SHINTAISHI 145
perhaps perceiving by instinct its dramatic and poetic nature.
It is hardly probable that in the course of writing Young Grasses
and the next collections, i. e. beginning from 1896, the poet
himself really suffered from a contradiction between love
and Christian religion, as in the days of his youth. According
to the author of the research monograph Toson and Christia-
nity (Toson to kiristo kyo), Hasegawa Izumi, already in 1894,
after Tokoku’s death and partly under the influence of his
last works, Toson gave up the concepts of Christian doctrine
[31, 36]. Thereafter his philosophical credo was defined by
the synthesis of various national and borrowed doctrines of
a humanistic trend.
Nevertheless, his renunciation of the Christian creed did
not mean for Toson a complete break up with Christianity,
as its influence continued to affect his creative activity. Toson
in his own way interprets certain topics of Holy Scripture,
giving them a more earthly content. Such is the poem
“Water of Life” (Wakamizu) which revives the image from
the famous Evangelical parable about “water of life”. Toson,
for whom love was inexhaustible and eternal, called it the
water of life.
Living human feeling is a source of eternal youth to which
the poet turns, forgetting the original meaning of the image.
We find the echoes of Biblical psalms in the poem “Mirage”.
In “Spring Speeches” (Shunshi), the rhythmic prose from The
Lonely Boat, beginning with the lines “toshiwakaki otoko yo,
urawakaki otome yo . . .” (“The young husband, the young
maiden . . .”), we definitely hear the theme of “The Song of
Songs”. And in “Late Spring Separation” (Banshun no betsuri)
from Summer Grasses the misery of the lovers’ separation is
revealed in an unusual image:
Near those blue waters of Babylon
The lutes were hanging on the willow trees.
Their strings were singing lingeringly
About thousands of years of love and hardships . . .
146 Part 1. THE ROMANTICIST IDEALS
Upon closer examination these lines appear to be a free
interpretation of psalm № 136, which became the basis for
a famous poem by Byron, “By the Rivers of Babylon . . .”.
During the Meiji period even an attempt to compare the
earthly love for a woman (a base feeling, according to the
Confucian concept) to worshipping a deity was considered
an unprecedented liberty for a poet, to say nothing of placing
it on a level even higher than God. Only a year after the Sino-
Japanese war, at the height of the chauvinistic fever, the poet
would urge his countrymen not to sacrifice their lives on the
battlefield for the sake of the Emperor and the state, but to
live for the sake of love. No wonder that such poems by Toson
stirred an indignant protest from Takayama Chogyu and some
other conservative critics, on the one hand, while on the other
earning enthusiastic praise from the readers.
Toson also realized the great romantic potential of the classic
heritage found in the dramas by Chikamatsu Monzaemon. From
the very beginning his interest in Edo culture, particularly in
Genroku literature, was not accidental. He was attracted by this
period in national culture in the same way as the works of Dante
and Shakespeare attracted him to the culture of the West.
The discovery of Renaissance was very important for us . . .
Also, the names of Shelley, Keats, Rossetti, and Pre-
Raphaelites would be on everybody’s lips. And this infa-
tuation has always been combined with the desire of
a young spirit to compare the East and the West [165, 119].
The spiritual revival, the fresh and in-depth perception of the
world which marked the formation of Renaissance culture,
could not but excite the poets who spoke for the full and
unconditional liberation of human feelings. The cult of pleasure
(nagusami) that had spread among the more prosperous of the
townspeople and influenced prose, poetry, and painting over
the course of the Edo period (1603–1867), had been a challenge to
orthodox Confucian morals. Love free from bans and restrictions
5. SHIMAZAKI TOSON AND “THE GOLDEN AGE” OF SHINTAISHI 147
would become the subject of inspiration for the best writers of
the time, Saikaku and Chikamatsu. Love for their characters
was not only a source of pleasure, but also a spiritual force that
asserted a person’s independence from feudal laws, even if the
price one paid for it was death. In was in this respect that the
poets of Japanese Romanticism worshipped Genroku literature.
With our friends we have been reading for a long time
Chikamatsu’s works; they were constantly the subject of our
conversations. When I watched performances based on his
plays on the modern stage, I felt in my heart an inexpressible
sensation of something dear and familiar. Inspired, I would
think about art . . . [137, v. 1, 126]
The poems “Four Sleeves” (Yotsu no sode) and “Under the
Umbrella” (Kasa no uchi) show that Toson managed to perceive
the essence of Genroku literature to such an extent that he was
able to revive the feelings of its characters as seen through the
eyes of a modern poet.
The poetic technique in “Four Sleeves” is conventional. The
characters are depicted in bright colors but without a sharp
individualization, reminding the reader of the style of the
ukiyo-e woodblock prints on the same topic by Utamaro. Toson
probably did this intentionally in order to preserve the color of
the Edo period. Though the images presented by Toson are still
rather modest and far from the eroticism of late Romanticism,
they reveal the free spirit and sensuality of the new age.
Whereas in “Four Sleeves” and “Under the Umbrella” we
feel a touch of some artificial design, the result of premeditated
stylization, by turning to folklore Toson was able to give more
sincerity and a natural freshness to his poetry. “A young
imagination has awakened from its long dream and turned to
the words of the folk. The ancient legends have been revived”,
writes Toson in the preface to Young Grasses [137, v. 1, 5].
The poet creates a wonderful fairy image in “The Fox’s
Tricks” (Kitsune no waza). The poem, consisting of two qua-
trains, is based on the device of parallelism, typical of folk
poetry, especially in song lyrics:
148 Part 1. THE ROMANTICIST IDEALS
The dewy bunch of grapes
Will be stolen in the evening by the fox,
That is hiding from people’s eyes
In the shade of the autumn garden.
Although I am not a fox
And you are not a cluster of grapes
My heart, unknown to others,
Ardently aspires so much to steal you!
Toson’s interest in folklore affected also his later poetry.
Thus, the collection Summer Grasses includes a poetic cycle,
“Wedding Greetings” (Konyin no iwai no uta), that imitates
folkloric “felicitations” to the bride.
These poems cannot be counted among Shimazaki Toson’s
masterpieces, but they are of certain interest as attempts to
reproduce the spirit of folklore poetry. The second part of
“Greetings” is even called “The Songs of the Border Guards”
(Sakamori no uta) in imitation of the folksong section of the
same name in the ancient Manyoshu. In this resepect critics
are correct in asserting that Toson aimed at creating with his
collections “a new Manyoshu”.
The characters of ancient legends acquire a new life in Toson’s
verse, becoming embodiments of his elevated ideals, just as was
the case with European poets in the age of Romanticism. An
aspiration to romanticize a fantastic image and to give it sensual
features whenever possible distinguishes Toson’s approach to
folklore. In this respect, his interpretation of the ancient fairy
tale about the fisherman Urashima Taro4 in the collection Fallen
4 The main character of the fairy tale Urashima Taro saves a magic turtle
and in reward the turtle takes him to the palace of the Dragon, the king
of the seas. Enchanted, he marries the Dragon’s daughter and stays in the
palace. Some time later he returns to land, where he discovers that several
decades have passed. Amazed by what he sees, Urashima opens a treasure
box that his wife had given him, after which he instantly becomes an old
man and dies.
5. SHIMAZAKI TOSON AND “THE GOLDEN AGE” OF SHINTAISHI 149
Petals of a Plum Tree is quite typical. In Toson’s poem “Urashima”
the main character meets a young mermaid, the daughter of the
Dragon, king of the sea. Contrary to the original plot of the fairy
tale, the girl falls in love with Urashima, leaves the underwater
palace, and gives up immortality, power and wealth:
Let the Dragon’s palace collapse!
I will never return to the sea.
I will live henceforth, my sweetheart,
Only in the palace that is your heart!
In the indigenous tradition Toson sought the means to
create innovative poetry, modern in form and content, and able
to meet the demands of the time. His striving for integrity and
depth of feeling surely meant more to him than just a return to
the past. “I wanted to break away from the past, to bring poetry
closer to our young hearts” [165, 84].
Consciously or subconsciously, Toson demonstrates in his
love poetry not only the freedom of feelings typical of Edo
literature and of the works of European Romanticists, and not
only the healthy spirit of folk poetry, but also the refinement of
ancient tanka. His essay “Waiting for Spring” (Hara o machi-
tsutsu) explains Toson’s attitude towards classical love uta:
Where does the beauty of these ancient songs come from?
Though in the Manyoshu there are enough such songs,
I believe that few of them can compare in beauty with the
ancient uta of Princess Nukada5. Gentle and feminine, they
express such complicated feelings! Whatever you say, it is
difficult to find something equal to them in charm. Besides,
they imply deep meaning [137, v. 1, 139].
Though Toson never adhered literally to the medieval principle
of imitating antiquity, in some poems of Young Grasses his
following the style of Manyoshu is obvious. This can be seen
5 Princess Nukada (born in 596) was a famous poet.
150 Part 1. THE ROMANTICIST IDEALS
best of all in “O-Sae” from the “Six Maidens” cycle and “Your
Heart” (Kimi ga kokoro wa).
Toson’s poems of this kind became the object of venomous
attacks by Takayama Chogyu. In his “Message to the Poets of
the Vague School” (Moroha no shijin ni atau, 1897), Chogyu
wrote: “I believe that in such a vague style pure poetry, or,
more precisely the poetry of vague dreams and meditations,
has exhausted itself. The poets of the ‘vague school’, avoiding
clear meaning, express in their poems an irritating poverty of
ideas” [181, 31]. Toson in general accepted Chogyu’s remarks
and afterwards tried to avoid unnecessary archaic stylization.
The criticisms did not affect his true love of classical poetry,
however.
In shintaishi poetry prior to Toson no one had tried to com-
pose verse in the form of a dialogue, perhaps because such
a form was considered unsuitable due to its bulkiness. Toson,
on the contrary, believed that for the intimate poetry of Roman-
ticism the form of the dialogue was a happy discovery. Young
Grasses includes six longe poems in the form of the dialogues:
“Vague Aroma” (Anka), “The Lotus Boat” (Rengabune), “Under
the Shadow of Grapevines” (Budo no ki no kage), “High Tower”
(Koro), “Heavenly Horse” (Temba) and “A Wanderer Deep in
the Woods” (Shinrin no shoyo). The majority (the first four)
are written in the form of a conversation between an elder and
younger sisters. They talk about the hardships of life and the
sorrows of unfortunate love. These dialogue poems (taiwashi)
present the same topic that is developed in “Six Maidens”, but
here the images are more abstract. The beauty of nature is in
harmony with the beauty of pure feeling.
Toson uses all means possible to achieve softness and smooth
versification in his taiwashi in order to express the tenderness
of the poetic characters’ feelings. For this purpose he does
not only select “sensitive” epithets (“tonoshiki”—delightful,
“yasashiki”—gentle, etc.) and an elevated romantic lexicon of
the otomego (young maidens) type, he also exploits the potential
of other poetic techniques. As a rule, in order to facilitate the
5. SHIMAZAKI TOSON AND “THE GOLDEN AGE” OF SHINTAISHI 151
visual perception of the text, Toson breaks the usual line of 7–5
into two shorter lines of 7 and 5 syllables. In addition, nearly
all the text is written in kana, thus minimizing the usage of kanji
characters6. This was part of the creative technique invented by
Toson.
A different effect is created by the rigid rhythm, the bright-
ness of romantic images, and the skill of composition in such
masterpieces of Toson’s intimate poetry as “Mirage”, “Water
of Life”, “Twilight” (Tasogare), “First Love” (Hatsukoi), “The
Charm of Things is to Blame”, “Shooting Star” (Ryusei), and
“Do You Know?” (Shiru ya kimi).
Kokoro mo aran akidori no
Koe ni morekuru hitofushi o
Shiru ya kimi
Fukaku mo sumeru asajio no
Soko ni kakururu shiratama o
Shiru ya kimi
Ayame mo shiran yami-no yo ni
Shizuka ni ugoku hoshi kuzu o
Shiru ya kimi
Mada hiki mo minu otomego no
Mune ni hisomeru koto-no ne o
Shiru ya kimi
In the song of a careless autumn bird
That ringing note—
Do you hear it?
6 After the creation of the Japanese syllabary (kana), it was considered
good manners for Woman to use it when writing, whereas men were
expected to write mostly in Chinese characters (kanji). That tradition
prevailed for ages. The extensive use of characters was thought to
emphasize the erudition of men, although women were not always willing
to concede in this matter to the to the stronger sex. However, in classical
tanka, kanji characters were used only sparingly, in order not to overload
the miniature poems.
152 Part 1. THE ROMANTICIST IDEALS
There, in the depth under the waves of a tide
Concealed pearls—
Do you see them?
In the darkness of the sky
The remote fragments of stars moving in silence—
Do you see them?
Gentle strings of the koto music
Hidden in a maiden’s heart—
Do you hear them?
“Do You Know?”
The poem presents an example of “melodic” romantic
poetry where the meaning of a separate word is less important
than its role in the general structure of the whole verse and its
musical arrangement. The metric pattern of the stanza is not
typical for Toson, who usually preferred quatrains: 7–5; 7–5; 5.
Besides the phonetic repetitions serving as a structural
element of the verse, the phrase “Do you know?” establishes
a well-proportioned system of grammatical syntactical parallels
that run throughout the whole poem. This technique is quite
rare in world poetry and, without doubt, demonstrates the
author’s talent. Simultaneously, the first three stanzas also
represent parallels in nature to the last stanza, revealing the
depths and connotations of the “music in the soul” image.
THE SYMBOLISM OF SPRING
AND AUTUMN
In view of the general elegiac mood of Toson’s poetry,
it would be incorrect to equate it with the melancholic
effusions of Lamartine or Musset. The vigor of youth and
the presentiments of the coming spring vitalizes the poetry
of this Japanese Romanticist, giving it a life and freshness.
“Life is power. Power is a voice. The voice is a word. And
the new word is a new life”, wrote the poet in the preface
5. SHIMAZAKI TOSON AND “THE GOLDEN AGE” OF SHINTAISHI 153
to Collected Poems of Toson [137, v. 1, 6]. It is not the sadness
emerging from the traditional “charm of things” that gives
a clue to the understanding of Toson’s poetry of nature, but
the discovery of the harmony implied in nature, of the eternal
novelty and joy of existence. The good in his poetry defeats
evil, light triumphs over darkness. The poems “Spring Song”
(Haru no uta), “Sao, the Fairy of Spring” (Sao hime), “Spring
Melody” (Haru no kyoku), “New Dawn” (Shingyo), “Beat the
Drum” (Ute ya hiko), “Morning Star” (Myojo), “Sound of the
Tide” (Choon), and “Two Voices” (Futatsu no koe) from the
collection Young Grasses, and “Birth of the Dawn” (Akebono no
tanjo) from Summer Grasses appear as hymns to the spring and
the sun. They reflect the expectations of a generation that had
overcome the darkness of obscurantism and chosen freedom of
the spirit and the happiness of creative work.
All Toson’s spring hymns have a perfect musical
arrangement. He uses the devices of the refrain and anaphora
and epiphora to emphasize the melody of verse. The poet tries
to express the sounds of nature in order to glorify the arrival
of spring. The sound of a lute (“Morning Star”), a drumbeat
(“Beat the Drum”), birds singing, the murmur of vernal floods,
all merge into one symphony.
Nature changes colors: the snow gives way to green leaves,
through the winter clouds the blue sky appears filled with
sunlight. Homma Hisao praises this aspect of Toson’s poems:
The poet’s feelings freely flow where they should flow,
pause where they should pause; they do not have doubts
and hesitations. The secret of simplicity, the charm of deep
and pure harmony are revealed at this point [41, v. 1, 81].
Almost every poem contains its own specific romantic spring
symbol. In “Sao, the Fairy of Spring” it is the fairy herself, in
“Sound of the Tide” it is the powerful spring tide, in “Morning
Star” it is the star of love—Venus, and in “Birth of the Dawn”
it is the dawn.
154 Part 1. THE ROMANTICIST IDEALS
Though the imagery used by Toson in his spring hymns is
mostly quite novel and original, in “New Dawn” and “Morning
Star” as well as in the first part of “A Pillow of Grass” the
influence of the poetry of Wordsworth and Shelley is felt 7.
This is what Toson’s contemporary and follower Kambara
Ariake wrote in his memoirs.
The feeling that I experienced when I took in my hands for
the first time Young Grasses can be defined as sheer delight.
My soul started to tremble, like the wings of a butterfly at
dawn. Shimazaki’s words were absolutely different from
those strange, exotic words that I used to like before; if
you look at each of them separately, you will take each
as a commonplace, but at the same time the sound they
make is a rare music capable of elevating the transparent
silhouette of a moth pausing over a spring meadow to
the image of a heavenly soul. Those were true songs, and
that was the reason for my infatuation with Young Grasses.
People seemed to be charmed by the sound of a new voice.
I was inspired in the same way and have never regretted it
since [137, v. 1, 155].
The concept of the “escape” or “flight to nature” is not applic-
able to Toson’s work. The poets of European Romanticism
had more or less preset attitudes towards nature and the
means of its description. Nature in their works both menaces
and sympathizes with the poet, ennobling him and revealing
new ideas about the destiny of mankind. But the ideal world
of nature in the poetry of the European Romanticists is
nearly always opposed to the base world of human passions.
Turning to nature, a romantic hero, whether Byron’s Manfred
or Lermontov’s Mtsyri, seems to reject his past and abandon
his social surrounding in his quest to join some “supreme
freedom”. This leads to the tragic pathos of many works by the
Romanticists, who were deeply concerned about the growing
7 Wordsworth’s poem “I wandered Lonely as a Cloud” and Shelley’s
“Ode to the West Wind”.
5. SHIMAZAKI TOSON AND “THE GOLDEN AGE” OF SHINTAISHI 155
gap between Man and Nature. The issue of the choice between
the quiet beauty of nature and the social obligations of the
individual becomes the foundation of the great controversy in
the worldview of the majority of European Romanticists.
In the poetry of Wordsworth, Lamartine, Shelley, and
Byron the theme of Mother Nature is often clouded by fear
of the elements, of the menacing power of nature and its
immortality, which seems to mock transcient human existence.
The harmony built on a compromise between the human
world and the elements is ready to collapse at any minute, as
“indifferent nature” does not condescend to human passions
and desires.
Toson’s works for the first time in the history of world
poetry merged two essentially different tendencies of poetic
reflection on nature. Not only had he discovered the possibility
of opposing the two but also a way of combining them. The
differences between these tendencies have been accurately
defined by the American scholar J. W. Miller in his analysis of
ten poems by Meng Haoran8 in comparison with the poetry of
Wordsworth and Coleridge [300]. The basic distinction between
Chinese (or Japanese) poetry of nature and the landscape poetry
of European Romanticism Miller sees in the role of the author,
or to be more precise, in the poetic ego of the author. No matter
how personal and sincere are the Chinese poet’s impressions
from contemplating a scene of nature, his lyrical hero will never
be shown plunging too deep into an introspective analysis of
that landscape, as is often the case in Wordsworth’s work. The
poet writing in the genre of shang shui (mountains and waters)
does not indulge in romantic dreams and fantasies cast by
the pictures of nature, but tries instead to describe the details
accurately and sincerely.
In the case of a Chinese poet, according to Miller, time and
space are focused on the concrete objects that he describes in
his poem. He achieves the aesthetic effect only due to the
8 Meng Haozhan (689–740) was a great Chinese poet of the Tang period.
156 Part 1. THE ROMANTICIST IDEALS
symmetry and beauty of the description itself. Meanwhile, for
a European Romanticist who does not accept any restrictions in
creative thinking, the details referring to a landscape provide
just a starting point for other images unconstrained by space
and time. For a Chinese poet the beauty of nature has none
of the tragic element typical of the Romanticist imagination.
Finally, a Chinese poet tries to express in words his impressions,
but he knows that these words do not exhaust the whole
meaning of what he has seen. Meanwhile, a Romanticist tries
to express the matter by “explaining” the phenomena, albeit
often incompletely. Toson’s poetry combines a traditional and
non-traditional or Western approach, and as such does not fit
nicely into Miller’s framework. After Tokoku’s articles, which
had a decisive influence on the formation of the aesthetic views
of the young poet, Toson turned to a work very popular at the
time, Shiga Shigetaka’s On Japanese Landscape (Nihon fukei
ron, 1894). In his arguments, Shiga was guided by the ideas
of the English art scholar John Ruskin. Toson considerably
enriched his spiritual world after he had studied the works of
Shiga and Ruskin.
Rejecting the static character of traditional poetry of nature,
Toson supported Shiga’s idea that nature was a complex of
interconnected dynamic forces. According to Toson, the only
way to perceive the whole beauty of nature is to observe it
attentively, with intense empathy but without falling into the
poetic trance typical of the descriptions of nature by many
European Romanticists. “Song of the Autumn Wind” (Akikaze
no uta) by Toson is a vivid example of such a meditative
perception of nature.
Toson’s autumn poems, and here we can add “Autumn has
Come” (Aki wa kinu) and “Song of the Autumn Wind”, are
graceful in form and original in content. While a reflection of
a favorite topic of the poetry of the English Romanticists, they
also bear the imprint of Chinese poetry of the Tang period and
the Japanese classics, as well as of early shintaishi verse of the
1880s and the elegies by Kitamura Tokoku.
5. SHIMAZAKI TOSON AND “THE GOLDEN AGE” OF SHINTAISHI 157
In analyzing “Song of the Autumn Wind”, Sasafuchi To-
moichi, the author of an important study Bungakukai and its
Times (Bungakukai to sono jidai), compares it line by line with
Shelley’s “Ode to the West Wind”, which no doubt in some
way served as the source of inspiration for the poem by the
Japanese Romanticist. Comparing the images in the works by
Shelley and Toson, he concludes that “Song of the Autumn
Wind” has many weaknesses and that Shelley’s poem is far
superior. Donald Keene also indulgently refers to “Song of the
Autumn Wind”, trying his best to find some originality in it,
but concluding that the non-Japanese reader is likely to prefer
Shelley’s work and that there is nothing in Toson’s poem that
matches the brilliance of Shelley’s.
However, to see Toson’s “Song of the Autumn Wind” as
an inept imitation or to evaluate it simply by comparison with
its supposed predecessor is to miss what Toson does in this
poem. Let us also remember that in the history of European
Romanticism, too, there are countless examples of imitations
or free renderings of foreign verse. Still some of these works
are quite original in style and can be considered masterpieces in
their own right. Toson’s poem should also be seen in this light.
Shelley appeals to the “wild west wind”, while Toson
speaks about the “autumn wind silently coming” (shizuka ni
kitaru akikaze). Then, as if following the traditional method
of the shang shui (sansui) genre, the poet consistently writes
out one by one the details of the landscape, describing the
movement of the wind, the shifting of the clouds in the sky,
the rustle of a pawlonia tree’s leaves, sounding like the strings
of a lute, etc. The signs of autumn appear: the slopes of green
mountains dyed with crimson; the fallen leaves flying into the
window; the partridge hidden in its nest. However, alongside
the traditional images of seasonal poetry Toson uses tropes
absolutely unusual in the classical poetry of nature. These bring
into the poem a subjective element of description, something
inevitable for a Romanticist. Elaborate combined epithets like
“maitachisawagu kumo” (“rising clouds”, an image possibly
158 Part 1. THE ROMANTICIST IDEALS
prompted by Shelley’s “steep sky’s commotion”) or “ibuki
madoawasu akikaze” (the autumn wind “catching its breath”)
are fresh and far from being commonplace. The metaphors are
also quite unusual:
Like the Brahmins that carry
Their sermons along hundreds of roads,
The leaves from the branches set off
To the West and to the East.
In the literature of the Meiji period it was the Romanticist
imagination that broke the dominance of the traditional world-
view, tore apart the seasonal sequence, and compelled the
poet to abstract from the object of his observation. Never-
theless, the Japanese Romanticists would not and could not
entirely abandon the tradition. From their perspective, the
tradition of describing nature in poetry needed addition and
improvement, not total rejection. The old forms had to be filled
with new content. The emotional evaluation of the scene was
Toson’s attempt to reform landscape poetry. This shift away
from traditional images and towards the poetical expression
of feeling, however, was more than a mere imitation of the
European Romanticists.
Japanese critics have been inclined to interpret Toson’s
“Song of the Autumn Wind” not as an imitation of Shelley
or stylization typical of that age (which is probably how the
author saw his work), but as a conscious challenge to Western
Romanticism, one which opposes the stormy passions pre-
sented in Shelley’s ode with the passive, meditative Japanese-
Chinese poetic approach.
After all, in Japanese poetry as in Chinese, the western wind
has been a symbol of coming autumn for centuries. The poems
by Bo Juyi “Lute”, “Late Autumn”, and “Autumn cicadas” re-
mind one of many stanzas in “Song of the Autumn Wind”. Even
the title of the sequence, “Autumn Thoughts” (Aki no omoi) was
perhaps prompted by Bo Juyi’s poem of the same name.
5. SHIMAZAKI TOSON AND “THE GOLDEN AGE” OF SHINTAISHI 159
The sadness of autumn meditations is one of the leading
topics in Toson’s poetry of nature. Poetic meditation, animated
by youthful sentiments, a combination of traditional seasonal
images and an Romanticist abundance of tropes, flight of
imagination and Zen contemplation, all are fused in the short
poem “Autumn”, which represents the climax of Toson’s poetic
skill:
Autumn has come.
A crimson wreath hangs on the trees.
Who is still not drunk with the charm of autumn?
Let the sage remain silent and sad—
I will sing to the sounds of your pipe.
Just as “Song of the Autumn Wind” is usually compared by
the critics to Shelley’s ode, so “Autumn”, due to the similarity
of the topic and some of the images, is often compared with the
ode “To Autumn” by Keats. Toson himself willingly accepted
Keats’ influence, as he had discovered in the work of the English
Romanticist almost an ideal embodiment of the harmony
between man and nature.
The Japanese Romanticists, brought up on a deeply-rooted
Zen aesthetic tradition, considered especially valuable the
poet’s ability to transform, to abnegate, and to merge with the
phenomena of the external world. Not only Toson but also
the later Romanticists Kyukin and Ariake were fascinated by
Keats’ poetry. This perception of nature, based on the broad
worldview of a European Romanticist and the refined sensi-
tivity of a Japanese poet, seemed the ideal combination for
Toson and his followers.
Toson’s “Autumn” is in one sense no more than an impro-
visation on the topic prompted by Keats, but it is filled with
an absolutely different content. Its magnificent images and
colorful descriptions give the poem an overwhelming splendor
and in many ways make it a more accomplished, coherent,
and harmonious work than the three-part ode by Keats. We
160 Part 1. THE ROMANTICIST IDEALS
feel the Dionysian element much more clearly in Toson’s poem
than in Keats’s ode. The natural changes of the seasons, the
withering and blossoming of the trees and flowers, provide the
framework for a natural attitude towards nature. True wisdom
is not in fruitless meditations and sorrows, but in the pleasures
of life, nature, art.
Whether explicit or not, the Chinese classical heritage is
ever present in Toson’s poetry. In this way was born the fusion
of the old and the new, the traditional and the borrowed,
and the East and the West in the nature poetry of Japanese
Romanticism.
SONGS OF WANDERINGS
Toson achieved the ideal state of oneness with nature in his
poetry. That state he described in the following way: “When
you are sad, it seems that you alone are sad, but that is not
true—all of nature is sad with you. When you rejoice, it
seems that you rejoice alone, but that is not true—all of nature
rejoices with you” [88, v. 9, 238]. Leading a life of nature,
listening attentively to the voices of the birds and the whistle of
the wind, peering into the colors of the clouds9, Toson acquires
a new vision of the world.
Nature also plays a most important role in Toson’s poetry
of romantic wanderings. The theme prompted by his own
wanderings when he was young and ran away from his unfor-
tunate love, is very important both for the understanding of
a general trend In Toson’s works, especially in Young Grasses, as
well as for revealing a typological similarity between Japanese
and European Romanticism. The most renowned of Toson’s
9 In Toson’s “Fallen Petals of a Plum Tree”(“Rakubaishu”) a large section
is devoted to the essays named “Clouds” (Kumo), where the poet describes
in detail how the clouds change their shape, color, and shades in the course of
many days. The beauty of the picturesque sketches is combined in “Clouds”
with precise meteorological observations.
5. SHIMAZAKI TOSON AND “THE GOLDEN AGE” OF SHINTAISHI 161
“songs of wanderings” are “A Pillow of Grass” (Kusamakura)
and “A Wanderer Deep in the Woods” from Young Grasses,
“Song of a Trip to the Chikuma River” (Chikumagawa ryojo no
uta) and “Near the Ancient Castle in Komoro” (Komoro naru
kojo no hotori) from Fallen Petals of a Plum Tree. The poetry of
wandering, like love poetry, cannot be considered a specific
genre. For Toson it is more likely a certain trend within the poetry
of nature that combines two equally significant poetic and cultural
traditions: the poetry of “romantic wanderings” in the work of
European poets of the nineteenth century and the “poetic
pilgrimage” tradition, widespread in both China and Japan.
For European Romanticism, in which the “escape from
society” is a recurrent motif, the poetry of nature is dominated
by the theme of wandering. The poet, as a rule, does not live
surrounded by nature; rather, he comes from the chilling
embraces of the city in search of freedom and rest, or to escape
from unfortunate love (see [415, 207–209]).
In the literature of China, Japan, and other countries of the
Far East, the poetry of wanderings had emerged, developed,
and been canonized many centuries prior to European Roman-
ticism. The fusion with the world of nature was in fact the basic
pre-condition of poetry. The principles of perception of nature
in the East and in the West do not exactly coincide, but there
is a certain ground for the following statement: “In China the
rise of landscape poetry goes hand in hand with a Romanticism
called by the Chinese fen lyu (“wind and water”), which is
rather similar to Western Romanticism” [263, 203]10. The poets
and artists who elaborated the principle of fen lyu (Jap. furyu)
and their followers tried to combine theory with practice. They
would often travel, taking pleasant and informative trips to the
mountains, visiting and colorfully describing the sights of the
country.
We should add here a tradition of Taoist poetic asceticism,
which had nothing in common with Christian asceticism, but
10 On “Fen Lyu Romanticism” see [487].
162 Part 1. THE ROMANTICIST IDEALS
was aimed at a profound comprehension of the true essence of
nature for the benefit of the human body and mind. Buddhism,
Confucianism, and especially, Taoism, define nature as a source
of great harmony and precious cultural values. The individual
in the Buddhist, Confucian, and Taoist philosophical traditions
is not the master of nature but one of its organic parts. Nature
is eternally in motion; hence, a person should not indulge in
a passive contemplation but should always be in pursuit of the
Way, participating in the permanent circulation and fluctuation
of things. This concept is the foundation of both the Taoist
and Buddhist modus vivendi of the artist. It gives a clue for the
understanding of the work of Saigyo and Basho, whom the
Japanese Romanticists so worshipped.
Toson and his friends were very fond of Basho’s diaries,
which are full of bright landscape sketches, pictures of rural
life, poetic reminiscences, and beautiful haiku, which they
sometimes took as models for imitation.
The romantic shintaishi absorbed the metaphorical symbolism
of the poetry of wanderings that had emerged in the genres of
choka, tanka, renga, and haiku through the centuries. Just as in the
ancient songs, in the imagery of the Romanticists “the sleeves of
the kimono wet with tears” means the bitterness of separation,
“to wave a sleeve” means to see someone off, “a wild goose” is
a message from home or an envoy from one’s lover, “a pillow of
grass” is a lodging for the night during one’s wanderings, and
the “cry of the crane at dawn” means awakening on the road11.
Toson was the first in the history of Japanese Romanticism
to turn to the topic of wanderings, and he thereby opened new
prospects for the developing shintaishi poetry. Toson’s “The
Songs of Wanderings”, which combine Western and Eastern
poetic traditions, represent one of the most complicated and
interesting parts of his creative work.
“A Pillow of Grass” (Kusamakura) and other poems devoted
to the topic of wanderings from Young Grasses reflect the poet’s
11 For more details on metaphoric symbols in tanka, see [399].
5. SHIMAZAKI TOSON AND “THE GOLDEN AGE” OF SHINTAISHI 163
remeniscenses of his own romantic wanderings in the years
1894–1896. After his beloved, Sato Sukeko, married another
man and died untimely soon thereafter, Toson, filled with
despair, for three years traveled around the areas of Kansai and
Tohoku (the western and north-eastern parts of the main island
of Honshu) and then settled down in the town of Sendai. The
scene in “A Pillow of Grass” unfolds against the background of
the Miyagi Plain in the vicinity of Sendai. The poem was rightly
appreciated By J. Ackroyd in her essay (see [216]).
It is difficult to find in Toson’s work a poem that is more
complete in plot and at the same time more versatile in the
construction of its colorful images. The poem’s structure is as
follows. A poet, who has lost his sweetheart, wanders in despair
in the mountains and dales in winter and finally comes to the
Miyagi plain near the sea coast. There, through the gloomy
roar of the waves, he suddenly distinguishes the voice of
a nightingale singing the arrival of spring. The minor notes are
replaced by those in a major key. Nature revives, and together
with it the poet seems to awaken to a new life.
The romantic hero wandering in inconsolable grief through
the wind and the snow towards uncertainty at first sight hardly
differs from the characters of European Romanticism. However,
the poetic time in which Toson’s character exists is considerably
extended thanks to those poetic reminiscences that the Western
Romanticists, defending their individuality, tried to avoid
whenever possible.
Toson’s greatest romantic images, apparently quite
international and revealing of the vivacity of the poet’s
imagination, upon closer examination are seen to be connected
to a classical tradition by a thousand threads. Thus, the poem
begins with the lines:
In twilight over an evening wave
A lonely chidori gull cries out,
And my soul, straightening its wings,
Strives toward a sad land, over the sea.
164 Part 1. THE ROMANTICIST IDEALS
The mystical image of the soul bird, later borrowed by Kambara
Ariake, is a product of Toson’s imagination, but we find a quite
real basis for this metaphor in a tanka by Kakinomoto Hitomaro,
the greatest poet of the Manyoshu. Through a figurative
association the present is projected into the past, creating
a temporary historical perspective:
oomi no mi Oh chidori sea gull
yuu naku chidori on the sea of Omi!
na ga nakeba When you cry,
kokoro no naka ni Deep in my heart
inishie omoyu I remember the days bygone.
Images that can be considered leading motifs of classical
Japanese poetry are interlaced into the narration of the poem in
an absolutely natural way:
Coming to the rock over the sea in the morning,
In my heart I was carried far away
To my native land, to the capital, and
The never ending roar answered my song.
The lexical means of the verse are also inseparably linked
to the classical poetry of waka. Here is an example of the skilful
use of homonymic metaphor (engo), rather typical of Toson:
michinaki ima no mi nare ba ka
ware wa michinaki no o shitai
omoi hanarete michinoku no
Miyagino ni made mayoikinu
Because the Way is unknown to me,
Without roads, through the fields and ravines
I was on my mournful way
And came in the end to the Miyagi Plain.
5. SHIMAZAKI TOSON AND “THE GOLDEN AGE” OF SHINTAISHI 165
The ambiguity of the word michi (way, road), a result of
its polysemantic features, in combination with the homo-
phonic effect (michinaki—michinoku) gives complexity and
completeness to the image, expressing the contextual psycho-
logical motivation for the character’s wanderings.The elegiac
mood of the main part of the poem defines the function of the
landscape as the basis of a general psychological tonality. The
cold waves that in regular intervals break against the coast, rare
beams of winter sun over the deserted plain, a magpie sadly
crying in the sky. And each new stroke of the landscape, each
new picture, indicates the shadowy overtones of feelings of the
lyrical hero: sadness, despair, loneliness. Though the landscapes
in Toson’s poems are not quite free from fixed patterns, it
is obvious that in the poetry of wanderings the poet tries to
display the sublte motions of his feelings through the images of
the landscape. Of course, the author chooses the landscape that
matches the general mood of the poem. This approach seems
to be influenced by Toson’s infatuation with the poetry of the
Pre-Raphaelites with their cult of romantic landscape and their
sensual perception of nature. The influence of the landscape
on the tonality of the poem in the final part of “A Pillow of
Grass” is especially striking. From gloomy etudes and sketches,
alternating complaints and reproaches to destiny, and from
separate descriptions of winter the poet passes to the topic of
spring, presenting a powerful symphony of colors, sounds, and
aromas: the first trill of a nightingale is carried over a dale, the
noise of the tide is heard, the fresh wind blows, the blossoming
plum flowers smell sweetly, the clouds in the east start to
redden at dawn, and even the sand on the seaside is covered
with fresh green grass12.
12 The symbolic image of young grasses, personifying “the spring of
life” in the poem, provides the title for the whole Toson’s collection Young
Grasses.
166 Part 1. THE ROMANTICIST IDEALS
Rather quickly the general development of shintaishi poetry
and the evolution of Toson’s creative principles are reflected
in the distinctiveness of his poetic style. Few of his contemporaries
managed to achieve the same results. Gradually concrete poetic
situations and individual contexts supersede stereotypical
contexts or context-variations, and topics acquire relative inde-
pendence and clear originality through standard poetic means.
Toson’s poem “Near the Ancient Castle in Komoro”, written
four years later than “A Pillow of Grass”, represesents the
last period of his poetic activity. He lived then in the small town
of Komoro (Nagano Prefecture) and would often take long
walks in the vicinity. “I used to walk along a footpath which
led to the old castle, through the valley, through the fields”,
he recollects in Early Spring [165, 172]. This is how the poem,
included in school textbooks and known nowadays to every
Japanese, was born:
Over the ruins of the ancient castle in Komoro
The white clouds flow and the traveler is deep in sorrow . . .
Again in this poem, as in many others by Toson, we find
the implementation of an original creative idea with the help of
traditional poetic techniques. The poem starts with an utamakura,
one of the most ancient stylistic devices, which introduces
a certain geographical name which implies an important
compositional and semantic meaning. According to the rules
of classical poetry, the mentioning of “the ancient castle in
Komoro” primarily specifies the scene of action. Toson does not
choose the castle as a background by chance but sees it as the
kind of “symbolical scenery” appropriate to a romantic elegy.
Turning to the art of the epoch of Romanticism, we realize
how much attention artists paid to the harmony of the landscape
with the elements of “historical” architecture. Thus, Turner, one
of the best landscape painters of his time, developed a theory of
“historical landscape”, specifying in his lectures that to create
wonderful works of art it is necessary to establish a connection
5. SHIMAZAKI TOSON AND “THE GOLDEN AGE” OF SHINTAISHI 167
between landscape, architecture, sculpture and history (see
[354, v. 4, 319]).
Although Toson was most likely not aware of such
theories, he took as a model the poetry and painting of Euro-
pean Romanticism, where architecture was often a natural
supplement to nature. Deserted medieval castles and ancient
ruins in the vision of the Romanticists not only create a
historical background, emphasizing the beauty of a landscape,
they also allow for the application of Shelley’s concept of the
“immortality” of poetry, the triumph of “the perfect Absolute”
over the perishable creations of human hands:
What are the silent ruins of the ancient castle saying?
What do the splashing waves answer them?
“Think of the past, of ancient glory!”—
“Like a day that has faded is each passed century . . .”
“Song of a Trip to the Chikuma River”
In his songs of wanderings Toson for the first time managed
to introduce “historical landscape” into the poetry of the Meiji
period and opened for his contemporaries thereby a wide
historical horizon. Special enthusiasm in exploring this inno-
vation was demonstrated by Doi Bansui, who included
references to ancient ruins in many of his poems.
THE ETERNAL QUEST
While the poems of the last three collections continue and
develop to some extent the themes of Young Grasses, they reveal
also some essential differences with the first book. Toson himself
intended even to exaggerate these differences, emphasizing his
maturity and intentionally keeping away from the “youthful”
sentimentality and slightly naïve style of Young Grasses. He
finds no more his ideal in the pleasures of love and nature, but
seeks it in a profound introspection, in intense, at times painful,
168 Part 1. THE ROMANTICIST IDEALS
meditation. “In fact, when your mind is in confusion you will
think of how difficult it is to catch all the wonderful colors of
inner life”, writes Toson in the epilogue to Summer Grasses.
When you ponder on how hard it is to see all human weak-
ness in comparison with the depth and greatness of nature,
when you think of how insufficient is your love for art,
you cannot help sighing over the words of the ancients:
“Composing poems means to be engaged in self-torment”. In
Summer Grasses I am just a child torturing himself [137, v. 1].
Thus the tonality of Toson’s poetry of the later period contrasts
with the light Romanticism of his early poems. According to
one Japanese literary critic, the ways of expressing passion no
longer bear the character of freely flowing songs but become
instead conscious acts of creativity. The difference in structure
between Young Grasses and Summer Grasses “basically lies in
the transition from song (uta) to conscious creativity (seisaku)”
[137, v. 3, 191]. But for all that, the structural changes in Toson’s
later poetry are rather insignificant. Inspiration, not the subtle
calculation of the poet, remains the motive force of his poetry.
Only the coloring of the verse differs. The hymns to spring
occur less often; thoughtful elegies become more abundant:
I do not recognize the appearance of plums and cherries—
The foliage of gardens is drunk with green.
And on a summer afternoon a drowsy whisper is audible:
Oh, where are you,
Where are you, bygone spring?
“Where are you, spring?” (Haru ya izuko ni)
from The Lonely Boat
The cherry blossom, already implying the sadness of
withering and regret over the passing youth, is a theme that
emerges in some of Toson’s later poems. Here a romantic
“world grief” supersedes the optimism so typical of his early
poetic works.
5. SHIMAZAKI TOSON AND “THE GOLDEN AGE” OF SHINTAISHI 169
However, pessimism ultimately does not overthrow the
powerful optimistic basis in Toson’s poetry. It is in his mature
period that his aspiration to defend the ideals of humanity
and beauty in the fight against evil manifests itself for the first
time. Many poems included in the later collections refute the
image of Toson as a “feminine”, gentle, and sentimental poet.
They lack elegiac languor and smoothness of narration. He
turned from admiring nature and praising the “gentle heart”
of a fair lady to a passionate romantic quest for spiritual
emancipation.
This new theme led to a change in the structure of the verse.
While in Toson’s songs of wanderings the lyrical hero is within
certain limits of space and time, in the poems of nature of the
new type he overcomes the bonds of time and is carried away
in his dreams beyond the borders of earthly life. Figurative
semantics typical of European Romanticism form the basis of
such poems as “High in the Mountains, My Soul is Yearning
Afar” (Takayama ni noborite tooku nozomu no uta):
When in great confusion
The clouds are driven by the wind,
My soul, as light as a beam,
Soars up over the mountain peak . . .
Many scholars point out in the poetry of the European
Romanticists an affection for high mountains as the abode of
pure and inaccessible ideals [415, 219–224]13. Like the mighty
ocean in “The Tide”, the mountains embody the weight and
elevation of the thoughts of the lyrical hero. Mountains as
a background of the romantic poems in Western poetry became
a kind of stereotype. Byron, Shelley, Wordsworth, Hugo,
13 Explaining the origin of this special feature of Romanticist poetry,
J. Miller points to the influence of Locke’s theory and quotes its key statement:
“The imagination develops best of all and the sense of beauty is stimulated
while watching huge objects of the geo-cosmos” [300, 210].
170 Part 1. THE ROMANTICIST IDEALS
Pushkin, and Lermontov all glorified them. In this sense, Toson
was following in the footsteps of his great predecessors. Per-
haps the poem is not so original, but for the Japanese poets
of the Meiji period this presentation of the new horizons of
creative imagination was extremely important. Following
Toson, Kunikida Doppo and many others turned to this
promising theme.
Gradually Toson’s desire to find the romantic ideal in the
real life became overwhelming. His search would develop in
three directions: nature, art, and creative physical labor.
Toson used allegorical symbolism in creating the ode “The
Evergreen” (“Tokiwagi” from the collection Fallen Petals of
a Plum Tree)14. The images of “seasonal” poetry in the poem
follow one after another: flowers, butterflies, trees and grasses,
birds, and insects. Their fragility and vulnerability only empha-
size the absolute power of Time, which brings severe winters to
the earth. It seems that nothing can resist it. But the tree, lonely
in its persistence, fearlessly weathers the storms. It is also
mortal, and therefore its persistence is tragic. Centuries will pass
and the tree will eventually die, but up to the last moment of
its life it will not give up fighting. In his “heroic” poems Toson
would glorify inaccessible ideals, which, in some respects, were
probably even alien to him. A lyrical poet to the core, he lacked
the qualities of a fighter, a man of action. Such poems as “The
Song of Eagles” or “The Evergreen” actually were meant to
sublimate his romantic aspiration for heroic deeds, which the
author had given up on in real life.
Much more natural (if we consider the peculiarities of
Toson’s poetic mind) seems the search for a romantic ideal in
the field of art. The problems of aesthetics had always deeply
interested Toson, but only in his later poetic collections does he
try for the first time to deal with the issue of the mission of art
14 The author does not specify the type of tree, though it is obvious that
he means a conifer, possibly a pine tree.
5. SHIMAZAKI TOSON AND “THE GOLDEN AGE” OF SHINTAISHI 171
and its role in human life. The topic of art is revealed in many
works of Toson’s mature poetry: “Ode to a White Porcelain
Vase” (Hakuji kahei fu) from the collection The Lonely Boat;
“Late Autumn Separation” (Banshu no betsuri), “Birth of the
Dawn”, “Five Stanzas on Moonlight” (Gekko go-shu, II), and
“The Nightingale” (Uguisu) from the collection Summer Grasses.
These poems indirectly reflect the influence of the aesthetic
views of the English Romanticists and Pre-Raphaelites, but
they also develop and extend Kitamura Tokoku’s ideas on art,
articulated in his last works. The above-listed poems are not
flawless in form, as they are full of exceedingly complicated
mystical images and vague reminiscences, which makes their
comprehension extremely difficult. Nevertheless, they present
the clue to understanding the concept of art in Toson’s poetry.
The most significant and integral work revealing Toson’s
original aestheticism is “Ode to a White Porcelain Vase”. This
debut in such a difficult genre made Toson the initiator of one
more important tradition in the poetry of Japanese Romanticism.
Susukida Kyukin and Kambara Ariake were fascinated by the
beauty and grace of Toson’s ode, and they themselves created
numerous imitations, thereby developing and elaborating the
genre of the romantic ode.
The incentive for writing the poem was Toson’s acquain-
tance with “Ode on a Grecian Urn” by Keats. A devoted
admirer and an expert in porcelain and ceramics (once he
was even going to devote his life to the craft of the decorator),
Toson was deeply impressed by Keats’ ode glorifying the ever-
lasting charm of ancient art. But Keats’s poem only provides
the subject matter for the Japanese poet. There is none of the
Hellenism of the English Romanticist in Toson’s poem. The
issue of the correlation between art and life is presented in
a different way.
The ode is arranged as a combination of lyrical lamenta-
tions about the miserable destiny of a young sculptor who
has made a fine vase by blood of his heart, with a pathetic
eulogy of the vase itself. The basis of the tragic conflict is the
172 Part 1. THE ROMANTICIST IDEALS
contradiction between the destiny of the artist and the creation
of his hands.
In general, the Pygmalion theme is not a rarity in world
literature, but usually it is not interpreted as pessimistically
as it is in Toson’s poem. The artist entirely devoted to art
usually happens to be rewarded. However, in Toson’s ode
the artist perishes, broken by hardship and having exhausted
body and soul in making the vase. The ideal nature of the vase
is emphasized by the choice of the epithets and comparisons
accompanying the description: white (shiro, shiroki); pure,
snow-white (kiyoki, shirotae); marvelously shining (hikari wa
takaki); sparkling (hikari hagayakite); like a pearl (shiratama);
like the moonlight (tsuki no hikari). Meanwhile, the perishable
nature of human life is expressed by other, basically traditional,
images: life is fragile (usuki); it is like a one-day moth (kagero);
like a cherry blossom it must fall, be scattered, and disappear
(taoreru, chiriyuku, chirinuru, kiyuru); it is ephemeral (hakanasa),
it is like a dream (yume).
Still, a man, despite his perishable nature, is capable of
creating an eternal ideal, even at the cost of his life. Accordingly,
human life itself becomes an ideal, one embodied in the work
of art and purified by it. Art acquires value not as an abstract
category of beauty but as the embodiment of higher moral
principles, as the substance of the rich inner world of the artist.
In “Ode to a White Porcelain Vase” art is presented as
a materialized manifestation of human passions. In another
of Toson’s representative poems, this one from the cycle “Five
Stanzas on Moonlight” (part II), the ideal essence of art and
nature as an object of art is opposed to the mundane passions
and temptations:
The moon shines from the height immutably,
But the fires of desire eclipse it.
The flowers of art blossom immutably,
But the fires of temptation singe them.
5. SHIMAZAKI TOSON AND “THE GOLDEN AGE” OF SHINTAISHI 173
This eternal lamp is lighted with a motive —
We feast carelessly in the moon beams . . .
Yes, art is immortal, the moon is pure —
And the days of our life are numbered.
It would seem that the antithesis, similar to that of “Ode
to a White Porcelain Vase”, is given here a different solution:
art appears to break away from life and exist in a different
dimension. But at this point it is necessary to consider that in
the former poem the subjective-lyrical element of narration
related to the tragic destiny of the artist dominates, whereas
in “Five Stanzas” an objective-lyrical element, the result of
abstract poetic reflection, prevails. The perfect nature of “the
moon-lit world”, in contrast to earthly reality, is accentuated,
giving a philosophical Buddhist implication to the sequence.
Toson had always given prominence to his love for ancient
art:
In my sister’s house many ancient pictures and books as
well as china and lacquered utensils have been preserved
since olden times. Perahaps thanks to them I have become
so infatuated with antiques. I was very pleased to see the
scrolls in the house library as well [137, v. 1, 330].
He speaks about the same things in his poem “Late Autumn
Separation”:
When at leisure under the arches of a temple
You wander deep in sad meditation,
A stream of incense flows in your soul—
The unearthly flavor of ancient pictures . . .
Discussing the important role of art, Toson uses borrowed
Western images going back to the poetry of classicism. Some
mysterious “gods of art” (takumi no kami), unknown in Japanese
mythology, appear in his poems in the beginning. Then he
mentions the god who is the patron of poetry (utagami). At last
174 Part 1. THE ROMANTICIST IDEALS
it becomes clear that he is speaking of the muses, and utagami,
accordingly, is none other than the muse of poetry15. In addition,
unusual historical and geographical realities such as Athens
and the Parthenon appear in the poem. Though an appeal
to the muses to grant inspiration to the poet reproduces
a standard motif of European poetry, it is fancifully combined
with indigenous images of an absolutely different kind (spirits,
demons, and other “immortal” characters of Japanese folklore,
quite often mentioned in Toson’s poetry of nature).
Thus, from Toson’s perspective, life generates poetry, and
poetry, in turn, recreates life in its ideal forms. An artist is
destined to reveal the poetry of life and turn it into art.
The search for a romantic ideal in art led Toson to realize
the necessity and importance of a poet’s mission, that is,
to find the invariable criteria of beauty. But the artificial
romantic images created by him were not capable of fulfilling
his aspiration to become a part of real, ordinary life, to find
the sources of the life force that nourishes the people. Toson
believed that the path to the hearts of his contemporaries lay in
the theme of labor. At the time of writing Summer Grasses, Toson
lived at his sister’s house in Fukushima. Frequent walks and
conversations with peasants and fishermen revealed the world
of the common people to him. The poet wrote in the epilogue to
Summer Grasses about this period of his life:
In the morning and in the evening I would wander in
that blossoming garden, in the shadow of the pear trees,
burdened with fruits, or among the grapevines and the
lilies. My soul would follow the summer clouds floating
in the blue sky as if on an ocean. At times, in the shadow
of a twisting fence, I would spend an evening talking with
15 As we know, three muses are related to poetry: Euterpe is the muse of
lyrical poetry and music, Erato the muse of love poetry, and Polyhymnia the
muse of hymns. Toson, although imitating the European poets, presents his
muse as a universal image.
5. SHIMAZAKI TOSON AND “THE GOLDEN AGE” OF SHINTAISHI 175
simple, rough old peasants about cheerful holiday nights,
about field work, learning rural customs [137, v. 1, 330].
It was then that he decided to glorify the romantic nature
of the hard but honorable labor of the farmers. Such poems as
“Tide”(Ushio) and “Peasant” (Nofu) from the collection Summer
Grasses and “Labor Songs” (Rodo zatsuei) from the collection
Fallen Petals of a Plum Tree explore the theme of the fishermen
and peasants’ labor.
Toson’s interest in the topic of labor reflected an evolution
in the artist’s worldview that brought him eventually to
the realm of the realistic novel. However, in “Peasant” and
“Labor Songs” Toson’s creative technique remains completely
romantic, despite the realistic ground of the selected topic.
Apparently, although Toson himself did not mention it, he was
under the strong influence of Wordsworth’s pseudo-realistic
rustic ballads “Michael” and “We are Seven”.
“Peasant,” was designed by the author as a long poem
covering various aspects of the people’s life. The length of this
work (870 lines) allowed Toson to raise issues of family, society,
work, and war. The narrative style, combining the author’s
speech with dialogue, also varies. Nevertheless, “Peasant”
leaves an impression of frivolity and tediousness. The imagery
suffers from depressing sketchiness, and the language sounds
artificial. “Peasant” failed to meet the expectations of the author
and was mostly ignored by the critics. The negative experience
of this long poem resulted in Toson’s efforts to go even deeper
into the lives of peasants.
In Fallen Petals of a Plum Tree the poet creates spiritual
hymns to the labor of a grain-grower, a blacksmith, a fisherman.
Toson’s romantic ideal can be seen now in a person earning his
daily bread by the sweat of his brow, a creator of everything
beautiful on the earth. Whereas earlier the poet glorified
a mighty eagle challenging the storm, or a young artist carving
a wonderful vase, in his “Labor Songs”(Rodo no uta) the author
glorifies the “heroic reality” of everyday life:
176 Part 1. THE ROMANTICIST IDEALS
A rooster crows, and now get ready
For the eternal fight for life . . .
“Morning” (Asa)
“Labor Songs” symbolize a new understanding of the
demands of time. Not without reason Ishimaru Hisashi asserts
that “one can already see in the author of Fallen Petals of a Plum
Tree the future author of the novel Broken Commandment”16 [53,
49]. Going deeper and deeper into the essence of the social
contradictions in Japanese society, Toson gradually realized
the necessity of a closer analysis of peasant life during the
post-restoration period. Turning to prose, he continued to
develop this topic in Sketches from the Banks of the Chikuma River
(Chikumagawa no suketchi), in Broken Commandment, and, in
part, in The Family (Ie). Thus, the experimental “Peasant” and
“Labor Songs”, written with mature skill, can be regarded as
a romantic prelude to the naturalist prose by Toson. The search
for the ideal in real life ended with the shift from the poetry of
Romanticism to the realistic novel.
16 Broken Commandment (Hakai, 1906) was Toson’s first novel.
6 DOI BANSUI—
POETIC COSMOS OF
A ROMANTICIST
SOURCES OF INSPIRATION
The era of Romanticism, which had become for Japan a pe-
riod of search for national identity and of the renovation of
national culture, produced a number of writers whose works
are worthy to be included in the treasury of world art. Among
these distinguished writers we can place Doi Bansui (1871–
1952), many of whose poems, along with those of Shimazaki
Toson, have become classics of the new Japanese poetry.
Bansui was an outstanding figure even among the literati
of the Meiji period, so rich in talented writers. A poet, a scho-
lar, an educator, he combined all the merits and vices of
Romanticism that emerged at the end of the nineteenth century
in the Far East.
Doi1 Rinkichi (Bansui was his penname) was born into
a rich merchant family. His childhood coincided with major
social shifts brought about by Meiji reforms, and in the days
of his adolescence the Movement for Freedom and People’s
Rights was on the rise. However, social events did not have
any considerable influence on the formation of Rinkichi’s
1 In the studies of Japanese literature there have been different
interpretations of the kanji in the poet’s name: some specialists believe that
the characters should be read as Tsuchii, others as Doi. We rely on the words
of Bansui, who clearly pointed out in the preface to his collection of essays
“When it Rains the Weather is Bad” (Ame no furu hi wa warui, 1943) that his
name should be read Doi.
178 Part 1. THE ROMANTICIST IDEALS
worldview. After finishing elementary school he agreed with
his grandfather’s opinion that “a merchant does not need much
education” and began to work as an assistant in the family
business. Still, some time later, Rinkichi managed to graduate
from high school.
After that Bansui left commerce for good and entered
the Institute of Culture (Bunka daigaku), which was later
transformed into the Faculty of Letters of Tokyo Imperial
University. His love for literature developed partly under
the influence of his father, an expert and connoisseur of the
classics. As Bansui wrote in his Memoirs on the Epoch of the
Birth of New Poetry (Shinshi hassei jidai no omoide), already
at school he became steeped in the works of the Chinese
bards of the Tang period, medieval Chinese novels, especially
Romance of the Three Kingdoms and Water Margin, as well as the
Manyoshu, Kokinshu, and the poetry of Saigyo and Basho. In
the heyday of the movement for “new-style poetry”, Bansui
happened to read the first collection of shintaishi poetry, the
Shintaishisho (The Book of Verse in the New Style, 1882). That
collection became for Bansui a kind of ars poetica, revealing
new possibilities for modern verse. The philosophical depth
of Thomas Gray’s “Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard”
especially attracted his attention. “It must have been from
the collection Shintaishisho”, writes Bansui, “that my love for
European poetry began” [41, v. 1, 98].
Bansui’s linguistic proficiency, which was admired by
his contemporaries, defined in many respects the nature of
his poetic works. Actually, none of the poets of Japanese
Romanticism was in command of more than two European
languages, and the majority of them were content with
“written” English and perhaps also classical Chinese. Bansui
managed to break many language barriers and was in full
command of Chinese, English, French, Italian, German, ancient
Greek, and Latin. His translations and critical reviews brought
an invaluable contribution, no less than his original poetry, to
the development of modern Japanese literature. He translated,
6. DOI BANSUI—POETIC COSMOS OF A ROMANTICIST 179
for example, Homer’s epic poems Iliad and Odyssey, Byron’s
Child Harold, and many poems by Goethe and Hugo.
In 1899 his best poems were issued in the remarkable
collection An Universe Full of Feelings (Tenchi ujo), which found
a place in the history of Japanese literature next to Toson’s Young
Grasses. Some time later Bansui published more books, but they
are considerably inferior to the debut collection in terms of
poetic merit: The Dawn Bell (Gyosho, 1901), Songs of the Wanderer
from the Eastern Sea (Tokai yushi gin, 1906), and, much later, On
the Path of a Heavenly Horse (Temma no michi ni, 1920), A Call
to Asia (Ajia ni sakebu, 1932) and The Divine Wind (Kamikaze,
1937). Bansui’s later collections reflected the evolution of his
social ideals in the direction of Pan-Asiatic nationalism. The
patriotic surge affected the quality of his poems, which lost their
strength and beauty of imagery, becoming incomprehensible
texts overloaded with heroic allusions. The critics treated the
later collections with much reserve, in striking contrast to the
enthusiastic evaluation of A Universe Full of Feelings. There can
be no doubt that Bansui’s exceptional poetic talent revealed
itself at its best in his first collection.
Having a reputation as a poet of highly elevated ideals,
Bansui remained a person of a rationalist mind, trying to find
an optimal correlation between art and life. His views on the
goals of poetry reflect the influence of the abstract humanism
expressed by Shelley and in the early essays by Hugo, on the
one hand, and the rational, didactic approach, somewhat typical
of Wordsworth’s aesthetics, on the other hand. In the foreword
to A Universe Full of Feelings, Bansui accurately defined his
position in the literary world:
For a long time the destiny of poetry was to produce objects
of entertainment, to manufacture literature for leisurely
pastime, to create inutile hand-made articles, “carved
moths”. If this vicious tradition is not overcome, there is no
way to wake up real poetry from its slumber. The essential
issue for the Japanese poetry of our time, I believe, is to
reform the readers’ basic views of poetry [16, v. 58, 5].
180 Part 1. THE ROMANTICIST IDEALS
Doi
Bansui
While Toson claimed that the basis of poetry in new forms
lay in the ability to reproduce the beauty of the inner world
and the charm of surrounding nature, Bansui saw his goal as
the elaboration of new canonic forms of philosophical and heroic
poetry. His task, in other words, was to work out the principles of
a new national poetry that would convey the spirit of social and
cultural progress in an age of great changes. From this perspective,
he was rather skeptical of the accomplishments of previous
shintaishi poetry: “If our country moving ahead proclaims high
expectations, then we should not hold back from demanding
the same from the present world of poetry”2 [16, v. 58, 5].
Defending the importance of an ethical pathos in poetry,
Bansui nevertheless refrained from taking a rigorous view on
art as the means to assert Christian or any other morals. His
criticism is directed against the superficial art that Goethe
called “prettiness”, but not against the aesthetic essence of
refined poetry. In this regard, we can consider Bansui to be
a successor of the concept developed by Goethe, Schiller, and
the progressive English Romanticists—the concept of the “two-
2 At this point Bansui almost literally repeats the words said by Shelley
in his A Defence of Poetry.
6. DOI BANSUI—POETIC COSMOS OF A ROMANTICIST 181
fold nature” of art, where moral importance and beauty, ethics
and aesthetics, co-exist in full harmony.
However, while repudiating decadent aestheticism with
its principle of “art for the art’s sake”, Bansui could not yet—
unlike Goethe and Schiller—attain the level of great national
poetry, which was obviously his dream. Moreover, his poetic
declarations about the artist’s mission, as was typical earlier
of some members of Bungakukai, quite often ran counter to his
own educational manifesto. In his poetic world Bansui sees
the artist or creator (shisei) as the supreme judge and prophet,
perceiving the secrets of another world:
Oh Poet, behold, I will tell you who you are.
Like a volcano, you raise your head to the clouds.
The stars shine upon your mighty forehead,
And the vessel of your heart is filled with lava . . .3
“Poet” (Shijin)
Most likely, the decisive role in the formation of Bansui’s
views on the goals of a poet and poetry was played by the
aesthetic ideas of the young Hugo and, especially, Shelley,
whose understanding of the social importance of art was com-
bined with the concept of the “chosen” poet. Bansui was espe-
cially fascinated by Shelley’s conception of the supernatural
character of inspiration, asserting that even the greatest of poets
cannot call himself a creator of poetry (see [413, v. 3, 787]). The
novelty (for Japan) and allure of the image of a poet as a herald
of divine forces high above the perishable earthly world,
fascinated Bansui so much that this idea becomes dominant in
all his early works.
Whatever poems of Bansui’s on the topic of “the poet” or
“poetry” we take, we discover transparent allusions referring to
Shakespeare, Dante, Goethe, Schiller, and other great names in
Western poetry.
3 Here and elsewhere Bansui’s poems are quoted in [18]
 182 Part 1. THE ROMANTICIST IDEALS 6. DOI BANSUI—POETIC COSMOS OF A ROMANTICIST 183

I have opened the window Using abstract notions such as “good”, “truth”, and “free-
And my grieving soul dom”, the poet creates a picture of a utopian kingdom of light
Is ready to follow a shooting star. toward which mankind is heading:
в конце стих. цитат нет знака

Perhaps it is destined
To fall at the blue Avon, Waiting for the time
In a Tuscan garden, When, proclaiming equality, truth,
Or among the green trees near Weimar the dawn of freedom on the earth,
The Realm of heavenly light
“The Universe and the Poet” (Banbutsu to shijin)
Will illuminate the darkness,
препинания?

Bansui felt much sharper than the majority of his contem- Let us go together, friends, hand in hand,
poraries his involvement in the revelations of the same muse Believing that in this world of doubts and hardships
that had inspired the titans of European poetry4. The desire to The path will lead to our cherished aim!
join the circle of the great poets as a peer among peers induced “Light” (Hikari)
him in every possible way to emphasize the exclusiveness of the
It is not surprising that Bansui, an admirer of classical
poetic talents, among whom he of course would place himself.
German philosophy, should introduce such romantic symbols
His native Japan, an isolated archipelago with comparatively
into the poem. His “light” embodies Schelling’s idea of light
low mountains covered in forests, with its reserved and sad
as a universal and absolute creative force, a kind of a parallel to
beauty and its poetry of stifled feelings, could no longer hold
the concept of “light” or “lightness” in Far Eastern cosmogony
the artist’s imagination, now magnified by vast space, majestic
and philosophy—yang (Japanese yo). The light as an antipode of
mountains, and tragic collisions of passions. It was certainly no
darkness represents for Bansui the most generalized expression
accident that his poem “Eagle” (Washi) takes up the theme of
of the positive Romanticist ideal.
Prometheus. In Bansui’s poetry national boundaries disappear,
Bansui was the first and the only poet of Japanese Roman-
and the poet flies freely across borders in an effort to perceive
ticism who tried to adapt in his work the ideas and images of
это заголовок или первая строка?

his place in the context of a global civilization glorified and

Schelling’s philosophy. Of course, poetry by Toson and some
mourned by his predecessors:
of his followers, when closely examined, will also reveal the
influence of concepts suggested by Schelling as well as by August
Here, where Byron shed his bloody tears,
von Schlegel and Hartmann. But this influence penetrated the
He called himself “the fruit of doubts and death”.
poems of the other Japanese Romanticists indirectly, mostly
Here, where Schiller announced painfully
due to their acquaintance with English poetry. In the case of
To the people of the midnight land:
Bansui, both poetry and the aesthetic theory of German Roman-
“The ideal has perished!”
ticism were dear to his heart. Studying the original sources,
“Evening Thoughts” (Yu no omoi)
philosophical treatises by German authors, opened for him
opportunities inaccessible to the majority of his compatriots.
4 We have already dwelt on the issue of studying the “literary legacy,” but

in Bansui’s case it seems especially true that certain great European writers
This likely accounts for the specific features of Doi Bansui’s
were taken by the Japanese author as his favorite teachers, instructors, and poetry that brought him glory as the poet of contemplation
interlocutors. (meisokei shijin) and the singer of the ideal (risokei shijin) [13, 9].
184 Part 1. THE ROMANTICIST IDEALS
METAPHYSICS OF THE UNIVERSE
The publication of A Universe Full of Feelings was declared by
Takayama Chogyu to be an event of historical importance, one
destined to change the established conception of poetry (Bansui
also proclaims this in his preface to the collection).
Bansui’s work has reached the same high level as Toson’s
poems, and suddenly the critics have started to extol him
unanimously. I am very glad for Bansui, as it is apparently
time for him, who has become a new idol and the star of our
young literary world, to carry out his predestined mission.
Frankly speaking, however, I believe that Bansui’s poems
are not fully understood by his contemporaries. I have
known Bansui for a long time; possessing the mind of a true
poet, he puts into his poems something more than the critics
of the world can interpret [137, v. 2, 18].
The last comment refers, apparently, not to Bansui’s poetry as
a whole, but only to the part that Chogyu considered the most
essential, i. e. the philosophical poems.
Many poems from A Universe Full of Feelings are related
spiritually to Schiller’s work and even borrow some of the
German poet’s topics. The collection opens with the poem
“Hope” (Kibo), which is also the name of a renowned poem by
Schiller:
When under a squall,
Wave following wave roars,
When the moon suddenly disappears
And darkness comes over the world,
The star does not fade away
That helps me, in my fragile boat, to find the way . . .
“Hope” by Bansui is not at all an epigonic work. It reveals
a mature understanding of Schiller’s poem and its expression
of immortal humanistic ideals. “Hope”, anticipating the philo-
6. DOI BANSUI—POETIC COSMOS OF A ROMANTICIST 185
sophical generalizations of such poems as “Evening Thoughts”
(Yu no omoi) and “Evening Bell” (Kuregane), establishes
the credo of the author. “No matter how deep is his sadness,
there is always implied a certain aspiration towards the light;
in other words, light presents the other side of darkness,
sorrow conceals hope” [41, v. 1, 101]. The Romanticist melan-
choly resulting from the feeling of loneliness in the world and
disappointment in real life does not lead Bansui to gloomy
pessimism. His poetry is neither mere complaints nor songs
of grief and despair. He opposes to the negative ideals of
German Romanticism of the early nineteenth century and
modern Western poetry a passionate quest for ideals, a creative
zeal and lust for life, presented in the form of philosophical
meditation.
Takayama Chogyu notes: “His poems are not at all songs for
entertainment; they sound like a prayer, and they express not
a fleeting transient experience but eternal ideas. In this respect,
Bansui follows mainly in the current of the poetry of Dante
and Hugo” [137, v. 2, 19]. In fact, Bansui maintained a love for
Hugo’s poetry throughout his life.
If we compare typologically “Evening Thoughts” (Yu no
omoi) by Bansui with some masterpieces of European poetry,
the most obvious parallel is Edward Young’s poem “The
Complaint: or Night Thoughts” (1742–1745), which once had
a great influence on the outlook of the poets of Romanticism.
The full name of the poem by Young, “The Complaint: or
Night Thoughts about Life, Death and Immortality” could
be a reference not only to “Evening Thoughts” by Bansui but
also to many other works of philosophical poetry. Enriched by
the whole heritage of Western Romanticism, Bansui’s poetry,
however, gravitates to “sensitive” and elevated images, espe-
cially to those originating in Christian mysticism. The structure
of Bansui’s poem (poetic meditations on the true sense of life,
God, and human destiny) reproduces parts of Young’s poem
and in general reminds us of Young’s role in the poetry of the
pre-Romanticist period. Japanese literary critics do not point
186 Part 1. THE ROMANTICIST IDEALS
out this similarity, preferring instead to suggest Shelley or
Hugo as Bansui’s poetic mentors. Yet no matter where the poet
derives his inspiration from, his poems spiritually, stylistically,
and even lexically are sometimes more related to the sentimen-
talism of Young and Gray, though they are far from mere
imitations. Bansui builds his own philosophy and cosmology
on the basis of European poetry.
The understanding of the dramatic essence of human life
is much more distinctly expressed in Bansui’s poetry than
in the work of Toson and his followers. The lamentations
on the destiny of a human being in Bansui’s interpretation
acquire a universal nature, reaching at times a scale of cosmic
proportions. He embodies his romantic melancholy and roman-
tic hope in solemn and majestic forms that no other Japanese
poets had ever tried to create. Critics are correct in asserting that
Bansui’s most important achievement was the “development
of the thematic aspects of verse, a trend which had only been
casually outlined by his predecessors” [13, 152]. Actually,
Bansui had no predecessors in the field of philosophic poetry
(of the European type). In the poetry of Japanese Romanticism
he should be considered the pioneer of the genre.
Bansui never means present or past in its historical con-
creteness. For him, as well as for many European poets of
Schellingean orientation, “the very act of comparing an instant
with eternity, historical time with extra-historical existence,
creates a structure of time, the inclusiveness of an instant into
a larger structure, which expands the time range and corre-
lates the present with the past” [383, 164].
For Bansui, the details of a landscape are subordinated to
the law of associative thinking and are used for revealing
the unity of the universe, those hidden bonds between the
generations replacing one another in a continuous flow. His
poetry differs greatly from the poetry of Toson and other
Japanese Romanticists, being full of abstract philosophical
categories and symbols unknown both in the traditional genres
and in previous shintaishi poetry.
6. DOI BANSUI—POETIC COSMOS OF A ROMANTICIST 187
His religious mood at times exceedes the limits of conditional
romantic mysticism, turning into fetishism:
High in the sky, at the limits
Of human thoughts, as a divine sign,
I see the shape of a giant hand, reaching out,
Its finger pointing to the mysterious darkness.
“The Outline of a Giant Hand” (Ooi naru te no kage)
from The Dawn Bell”
Nevertheless, Christian mysticism hardly can be called
a defining feature of Bansui’s poetry. The antithesis of
material and ideal essence is expressed through contrast and
comparison of quite definite Romanticist symbols, which seem
programmed in advance for a given system of imagery. Thus,
while in Toson’s poems of mild tones the time of action usually
refers to morning or sunset and with the dawn haze or eveining
light as a background, Bansui prefers late evening or night. In
Toson’s poetry light overcomes darkness, in Bansui’s works
darkness inevitably dominates, with only occasionally a ray
of light making its way through. In this way, the importance
of the symbols of light only increases. Following Schelling’s
view of light as a source of perfect essence, of the absolute and
the “world soul”, the stars in Bansui’s poetry play the role of
a link between eternity and individual human destiny, always
remaining constant in the tumultuous history of mankind:
Between the clouds, wandering in the darkness of night,
The light of a star is vaguely seen.
What does the heavenly ocean have in store for us?
The answer is concealed in the darkness.
“Evening Star” (Yu no hoshi)
Stars are invariable, but each new generation tries to
perceive in them new signs, to find consolation for the world
of “weariness, conflicts and sorrows” (tsukari, arasoi, wazurai).
188 Part 1. THE ROMANTICIST IDEALS
In such philosophical poetry, quite naturally, “the mysterious
voice, the mystery of eternal creation, appears to an experienced
reader as ‘signs’ of Schelling’s philosophy” [396, 61].
When Schelling was developing his concept of the “world
soul” (Weltgeist), he meant a certain universal creative principle
providing a permanent transition from the non-organic (ideal)
world to the organic (material) world. The “world soul”
implies a creative synthesis which provides the basis for the
self-generation life. Later the concept of the “world soul”
was supplemented by Goethe, who put forward the idea of
a universal connection in nature which is carried out in the non-
organic world by means of light and in the organic world by
means of love. Bansui’s philosophical poetry illustrates clearly
this theory, one extremely idealistic and therefore especially
attractive for the poets of Romanticism.
The crucial points of Bansui’s philosophy are reflected in
his two iconic poems “Flowers and Stars” (Hana to hoshi) and
“Stars and Flowers” (Hoshi to hana). A typical example of the
meditative elegy can be also found in the poem “A Flower on
the Grave” (Bojo no hana), where the author again resorts to his
favorite Romantacist symbols. A pure flower has grown on the
grave, a receptacle of base human passions, a place of “death,
misery, and enmity”. Such a combination of incompatible
notions gives rise to insoluble questions in the soul of the poet:
What mystery does the grave conceal?
What symbol does a bud hide
If the heavenly blessing gives them
Only dew to share at dawn?
There then follows a philosophical generalization that
lacks the answers to the questions, yet the general meaning of
the image is clear: the ideal, “divine” beauty of the flower is
opposed to the “sinful” world of human passions. Undoubtedly,
the world of passions, the world of decay (chiri no yo) is
associated in the mind of a Japanese poet brought up on the
6. DOI BANSUI—POETIC COSMOS OF A ROMANTICIST 189
classical tradition with the Buddhist concept of samsara, where
humans are doomed to dwell in misery, following the ruthless
law of karma. At the same time, the contrary, ideal aspect of his
philosophy has nothing in common with Buddhist detachment
but is completely based on the principles of European romantic
idealism:
Oh, Beauty that knows no decay!
The indelible stamp of love!
How to express the poet’s inspiration?
How to reveal this unearthly happiness?
“Love in the Transient World” (Ukiyo no koi)
Combining in his poetry tradition with borrowing, the
poet creates on the old foundation something new, achieving
thereby a symbiosis of Western and Eastern philosophical ideas.
Bansui’s propensity towards philosophical generalizations
gives his poetry a scale that Japanese Romanticism always
lacked in comparison with Western Romanticism. The poet
seems to encompass with his mind the Universe, assessing the
past and predicting the future, handing down his judgments
about nature and about human beings:
A human family comes, but it will be gone for ever,
The great powers will rise and fall.
The earthly rivers flow and will flow on,
From their orbits the stars will not move aside . . .
“Love in the Transient World”
The philosophy here is inseparable from religion. In the
poem, the words of Ecclesiastes merge with the traditional
Buddhist belief in the impermanence of the world, with classic
images of “rise” and “decline”, representing the eternal cycle of
destiny—or the Wheel of Karma.
Bansui’s in his meditative poems has no desire to fuse with
nature and forget his “ego”, an attitude which was so typical of
190 Part 1. THE ROMANTICIST IDEALS
the Japanese Romanticists. On the contrary, the poet perceives
life through the eyes of a philosopher and a prophet, one who
has the magic sight of a sage, having experienced all human
passions but parted with them. Essentially, this is pure poetry
of reflection combining elements of Christian and Buddhist
mysticism, natural philosophy and Romanticist idealism. One
of these elements might prevail at any given time, but all of
them exist in an indissoluble connection.
Takayama Chogyu in his critical analysis assesses, perhaps
too strictly, Bansui’s infatuation with the European Romanticists:
Speaking frankly, Bansui’s views on nature and man are
a bit infantile. All his philosophical ideas are not based on
any real scientific research but have their roots in the poetic
imagination of the Artist, that is, in the work of Dante or
Hugo. But isn’t it a bit too simple to borrow the worldview
from the poets of the nineteenth century?
Poetry has to evolve and flourish first of all in accordance
with its time and, in the interest of enlightening mankind,
present new ideals, giving people a new understanding of
the spirit of the age. Without it a poet will never be able to
satisfy the spiritual needs and aspirations of the people of
his epoch. I would like Bansui to think more seriously about
this [137, v. 2, 23].
Chogyu, who was reasoning from the position of a contem-
porary and who rightly pointed to the necessity of poetry to
conform to its time, was infected with the nationalist ideology
of “Japanism” and could not understand that the requirements
of the epoch certainly implied also mastering the humanist
heritage of European Romanticism. He was not pleased with
the obvious “cosmopolitan nature” of Bansui’s philosophical
poetry during a period, when the Japanese empire expected
from its poets the glorification of the “Spirit of Yamato” in
sonorous odes and triumphant hymns.
Takayama Chogyu’s biased criticism had a surprisingly
strong impact on the further evolution of Bansui’s poetry,
which soon started drifting towards nationalist values.
6. DOI BANSUI—POETIC COSMOS OF A ROMANTICIST 191
The point of view that Bansui was an artificial poet who
would follow the voice of reason, but not the heart, was rather
widely spread among the Japanese literary critics. Many of
them, admitting that Bansui together with Toson had created
a new epoch in the development of Romanticist shintaishi,
speak about his poems as of conventional phenomena of the
time having no future [125, v. 58, 383].
The comparison between Toson and Bansui is an age-
long issue, usually presented by Japanese scholars as the
contradiction between inspiration and analytical reason. Rather
than dwelling on these arguments, we would do better to refer
to N. I. Konrad’s conclusion, which laconically and correctly
summarizes the importance of Bansui for Japanese culture:
His art of putting abstract philosophical ideas into poetic
form has given him an independent identity and a place of
honor in the poetry of his time. However, this very feature
so typical of Bansui also gives his poetry a certain artificiality
regarding the choice of topics, and his approach to them
reveals both erudition and bookishness . . . In any case, con-
sidering its overall merit, Bansui’s poetry should be listed
next to Toson’s, with which it shares first place [430, 340].
The bookish nature of Bansui’s poetry is a nuisance, but it
is quite natural for, whence, if not from European “book
knowledge”, could come the new ideas and images, unknown in
Japanese poetry? All great poets have been influenced by other
masters in various ways. Unfortunately, neither the readers
at large brought up on a different cultural tradition, nor even
professional critics were able to appreciate to the full extent
Bansui’s philosophical poetry. They only instinctively felt its
importance and very few people, like Takayama Chogyu, could
reveal the roots of this strange poetry of abstract reflection, so
alien to Japanese traditions.
Some of his philosophical poetic etudes are worthy of com-
parison with the masterpieces of European Romanticism, but
only the etudes, as in Bansui’s poetry the dramatic aspect re-
mains undeveloped. His talent did not produce such grandiose
192 Part 1. THE ROMANTICIST IDEALS
images as Milton’s Satan, Shelley’s Prometheus or Lermontov’s
Demon. Rather, many of his philosophical generalizations
seem “floating in the air” and remain no more than elegiac
“complaints”.
LINKAGE TO THE GLORIOUS PAST
As Bansui’s poetry is basically elegiac by nature, it confirms
a universal law of poetry: the more concrete an image is, the
more vivid is the aesthetic experience. Of course, here we mean
not just the use of poetic imagery, but also the symmetry of the
composition, the arrangement of the verse, the compatibility of
details, the perfection of the lexicon, and the unique “national
color”. Perhaps, for this particular reason the short poem by
Bansui “The Moon over the Old Castle” (Kojo no tsuki)5 has
gained such popularity and remained among the immortal
masterpieces of Japanese poetry, along with “Song of a Trip
to the Chikuma River” by Toson. Put to music by the talented
composer Take Rintaro, it still enjoys great popularity as a song.
The plot of the poem, a poet’s reflections on the ruins of
an ancient castle, was quite popular in the poetry of European
Sentimentalism and Romanticism. It can be found among
Toson’s works as well. However, Bansui was the first to
introduce historic and heroic subject matter into Romanticist
shintaishi verse. He expressed the ideas of the medieval samurai
epos in a new form, presenting them through the prism of his
own romantic worldview.
In “The Moon over the Old Castle” the imagery comes
mostly from classical poetry: a thousand-year old pine tree and
5
This poem as according to the preface by Bansui was written in 1898
and was at once put to music by the composer Take Rentaro. It was not
included in the first edition of A Universe Full of Feelings and was published
only in 1901 in the Collection of the Songs for Middle School” (Chugaku shoka
shu). In contemporary editions, “The Moon over the Old Castle,” as a rule is
included in A Universe Full of Feeling.
6. DOI BANSUI—POETIC COSMOS OF A ROMANTICIST 193
the invariable light of the moon are symbols of eternity; the cry
of departing wild geese is a symbol of autumn melancholy.
But the mysterious charm of the poem is not so much in the
novelty of the words, but in the combination of images, their
harmony, wholeness, and coherence. These are the criteria by
which to evaluate “The Moon over the Old Castle”, and they
show Bansui at the peak of his poetic skill.
The poem consists of quatrains with a fixed number of
syllables per line (12). All the poetic techniques employed are
aimed at expressing the antithesis of eternal and transitory
existence, which is at the same time the main theme of Bansui’s
philosophical poetry. The two initial stanzas referring to the past
are arranged according to the following pattern: an exposition
(a scene from the remote past of the castle, destroyed long ago),
and a complicated descriptive section that ends with a rhetorical
question-refrain:
The Feast under a spring cherry tree in the castle yard.
The pines awash in the light of the silver moon.
Its clear reflection falls from above into the bowls—
Oh, the shining glory of bygone days.
Where are you now?
The castle in autumn is veiled with hoarfrost.
The glitter on the blades of the swords reflect
the shades of the moon.
A distant cry of geese flying in the sky, those sad dreams . . .
Oh, the shining glory of bygone days.
Where are you now?
Using the poly-semantic nature of the word hikari (“light”,
“glitter”, “glory”), the poet links in one image “moonlight” (the
background throughout the poem) and the “glory of bygone
days” when life was so vibrant and beautiful in the ancient
castle. The first line, devoted to hanami, the spring festival of
admiring cherry blossoms, gives the poem the native coloring
194 Part 1. THE ROMANTICIST IDEALS
so highly valued in Romanticist poetry, simultaneously stirring
up in the soul of a Japanese reader a complex of associations—
pictures of pure happiness and careless fun.
The next stanza, linked with the first one by a full gram-
matical parallelism and a refrain, depicts autumn. The traditional
seasonal recurrence enriches the internal rhythm of the verse
by means of a psychological parallel. The poet seems to give
a motive for the coming desolation of the castle and the death of
its inhabitants. The third stanza, referring to the present, shows
the gloomy ruins viewed now by the author. Thus, gradually,
the reader approaches the final stanza conveying the concept
of impermanence: “the essence of the world is in the fate of
the blossoms that bloom and in fall”. But even such a trivial
philosophical generalization in the final stanza, which might
seem a commonplace, does not sound obtrusive, softened as
it is by the lyrical image of the moon that is a witness to the
infinite metamorphoses of the earthly world.
CONTEMPLATING HISTORY
“The Moon over the Old Castle” differs not only from abstract
meditative poetry, but also from those works by Bansui that
are usually classified as historical heroic ballads (shishi), such
as “The Autumn Wind over the Uchanyuan Plain during
a Meteorite Shower” (Seiraku shufu gojogen), “The Dream of
a Dismounted Horseman” (Bazenno yume), and “The Song to
the Great Wall of China” (Banri chojo no uta) from The Dawn
Bell collection, and others. The term shishi (“historical poems”
or “historical ballads”), which many Japanese literary critics use
while referring to such poems by Bansui, is rather conventional
and has nothing in common, for example, with the European
folk ballad or the ballads of Western Romanticism. The two
are so different in content and style that it is only in the very
general sense of “poetic reflections on historical themes” that
the two can be said to be linked.
6. DOI BANSUI—POETIC COSMOS OF A ROMANTICIST 195
The poetic techniques of shintaishi Romanticist poetry
were insufficient for the genre of the historical heroic ballad,
especially when based on a European plot, although some
Japanese scholars have a different opinion [120, v. 2, 381]. Trying
to imitate the European poets of this genre, Bansui did not take
into consideration the specific features of the Japanese poetic
images that brought some discord to the solemn tone of his
poems6. Whereas the poets of shintaishi verse managed to find
a “golden mean” between the Western and Eastern aesthetic
traditions in intimate lyrical poetry, Bansui’s shishi reveal all the
flaws of poetry that has been torn off from its native ground but
failed to find a strong foothold in the culture of other countries.
Nevertheless, Bansui’s heroic ballads played a certain role in
the period of active growth of the Japanese empire, when they
were widely used in semi-official propaganda such as educational
songs for young people (ryoka). Muramatsu Takeshi comes
to the following conclusion: “Their influence on the following
generations was truly great, but it concerns, so to speak, the
social domain, whereas in the world of poetry their influence
cannot be compared to that of Toson’s poems” [120, v. 2, 382].
Both philosophical poems and historical heroic ballads were
specific areas of Japanese Romanticist poetry in which Bansui
did not have real competitors. Due to the extreme complexity of
these genres, he did not even have imitators or direct followers.
Still, Bansui’s poetry is linked by a thousand threads to the
poetic world of his contemporaries. Even in the most abstract
examples of meditative poetry, Bansui’s style and language
remain mostly within the boundaries of the classical shintaishi of
1890s, only admitting sometimes excessive use of complicated
kango words. Meanwhile his love poems, which were not so
original but formed quite a large section of A Universe Full of
6 The attempt to endow foreign writers with Japanese” sentimentality”
is especially noticeable in the early interpretations of the works of Western
writers and poets. This peculiarity of Meiji literature is well documented by
N. I. Konrad [430, 306–310].
196 Part 1. THE ROMANTICIST IDEALS
Feelings, basically continue Toson’s tradition, though in a more
conventional and sentimental manner.
The true importance of Doi Bansui’s works, of course, is not
limited to developing the genre of the historical heroic ballad,
no matter how much value it presented for his contemporaries,
or to writing sentimental love elegies. The poet’s creative work
would continue for more than half a century, culminating in
1943 with a masterful translation of the Odyssey by Homer. Yet
according to the unanimous consent of Japanese historians of
literature, his major contribution to Japanese poetry was the
meditative lyrical poetry of his first collection, A Universe Full
of Feelings. Bansui’s place in the history of literature is defined
primarily by the fact that he opened up the unknown domain
of philosophical poetry for modern Japanese literature. Like
Toson he did not try to reform the metric pattern of shintaishi.
Instead, Bansui paid special attention to the introduction
of new images and new ideas, and extended philosophical
contemplation and generalizations. With his help the poetry of
Japanese Romanticism could rid itself of its national isolation
and master the heritage of Goethe, Schiller, Shelley, and Hugo
in all its abundance. Bansui expanded the borders of the
poetic imagination and created his own “universe” in which
the shadows of the past and vague images of the future were
revealed. For the majority of modern readers he has remained
the poet who “strives to high ideals, seeks for the soul of
the universe, and listens to the breath of space in the ring of
an evening bell” [13, 151].
The outstanding personality of Doi Bansui continues to
draw the attention of people today when the popularity of his
verse has faded, blurred by time. His memorial house-museum
in Sendai is always full of visitors paying tribute to the great
Romanticist of the Meiji years who paved the way for many
poets of the twentieth century.
7 OTHER SHINTAISHI
ROMANTICISTS
YOSANO TEKKAN AND
THE MYOJO GROUP
Among the poets of Japanese Romanticism we cannot fail to
mention the great innovator Yosano Hiroshi (Tekkan, 1873–
1935), who contributed much more to the world of tanka but
was active in the reformation of poetry at large. In 1894, the
young Tekkan published his famous daring manifesto Sounds
Perilous for the Country—a Reproach to the Unhealthy Modern
Tanka Poetry (Bokoku no ne—gendai no hijobuteki waka
o nonoshiru). In this work the dissident poet was sharply
critical of the epigonic tanka of the early Meiji period, which he
reproached for its banality, triviality, boredom, and total lack of
the social pathos so crucial in an age of dramatic changes. The
insinuations of the young man who attested himself a disciple
of the respected older poet Ochiai Naobumi, were taken by the
poetic community very seriously, and Tekkan became popular
even before he published any substantial poetry of his own.
After joining the army as a war correspondent in Korea
during the Sino-Japanese war in 1894, Tekkan composed nu-
merous tanka and shintaishi, which he put together in his debut
collection, East-West-South-North (Tozainamboku, 1896), and in
his next book, The Dark-Yellow Universe (Tenchi genko, 1897).
Unlike Shimazaki Toson and other poets of the Bungakukai
group or Doi Bansui and some of his followers from Teikoku
198 Part 1. THE ROMANTICIST IDEALS
bungaku, Tekkan did not make any real distinction between
shintaishi and tanka, regarding both as equal poetic systems in
their own right. Being essentially a tanka poet, he would often
indulge in writing what he called choshi (long verse) based
mosly on shintaishi metrics but with numerous modifications,
for which he was severely criticized by his colleagues. His
choshi are not of a quality to be considered mature poetry, but
some of them are quite emotional and full of civic pathos. In
his collections Tekkan published at random sequences of both
tanka (renamed tanshi “short verse”) and shintaishi (choshi).
In the late 1890s Tekkan became the leader of a group
advocating poetic revival regardless of specific form or genre.
In 1899 he established the “New Poetry Society” (Shinshisha).
The literary magazine Myojo (“Morning Star”) was founded in
1900 and became the official journal of the group, to a certain
extent taking on the role that had previously been filled by
Bungakukai, which by this time was long dead. Along with all
kinds of poetry the magazine published many translations,
essays and articles on literature and art, and book reviews.
Many talented poets started their literary careers contributing
to Myojo. The list includes the late Romanticists Susukida
Kyukin and Kambara Ariake, the early Symbolist Ueda Bin,
and the great tanka poets Ishikawa Takuboku and Wakayama
Bokusui. Shintaishi for the core literati of the Myojo group was
not just a new world of passionate lyrical poetry in search
of “brothers in spirit” around the globe (as the Bungakukai
poets would conceive it) but principally a podium for poetic
civic declarations, with a few successful examples of intimate
lyricism.
Tekkan’s wife, Yosano Akiko, a brilliant tanka poetess re-
nowned for her unsurpassed collection of love poems Tangled
Hair (Midaregami, 1901), would also occasionally turn to
shintaishi. Ironically, the pathos of her civic lyricism is directly
opposed to the militant nationalism and brazen bravado of
Tekkan. During the Russo-Japanese war in 1904 Akiko pub-
lished her famous pacifist poem “Oh, you should not die!”
7. OTHER SHINTAISHI ROMANTICISTS 199
(Kimi shi ni tamau koto nakare), denouncing all the official
social values of the time and addressed to her brother in the
army that laid siege to the Russian fortress Port Arthur:
What’s in that Port Arthur for you, my brother?
Let the stronghold stand or fall.
Our ancestors were not samurai warriors,
They were just merchants.
Oh no, you shouldn’t end your life there!
Equally pacifist cosmopolitan tones can be traced in the
early shintaishi of Ishikawa Takuboku, whose debut shintaishi
collection, Aspirations (Akogare, 1904), was nothing but a long
series of sentimental commonplaces in the form of “sonnets”.
However he also paid tribute to civic lyricism. In a pathetic
ode Takuboku glorified Russian admiral Makarov, who had
recently died in action when his flagship hit a mine.
In contrast to these pacifist trends, the civic poetry of Yosano
Tekkan is born from the pompous nationalist patriotic campaign
of the Meiji years, contributing to the further development of
the propaganda machine. Some of his “new-style” poems recall
the historical heroic ballads by Doi Bansui. However, there is
a substantial difference. Whereas Bansui sets the action of his
ballads against the background of medieval China or Europe
in the age of Napoleon, and his characters are mostly iconic
warriors of ancient times, Tekkan presents to the reader a live
modern hero (in his own incarnation), who is a militant patriot
fighting for his motherland overseas. This new hero embodies
the best features of a noble-minded samurai of the day,
carrying out his sacred duty of loyalty to the Empire. He is not
only fearless and fierce but also endowed with all the virtues
described in the popular bestseller of the time Bushido, The Soul
of Japan by Nitobe Inazo—a refined feeling of beauty, poetic
talent, compassion, and the ability to love and to suffer in the
most generous way. But everything should be sacrificed for the
great Imperial cause:
200 Part 1. THE ROMANTICIST IDEALS
Yosano
Tekkan
nani yue ni tsurugi wa manabishi
nani yue ni fumi wa yomitsuru.
kakaru toki mochiemu tame zo.
kakaru toki shinubeki tame zo.
iza sara ba, yo ni omoioku koto mo nashi.
ware wa dare da iku senba ni.
What for did I master the sword?
What for did I read all these books?
Just to use it all now!
Just to die with honour now!
Farewell! I have nothing more to think about in this world—
Only of what I will be like on the battlefield!
“Accompanying the army” (Juun ko)
The hero of these militant civic poems embodies the conven-
tional ideal of the “soldier of the Empire”, so typical of the
contemporary poetry of Rudyard Kipling. Whereas Kipling’s
“colonial ballads” present a collective portrait of the brave
British officer carrying out the “white man’s burden” on the
outskirts of the great empire, Yosano Tekkan (who apparently
was not familiar with Kipling’s poems) tries to create in his
7. OTHER SHINTAISHI ROMANTICISTS 201
Yosano
Akiko
early verse an impressive, albeit very theatrical and therefore
not plausible, image of the “modern samurai” carrying the
“burden of the Yamato race” on the battle fields of East Asia.
This ambitious poetic style, which did not gain much popularity
among the cosmopolitan intellectuals of the Meiji-Taisho pe-
riod, was revitalized and widely promoted thirty years later
when it became the major official style of the fighting Japanese
empire.
In his patriotic poetry Tekkan played the special role of
“official Romanticist” at his Majesty’s service. Of course he
made the kokkashugi nationalist doctrine his starting point,
but whereas regular publicists would just repeat the same slo-
gans of patriotism and loyalty, Tekkan gave these concepts
flesh and blood in his verse. He filled the official rhetoric with
real pathos in his attempt to transform these slogans into
the primary moral duty of the new intellectuals. Despite his
vibrant enthusiasm, Tekkan failed to complete his mission; his
poems were artificial, pretentious, often rather clumsy, and
therefore short-lived.
After his first two books of poetry, which were made up
almost entirely of such civic proclamations, the poet suddenly
issued one more collection, Mr. Tekkan (Tekkan shi, 1898), of
202 Part 1. THE ROMANTICIST IDEALS
a dramatically different nature. The book was published soon
after the beginning of his affair with Yosano Akiko, which soon
grew into a passionate and unforgiving love. (As a result he
soon divorced his wife, married Akiko, and had ten children
with her). Tekkan’s new poems unexpectedly changed in tone
to an intimate lyricism at the expense of civic verse, which
he soon totally abandoned. Overwhelmed with love, Tekkan
sings his praise to the passion that elevates and purifies human
beings. But still he cannot abandon the “burden of the samurai”
completely:
koi to na to izure omoki wo mayoihajimenu
waga toshi koko ni ni ju hachi no aki
In the fall of my twenty-eigth year
For the first time I realised the burden of love and honour,
and was perplexed.
Of course we should not underestimate the influence of the age
marked by the publication of Toson’s Young Grasses and Summer
Grasses, Bansui’s A Universe Full of Feelings, and numerous essays
presenting apologies of passionate love in the “Western” sense.
It was impossible for a Romanticist to stay away from love
poetry—especially if real, not imaginary love was in question.
Tekkan tried to incorporate the ideal of Love into his own system
of values, creating an original style of “civic love poetry”:
Koi no inochi wo tazunereba
na wo oshimu kana otoko yue
tomo no nasake wo tazunereba
gi no aru tokoro hi wo mo fumu
If you ask me about life full of love—
I answer: I am a man, and my name is precious to me.
If you ask me about my feelings towards a friend,
For the sake of honor I would I would step into the flames.
“Love Song” (Hito wo kouru uta)
7. OTHER SHINTAISHI ROMANTICISTS 203
Slowly but steadily Tekkan’s icy civic pathos was melting,
giving way to tender love, which brings to the poetry in the
collections Purple (Murasaki, 1901) and Lost for the World
(Umoregi, 1902) a sensual, erotic color. In these books the poet
surrenders completely to sensual desires, praising his newly
obtained divine spouse:
Are you not the very Love incarnate
That placed the passion in my heart?
Are you not the very Ideal
Detached from our base world?
“Spring Thoughts” (Shunso)
From his typical civic nationalist poetry, for which he
was called “the bard of the tiger and the sword”, Tekkan in
no time switched to an epicurean erotic lyricism, singing of
spiritual and physical love that grants not only momentary
pleasures but the joy of creative inspiration as well (see [303]).
He tries his brush in the form of a sonnet, varies the rhythmic
patterns, experiments with syntax, expands his palette of
tropes, and elaborates his own philosophy of love on the basis
of the ethics of Western Romanticism. A true love, in Tekkan’s
perspective, is doomed to suffering, but a real artist is morally
purified and elevated through that suffering and struggle.
In his collection Purple Tekkan gives himself a symbolic
characteristic:
ware otoko no ko
iki no ko, na no ko
tsurugi no ko, shi no ko
koi no ko, aa modae no ko
I am a child of men and a man,
a child of freedom, a child of glory,
a child of the sword, a child of poetry,
a child of love, ah, and a child of suffering.
204 Part 1. THE ROMANTICIST IDEALS
Tekkan continued to publish Romanticist poetry for many
years, shifting from classical shintaishi form to free verse, but
this kind of lyricism was already by that time out of fashion. He
lived a long life, but in history forever remains the leader of the
Myojo group in the Meiji period.
Among the Myojo poets of the “second rank” mention
should be made of Maeda Ringai, Iwano Homei, and Hiraki
Hakusei, who founded in 1903 a small journal of their own,
White Lily (Shirayuri). The first collection of Maeda Ringai, The
Maiden of Summer Flowers (Natsubana shojo, 1905), was written
in classical, at times slightly modified, shintaishi prosody in
an extremely sentimental, lyrical Romanticist vein. His imagery
was sophisticated and often highly unusual:
Oh that divine bird of joy that lives in the depth of the woods
in remote Southern lands,
In a thick grove of the rare trees on a far away sacred isle!
In his next collection, Flower Wife (Hanazuma, 1906), a pure
aestheticist trend becomes more apparent, and the poetry
turns into a chaotic mixture of vague images and sounds. After
a while, however, having exhausted the limits of vagueness,
Ringai suddenly abandoned his incomprehensible style, turned
to folk songs, and started writing in a light manner, even
introducing colloquial language, which was unheard of at the
time. By the Taisho period he had given up poetry.
Iwano Homei, better known as a mediocre novelist and
a talented literary critic, made his debut in 1901 with a collection
of Sentimentalist shintaishi, The Dew Frost (Tsuyujimo), which
reminds one mostly of the late lyrical poems of Kitamura
Tokoku. Soon new books in the same vein were published—
Evening Tide (Yujio, 1904), Sad Love, Sad Songs (Hiren hika,
1905), and others. Homei tried varying the rhythm, introducing
punctuation, separating the words in the line, but all these
innovations could not redeem the banality of his imagery:
7. OTHER SHINTAISHI ROMANTICISTS 205
Oh, those mundane joys are gone.
Spring has spread over the way of dreams, having come for real.
From afar it seems a light mist;
As seen up close it looks like sleeping blossoms.
I watch it with the eyes of my heart . . .
правыильно ли я поняла здесь, что
“Oh those Mundane Joys!” (Aa, yo no kanraku)
Hiraki Hakusei published in 1903 a collection of poems
это след. уровень заголовка?
bearing the pretentious title The Songs of the Land of Japan (Ni-
hon no kokka)—a mix of pseudo-Romanticist sentimental
lyricism and militant slogans à la the early Tekkan. In the years
of the Russo-Japanese war Hakusei, inspired by the nationalist
propaganda, started manufacturing patriotic verse in great
amounts, which ultimately was detrimental to his literary
career.
POETS OF STARS AND VIOLETS
Sweet Dreams
The literary process which led to the decadence of Western
culture of the fin de siècle affected also the new Japanese
literature, at that time still at an earlier stage of development.
The ideology of militant nationalism established in the country
after the victorious Sino-Japanese war, forced the majority of
internationally oriented Romanticist poets to seek refuge from
gloomy reality in the cloudy heights.
The most prominent representatives of late Romanticism in
Japanese poetry, Susukida Junsuke (Kyukin, 1877–1945) and
Kambara Hayao (Ariake, 1876–1947), soon became famous also
as pioneers of Symbolism. Their early collections, Romanticist
by nature, are full of excessive mysticism, extraordinary
splendor, and refined but oblique images. Vague love yearnings
and the search for the incomprehensible mystery of life defines
the stylistic tonality of their poems. “The love poetry by Kyukin
206 Part 1. THE ROMANTICIST IDEALS
and Ariake”, notes Karl Florenz, a scholar of Japanese literature
who witnessed the rise of Romanticism, “has a strong erotic
color, and such symbols of love as stars, violets, and lilies are
so often mentioned in their poems that these authors acquired
a reputation as “the poets of stars and violets”1 [260, 624].
Kyukin, unlike the majority of Japanese Romanticists,
who were graduates of the best universities of the time, never
acquired a formal higher education. Nevertheless, as a fanatic
worshipper of both Japanese antiquity and English poetry, he
studied for years classical texts and became a self-taught expert
in literary English.
In his first collection, Evening Pipe (Boteki-shu, 1899), to
some odes (fu) and imitations of folk songs (minyo) Kyukin
added a cycle of sonnets, which were called in Japanese zekku
(cropped stanza), as well as some more typical shintaishi poems.
Almost all his zekku are arranged in lines of 8–6 syllables,
an usual meter which previously had only occasionally been
used, such as in Ogai’s Vestiges and Bimyo’ Songs of Youth.
The poet avoided breaking the poem into stanzas, and for this
reason whole poems often appear as one extended image.
In Kyukin’s second collection, Departing Spring (Yuku haru,
1901), the sonnets reproduce the structure of the so-called
Petrarchian sonnet with stanzas consisting of groups of 4–4–3–3
lines. Other poems imitate the Shakespearean sonnet (12–2). The
sonnet form (naturally without any rhyme) was later taken up
by Kambara Ariake, Ishikawa Takuboku, and other poets of the
early twentieth century. Kyukin’s attempt to enrich shintaishi
verse is also manifested in his active use of recently adopted
punctuation and in inventing a new meter of 11-sylable lines,
which alternated with his 14-syllable meter.
Kyukin also introduced the 8-lined stanza, which occurs
mainly in his shintaishi of unfixed length and was used later
1 A pen-name Kyukin (literally “Weeping violet”) was one of the reasons
for the critics to call that kind of lyricism “the Poetry of Stars and Violets”
(Kinsei shi).
7. OTHER SHINTAISHI ROMANTICISTS 207
by Ariake in his sonnets. Theoretically, the stanza is arranged
according to the following structure: 7–4, 7–4, 8–6, 7–4, 7–4, 8–6,
7–4, 8–6.
Toson’s influence on the formation of Kyukin’s poetic
worldview is impossible to deny, but it would be a mistake to
exaggerate it. Noguchi Yonejiro, for example does not mention
Toson at all when he writes: “Susukida enshrined Keats in
his heart; like him he is a poet of Youth and Beauty, to whom
Nature appeared as a background. At least so he was in his
earlier books, Yukuharu and Botekishu” [307, 100]. His opinion
is confirmed by Homma Hisao, who emphasizes the influence
of European Romanticists [41, v. 1, 134]. In fact, in Kyukin’s first
collections there are many examples of free interpretations of
Keats’s poems. For example, “The Grasshopper and the Cricket”
by Keats is in the Japanese version “The Cricket” (Koorogi),
while Keats’s “The Girl from Devon” becomes “The Girl from
Ohara” (Ohara me). Kyukin’s free expositions do not rigidly
follow the original models but perfectly convey the spirit of
Keats’ poetry and the charm of his images:
The Cook has gone to bed. The mice are in their hole.
It’s getting icy cold. Midnight draws close.
And somewhere, behind the cooled down fireplace,
The sad song of a cricket is heard.
“The Cricket”
In Evening Pipe as well as in Kuikin’s second collection,
Departing Spring, a sensualist tendency in the perception of
nature and human life prevails. Simply looking at the titles
indicates that a considerable number of the poems make use
of stereotypical, sentimental-romantic topics and imagery.
Such poems include: “Poetic Sufferings” (Shi no nayami),
“A Traveler” (Tabibito), “Spring Evening” (Haru no yube), and
“Autumn Song” (Aki no uta) from Evening Pipe, and “Arrow
of Love” (Koi no ya), “Evening Song” (Yube no uta), and
“Mourning Voice” (Kansei) from Departing Spring.
208 Part 1. THE ROMANTICIST IDEALS
However, in the most serious poems Kyukin’s vision of
nature is original and fresh. Any direct impressions the poet has
gained from the sight of nature melodies he has heard become
simply raw material for the work of art.
The field and the temples, the mountains and the meadows,
The herds and the bushes turning green,
The clouds floating in the sky,
The light of the sunset, a woodcutter roaming—
Everything is tinged with a sad flavor,
But this evening paradise
Lacks, as my feelings tell me,
The refinement typical of a picture.
“Memories of Autumn” (Shukai)
The beauty of nature, according to Kyukin, revives only
under the brush of an artist or in the lines of a sonnet. “Instead
of perceiving nature as it is”, concludes Homma Hisao,
“Kyukin, first of all tries to place it in the world of art, to insert
it into a picture frame” [41, v. 1, 135]. As a matter of fact, Kyukin
regards the form of the sonnet, which seems to have been too
tight for Toson or Bansui, as a “frame” for the picture drawn by
his poetic imagination and verified in accordance with the canon
of the great masters of the past. As he later recollected: “The
shining beauty of the sonnets of Keats, Rossetti, Wordsworth,
and in the past by Petrarch—I decided to try and somehow
bring this form into the world of our poetry” [137, v. 2, 104].
Though it is not often mentioned by Japanese scholars, we
cannot ignore the fact of the very strong influence of Bansui’s
philosophical poetry on the work of his younger colleague. The
echoes of Schelling’s mysticism processed through the filter of
Bansui’s poetic images can be discerned in many zekku of Evening
Pipe and Departing Spring. His aspiration for universalism
and for the polysemantic richness embodied in generalizing
symbols, at times leads Kyukin to direct imitation. His sonnet
“Bell” (Kane) just repeats the themes of Bansui’s “Evening Bell”:
7. OTHER SHINTAISHI ROMANTICISTS 209
Din-don—the bell rings.
The Universe echoes it back,
And till the dawn a poet keeps silence,
Deep in his sad meditations.
In comparison with the meditative poetry of Bansui, how-
ever, in Kyukin’s the subjective element is considerably stronger.
The man with his changeable feelings is naturally framed in
the design of universe, and the conflict between the “elevated”
(heavenly) and the “low” (earthly) elements so typical of Ban-
sui’s poetry recedes into the background. In other words, Kyukin
transports a priori, as it were, his lyrical hero, the Muse’s Servant
(shi no kami no shimobe) into a perfect world, placing him in
the same row with the gods, stars, and other phenomena of the
divine world, thereby eliminating the contradiction between the
poet and the universe. But mortals who have not reached the
ideal, who are overwhelmed by mundane passions, are doomed,
in his perspective, to eternal suffering.
Watching the world through the prism of his poetic imagi-
nation defines the attitude of Kyukin to art and the links
between epochs and nations. His widely advertized aesthe-
ticism (geijutsushijoshugi), which derived from the worship
of the poetry of John Keats, is revealed most distinctly in the
poetic genre of the ode (fu). It was Shimazaki Toson who first
introduced to shintaishi poetry this new genre in his “Ode to
a White Porcelain Vase” (also directly influenced by Keats).
Both “Ode on a Grecian Urn” by Keats (the original) and the
ode by Toson (the Japanese variant) gave Kyukin inspiration
for composing numerous odes on art. They were written in
various periods but form essentially a sequence. The most well
known examples are “An Ode to an Ancient Mirror” (Kokyo
fu), “An Ode to a Broken Vase” (Yaregame fu), “An Ode to
a Wine Cup” (Sakazuki fu), “An Ode to a Stone Sculpture of
a Lion” (Ishibori shishi no fu), and “An Ode to a Cuckoo bird”
(Hototogisu fu). Although Kyukin was not a true pioneer of the
genre, his odes on art present an interesting phenomenon both
210 Part 1. THE ROMANTICIST IDEALS
in terms of the evolution of shintaishi poetry towards kindaishi
and in terms of the development of the aesthetic theory of
Romanticism. Whereas in the philosophical poetry of Bansui
“the correlation of historical time” is shown through ideal
Romanticist symbols like the stars, moon, mountains, and seas,
Kyukin focuses on concrete material things, artifacts that can
evoke an instant emotional response much better than many
volumes of explanations and descriptions.
A convincing example of such an aesthetic attitude can be
seen in “An Ode to a Stone Sculpture of a Lion” which raises the
question of immortality in art and the role of art in human life.
The author comes to the studio of a sculptor carving various
animals from stone. His works are not yet alive—the eyes are
not yet installed in the eye sockets2. Only one sculpture among
them looks really alive and strikingly beautiful—it is an ancient
carving of a Buddhist lion with a huge mane, slightly curved
back, and shining eyes of precious stones. The lion inspires the
sculptor in his work, just as it inspires the poet:
From the remote age of the Han dynasty
The rumor spread of this beautiful lion,
This masterfull work of carving,
The miracle of the sculptor’s skill.
Oh, let the power of art last forever,
Bringing us again and again life and emotions!
The sculpture of the lion is regarded not just as a sample of
pure beauty, but also as an eternal source of creative energy for
the following generations—which is, according to Kyukin, the
supreme mission of art. But creation here is not confined to the
golden age of the past. The sculptor of the new age embodies
the immortality of art in applying in his work the legacy of the
ancient masters.
2 In China and Japan the pupils of the eyes that make the sculptures look
alive were inserted or painted in at the end of the work.
7. OTHER SHINTAISHI ROMANTICISTS 211
For Noguchi Yonejiro, Kyukin is “a poet of unerring
culture who built the house beautiful, which he peopled with
his choicest images and longing, who put beauty and melody
of language before anything else” [307, 101]. Indeed, Kyukin
considered the revival of the ancient lexicon in new poetry
a token of his success in accessing real beauty. This infatuation
with archaic vocabulary gives a clue to Kyukin’s poetics
as a whole. In the Afterword to the Collected Poems of Kyukin
(Kyukin shishu, 1925), the poet explains his position:
At first I was trying to write poetry using simple words,
comprehensible by ear. However our language proved to
be poor in this regard, and the sound of the words lacked
depth. Then, in search of appropriate words, just in a na-
tural way I almost started inventing new words. But before
long I thought that instead of inventing new words it might
be better to revitalize the old ones of the same meaning
[91, 147–148].
In his experiments Kyukin focused mostly on the ancient
poems of the Manyoshu and the classical monuments of the
Heian period. Some scholars tend to regard the exploration
of the ancient texts as the major achievement of Kyukin in
literature (see [38, 30]). Still, reviving the ancient texts always
remained for the poet just a means to bring new life to Japanese
Romanticism, which was by then already in decline.
Kyukin also used the potency of the kanji characters, na-
turally unavailable to his European counterparts. In his poems
ateji, that is, the special readings of ordinary kanji or the specific
readings of exotic old kanji given in furigana transliteration,
play an important role as an additional metaphoric level
linking the image to the medieval prototypes and enhancing the
overtones. Many of Kyukin’s poems are covered with furigana,
giving the impression of parallel texts and reinforcing the effect
of the “old-style eloquent” diction (koga).
Meanwhile, there are also many poems revealing sincere
emotions in a direct and rather unsophisticated manner.
212 Part 1. THE ROMANTICIST IDEALS
Here various folkloric techniques, such as different kinds of
grammatical and syntactical parallelism, are applied, giving the
poem a charming rhythm:
The reeds on the shoreline are wet with the tide—
And my sleeves are wet for you.
Even a dove dreams of shelter in a storm—
Just imagine how I suffer for you.
The sleeve can be mended with a bit of embroidered lace—
But why is my heart in chains?—For you!
“A Rustic Love” (Hinaburi)
Despite his continuing experiments with new and old poetics,
Kyukin was feeling already the weakness of Romanticism, its
inability to meet the demands of the new age. His next step was
towards the mysterious realm of symbols.
MYSTERIOUS REVELATIONS
The poetry of Kambara Ariake, who started his career in
literature three years later than Kyukin, is in many respects
an echo of the lyre of the author of Evening Pipe and Departing
Spring. Like Kyukin, whose works inspired him for his debut,
Ariake was an admirer of the Manyoshu and the Kojiki as well
as of the English Romanticists, Symbolists, and Pre-Raphaelites:
“We, young men in command of English were deeply impressed
by the sensual, spiritual, deeply psychological poetry of
Browning, Rossetti, Swinburn” [13, 56].
Ariake’s first collections of lyrical poetry Shoots of Grass
(Kusa wakaba, 1902) and Sad Song of a Lonely String (Dokugen
aika, 1906), elevated his name alongside that of Kyukin.
Leading critics were quick to proclaim the advent of a new age
in shintaishi: “Now that Toson abandoned poetry, Susukida
Kyukin and Kambara Ariake can be called two new precious
gems of our poetic world” [16, v. 58, 409]. At the same time,
7. OTHER SHINTAISHI ROMANTICISTS 213
however, the first collections of Ariake gave evidence of a loom-
ing crisis in shintaishi Romanticist verse. As a Japanese critic
has rightly remarked, these books “revealed all the problems
that shintaishi poetry faced at the beginning of the twentieth
century” [199, 21]. In Kyukin’s poetry, which was evolving in
a direction opposite to Toson’s pure lyricism, the reader finds
long mythological poems of an unprecedented scale, full of
mysticism and exaggerated quasi-historicism.
Whereas in European poetry of the early nineteenth cen-
tury formal elements were evolving from the vagueness and
uncertainty of Sentimentalism towards the harmony, clear
imagery, and refined beauty of Romanticism, Japanese poets
took a different road. In the poems of Ariake one might see
more sentimentality than real sensuality, more artificially culti-
vated emotions than sincere feelings, more sophistication than
real elegance, more decorative embroidery than eloquence.
Still there was in this style a definite appeal to the hearts of
contemporary readers. Indeed, some of the early poems by
Ariake, especially his love songs, display great literary talent.
“Spring Song” (Haru no uta), “Love Grass” (Koigusa), “In the
Shadow of the Trees” (Kokage), “Memoirs” (Omoide), “A Shell”
(Kai no kara), and “Rely on Love” (Tayoru wa koi yo), along
with Ariake’s brilliant translations from D. G. Rossetti, can be
called masterpieces of Romanticist shintaishi. Unlike Kyukin’s
poetry so full of metric experiments, in his early poems, Ariake’s
shintaishi, with few exceptions, rarely show serious deviation
from the classical prosody of 7–5 syllables. Deviations are found
mostly in the sequence of sonnets (zekku) called “The Tune of
a Lonely String” (Dokugen cho), influenced both by Rossetti
and Kyukin. In his sonnets, full of extremely complicated
and oblique imagery put in the framework of a robust, heavy
rhythm, Ariake used the original sonnet form borrowed from
D. G. Rossetti with its division into stanza of 8 and 6 lines. There
can be no question that these sonnets lost their aesthetic value
very soon after their publication, but the author continued to
regard them as one of his major achievements.
214 Part 1. THE ROMANTICIST IDEALS
Frankly speaking, only the poems by Ariake composed in
Toson’s vein, often based on the folklore tradition and free from
the mystic vagueness of his other works, can be considered
a real success, although they also might seem too naïve in
comparison to the masterpieces of Toson or Bansui. In any case,
at least these poems reveal pure lyricism in the most natural
and unpretentious form:
When I come to the seashore dreaming of you,
I feel my love as mighty as the tide.
But when I meet you I am sad and silent,
Seeking refuge in quiet sorrow.
I can liken my feelings
To the stale water of a pond,
But your feelings must be compared
To the pure water of a spring.
Whether I smell the fragrance of southern flowers
Or listen to the flute of dreams,
Your image comes to my mind in the tune
And in the aroma of the divine roses.
“You and Me” (Kimi ya ware ya)
Rereading ancient texts and contemplating the meaning of
national identity, Ariake became attracted to the concept of the
“national essence” (kokusui) put forth by the official ideologues
of the time. In search of the roots of the “divine Yamato race” and
sources of indigenous spirituality, he turned to writing solemn
hymns (shoka). Writers who adopted the ideas of Japanism
were inclined to view any literary work, even one of apolitical
character, as a contribution to the cause of the “revival of Asia”.
Quite typical in this respect is a poem by Yosano Tekkan devoted
to Kyukin’s Departing Spring that begins with the words:
Oh, how marvelous sounds the tune of “Departing Spring”!
For the first time such songs are heard over Asia . . .
7. OTHER SHINTAISHI ROMANTICISTS 215
We can hardly speak of the presence of any pronounced
nationalist tendency in the lyrical poems or songs of Ariake.
In fact, the echoes of yamato damashii preaching, typical of the
officially oriented Romanticists like Tekkan, is heard only in one
specific genre of Ariake’s poetry, the shoka. Ariake, an expert in
and connoisseur of antiquity, devotes his sentimental hymns
to Shinto deities: “Hymn to the Goddess of the Sun” (Nisshin
shoka) and “The God of Sada” (Sada no ookami). These
poems, although based on mythical material, actually have
no plot. Thus, “Hymn to the Goddess of the Sun”3 presents
only a colorful romantic description of the deity, without any
connection to complicated mythology of the Kojiki.
Like Bansui’s historical heroic ballads, Ariake’s shoka may
have in many ways promoted the stirring of national con-
sciousness and the ideology of the “Spirit of Yamato”, but this
is not what Ariake himself was trying to achieve. After all, as
the poet and critic Sato Haruo correctly points out, the basic
positive feature of shintaishi poets was the fact that they “were
trying to replace the feudal ‘Spirit of Yamato’ with a modern,
free, and ‘universal’ spirit (sekai damashii)” [158, 64].
As for the aesthetic value of the shoka, they are obviously
inferior, both to Bansui’s ballads and to other examples of
Ariake’s own poetry. The poems reviving the myths of the Kojiki
and Fudoki require decoding. The deliberately complicated
and estranging style suggests they were meant exclusively
for the “enlightened” reader, but this has only predetermined
their future destiny: after a while they became actually incom-
prehensible to almost all readers.
On the whole, the specific features of the poetry of Kyukin
and Ariake reflect the general evolution of the Japanese
Romanticist style as a fusion of imagery and poetic techniques
based on changes in aesthetic and psychological orientation
in keeping with the new worldview of the epoch. The late
3 The Sun Goddess, Amaterasu, is the major deity of the Shinto
pantheon.
216 Part 1. THE ROMANTICIST IDEALS

Romanticists, who in their best works developed further the Pa r t 2

artistic traditions of Toson and Bansui, tried to steer shintaishi
in the direction of formalism. Like many poets of European fin
de siècle decadence, they failed to realize the fact that techniques THE SYMBOLIST
of “estrangement” and extreme formalism “do not themselves
provide the basis for the development of art but only reflect
CHALLENGE
the process of developing the mind of the reader who has
lagged behind” [424, 15]. In the poetry of late Romanticism, the
formal potential of shintaishi soon was exhausted. The age of
shintaishi was coming to an end, and a new era of kindaishi was
about to dawn. In the meantime, the spiritual foundations of
Romanticism were no longer able to meet the demands of the
age. The Romanticist shintaishi poetry was doomed to give way
to an alternative poetics, first introduced by Susukida Kyukin
and Kambara Ariake, and later developed and perfected in the
brilliant works of Kitahara Hakushu, Miki Rofu, and Kinoshita
Mokutaro.
 8 IN THE REALM OF
SYMBOLS

WESTERN AND EASTERN CONCEPTS

OF SYMBOLISM

By the beginning of the twentieth century, in the collision

with the severe reality of the emerging military empire, the
democratic ideals of the Japanese Romanticist school failed. The
same situation had occurred several decades before in France.
The Japanese bourgeoisie, having come to occupy important
positions in the militarized semi-feudal state, soon took off the
mask of liberalism and showed its true, unattractive face . The
notorious “ivory tower” which was the dream of the French,
Belgian, Russian, German, and also Japanese Symbolists, was
not just a refuge from the travails of life, but also an ideal escape
from the real outbursts of social antagonism, from the ugly
grimaces of bourgeois morality, and from the animal instincts
overwhelming humanity.
After the victorious war against China, the Japanese
authorities continued to indoctrinate the populace with the
nationalist concept of “Japanism” (nihonshugi). The democratic
principles and ideas of liberalism and social progress that had
come from the West were opposed by a propaganda campaign
glorifying the “god-chosen race of Yamato” the triumph of
the Japanese spirit, the divine status of the Emperor, and the
great mission of the Japanese empire in Asia. During the Russo-
Japanese war and after its victorious end, the chauvinistic
campaign was launched with a new vigor, poisoning the minds
220 Part 2. THE SYMBOLIST CHALLENGE
of the masses and depriving the last bards of Romanticism of
their illusions.
Japanese poets would try to find a way out of this impasse
in the fairy world of symbols. Their effort to enter the domain
of the transcendental by means of musical and artistic images
was at the same time an attempt to overcome areality hostile
to true art and merciless to the artist. Following Baudelaire,
who was the first to turn attention to the “flowers of evil” in
the streets of corrupted and blasé bourgeois Paris, Verlaine and
Rimbaud in France, Verhaeren in Belgium, and Bryusov and
Blok in Russia sought to reveal the true essence of the social
transformation through symbolic images: the “octopus-city”
devouring the individual, the shameless enrichment of greedy
entrepreneurs at the expense of millions of outcasts, the collapse
of the confused mind of the artist in the commercialized world.
The piercing grief of Verlaine’s lyrical poetry, the enchanting
musicality of Rimbaud’s stanzas, and Blok’s magical rhythms
were also a challenge to the “objective” reality of Critical
Realism and the grim prose of Naturalism.
It was Symbolism that became the stronghold of decadence,
of elite aestheticism, the hedonistic cult of beauty and elo-
quence. In the works of poets who could not comprehend the
true essence of human life, symbolic imagery was turned into
an instrument of formalistic “pure art” which would generate
in due course the most extreme versions of Modernism. This
was the case in France, Germany, Russia, and Japan alike.
In French Symbolism, the Japanese writers were impressed
first of all by the principle of the “perfection of the world” and
its mysterious and inconceivable character, formulated for the
first time by Remy de Gourmont in the preface to his Le Livre
des masques (The Book of Masks, 1896). This idea had much in
common with the Zen-Buddhist intuitionist masterpieces that
form the basis of traditional Far Eastern aesthetics. The concept
of the “mystery” hidden under the cover of daily empirical
experience and accessible only to super-sensual perception
by means of symbols was appealing to the hearts of Japanese
8. IN THE REALM OF SYMBOLS 221
artists raised on the poetry of Saigyo and Basho. Perhaps
because of this, they chose as one of their favorite authors
Stephane Mallarmé, a devoted mystic and spiritualist, who
proclaimed in his article “Le Mystère dans les letters” (Mystery
in Literature, 1896), the esoteric concept of Symbolism. It was
Mallarmé who would find his ideal in the concepts of non-
existence and nothingness (closely connected with the concept
of the void in Buddhist metaphysics). Mallarmé, who asserted
the magic of music and words, and who called for a cult of
suggestive meaning achieved through allusion, omission,
pause, and silence, became the true intermediary between
Japanese Symbolism and Western culture.
The Zen concept of life also corresponds to Maeterlinck’s
ideas, expressed in his essay “Silence” (1896), about the fragile
and unsteady spiritual ties between people and the insufficiency
and discrepancy of concrete designations. For Maeterlinck,
truth lies not in words or in sounds, but in the elusive realm of
subconscious symbols.
No wonder, then, that on Japanese ground Symbolism, at
first sight a truly Western aesthetic phenomenon, soon took
deep roots and flourished. After all, the very concept of the
symbolic image has from time immemorial formed a basis of
Japanese art: “From the traditional Oriental point of view, true
reality is non-existence, the absence of forms, in which, however,
everything is implied and from time to time can emerge into
a unique world” [379, 78]. Such categories of classical poetry
as yugen (the mysterious essence of things), mono no aware (the
sad pathos of things), sabi (the existential sadness of life), wabi
(the essential loneliness of the human being in the world), and
many others, so extensively explored by the medieval poets
and artists in Japan, were quite applicable to Symbolist poetry,
and we can find evidence of their compatibility in the best
poetry of Kitahara Hakushu, Horiguchi Daigaku, Sato Haruo,
and Saijo Yaso.
However, Japanese Symbolism, like Japanese Romanticism,
Naturalism, and Futurism, was not the result of the mechanical
222 Part 2. THE SYMBOLIST CHALLENGE
adoption of foreign poetical techniques or a chaotic mixture
of stylistic elements of art systems alien to each other. The
Japanese poetry of Symbolism was a natural combination of
the old and the new, of indigenous and borrowed components.
One of the most talented poets of his time, Miki Rofu, wrote
in the preface to his collection Illusive Gardens (Maboroshi no
denen):
In general, I agree with the idea that the symbol has been
brought to us from France. However, in a spiritual sense, it
is not that clear. Symbolism has not only been the source of
spirituality of Verlaine and Mallarmé’s followers, it has also
been the inspiration for all old Japanese art. At this point
its poetic path has advanced even further. I am glad that I
follow in the current of this Japanese spiritual tradition, as
the traditions of Japanese spirituality are my blood and my
wealth [112, v. 2, 74].
Japanese writers who grew up in the Meiji Period and were
raised on the best examples of national and foreign classics
could not help but perceive the natural link between the
poetics of symbolic images in Verlaine, Rimbaud, Mallarmé,
and Jammes, and the quality of yojo (super-sensitiveness,
imagining, i. e. suggestiveness), inherent in Japanese verse.
Kambara Ariake, who began his career as a Romanticist and
then became a pioneer of Symbolism, was one of the first to
turn to comparing the theory of the symbol in the West and
the East. He declared in the preface to his collection of poems
Spring Bird (Shuncho-shu, 1905) that the haiku of Basho are “the
most symbolist masterpieces of our national literature” [20,
v. 1, 152]. As an ideal of beauty and sensitive, mystical charm
he presents, alongside the poetry of Baudelaire and Mallarmé,
tales, diaries, and tanka of the Heian period that reveal a purely
Japanese “symbolist” attitude. At this point, he arrives at
an important conclusion: “Our literature, even now, has not lost
that quivering freshness carefully preserved in the old prose
and in the old haiku poetry” [20, v. 1, 152]. Ariake perceives
8. IN THE REALM OF SYMBOLS 223
the secret of the charm of traditional poetry first of all in the
principle of yugen, which for him was directly relatable to the
creative principles of his favorite modern Western poets, from
D. G. Rossetti to Verlaine and Rodenbach.
The literary critic Sakurai Tendan, arguing against the
assertion that Japanese Symbolism is related to Western Sym-
bolism, published in 1905 the essay “Reflections on Symbolist
Poetry in Connection with Spring Bird by Ariake”. He urged
readers to differentiate between the use of symbols in general
(e. g. in the symbolist tendencies of traditional Japanese lite-
rature) and Symbolist poetry as Mallarmé or Maeterlinck would
see it:
Undoubtedly there were works in our national literature that
can be called “symbolist” But the concept of “symbolism”
cannot be considered stable, invariable. It may be used in the
most general sense, while the term “poetry of Symbolism”
which refers mainly to the symbolist poems of the West,
can be applied only to the kind of poetry that, by means of
the so-called emotional influence, creates a special spiritual
attitude. It is this attitude that allows our mind to perceive
natural phenomena incomprehensible to ordinary feelings.
There was nothing like this in Japanese poetry, which has
always been directed at the refinement of poetic technique
alone (quoted in [98, 28]).
Sakurai considered symbols to be one of the tools in the
poetic tool kit and divided symbols into “personal” (original
metaphors, hyperboles, etc.) and “general” (whole poems
with the encoded idea expressed in symbolic form). He ob-
served that Ariake in Spring Bird is good at creating personal
symbols but not very successful at general symbols. His basis
of evaluation was, naturally enough, Western examples of
Symbolist poetry. It is not really appropriate, however, to
compare the poetry of Spring Bird with Verlaine and Rimbaud’s
poetry, since Ariake’s work was arranged in accordance with
different principles.
224 Part 2. THE SYMBOLIST CHALLENGE
Iwano
Homei
At the same time, the famous poet and critic Iwano Homei,
presenting to the reader the panorama of French Symbolist
poetry, wrote in an article entitled “The Theory of Naturalist
Expressiveness” (Shizenshugi hyosho shiron, 1907) about the
vagueness and mysticism of new French poetry as a purely
Western phenomenon. Saigyo’s tanka and Basho’s haiku, in his
opinion, are comparable only with Western lyrical poetry in the
classical vein (Shakespeare, Goethe, Hugo, Longfellow), which
is transparent and comprehensible (see [61, 94]).
A crucial role in the formation of Symbolist aesthetics, which
opposed the cult of beauty to the Naturalists’ emphasis on the
drab ordinariness of everyday life, was played by the talented
novelist and haiku poet Natsume Soseki (1867–1916). Grounding
his ideas on such categories of traditional Japanese aesthetics
as mono no aware, yugen, and sabi, he pointed to the state of
teikai (unattached wandering) as the necessary pre-condition
of any kind of creative activity. This state is characterized by
quiet introspection and liberation from mundane attachments,
but also by the willingness to penetrate into the beauty of the
surrounding world and to fuse with nature. In other words, the
creative attitude of “broad-mindedness” (yoyu) put forward by
Soseki implied freedom from canonical restrictions, openness
8. IN THE REALM OF SYMBOLS 225
to new forms, and continuous expansion of creative horizons.
Soseki’s translations of poems by Tennyson and his criti-
cal articles on Anglo-American literature brought him the
recognition of the poets of Symbolism. His work “Walt Whitman
as a Representative of Egalitarianism in the Literary World”
(Bundan ni okeru byodoshugi no daihyosha uoroto hoittoman)
met with a broad response.
The idea of “art for art’s sake” enthusiastically accepted
by the Symbolists, was promoted by many literary and art
magazines. The most remarkable among them was Subaru
(“Galaxy”), established in 1909 under the direction of Mori
Ogai. The name, chosen by Ogai, alluded to the journal of the
French Symbolists and Impressionists La Pleiade, founded in
1886. Subaru united all the leading poets of Symbolism: Yoshii
Isamu, Takamura Kotaro, Kitahara Hakushu, and Kinoshita
Mokutaro. It was these same poets who later established the
aestheticist “Pan Society”.
The debates over the common features of Western and
Japanese Symbolism continued for some thirty years, right up
until the point when Symbolist poetry faded and was pushed
aside by Proletarian literature and various modernist schools.
The results of the discussions were summed up by Hagiwara
Sakutaro in his important critical work Three Treatises on Poetics
(Shiron sampan), published in 1926. Hagiwara, who due to
a certain misunderstanding had long been ranked among the
Symbolists himself, observed that in Japan it had become too
easy to put the label “Symbolist” on any poet whose style
seemed vague. Based on such a criterion, one could include
among the Symbolists the French Parnassians (who were the
direct predecessors of the Symbolists), some classicists, and
even the Japanese poets of traditional genres.
Why was the concept of Symbolism so unclear in meaning?
According to Hagiwara, “those who for the first time had
brought to Japan the term ‘symbol’ (shocho) were members of
poetic circles who blindly admired the West and mechanically
transplanted to our soil the Symbolist poetry of Mallarmé or
226 Part 2. THE SYMBOLIST CHALLENGE
Yeats” [27, v. 7, 122]. In fact, Hagiwara proceeds, in the Japan
of the past there was no clear concept of a “symbol”, so the
literal translation of the word from French is quite justified.
But from where did Symbolism come to the West? According
to Hagiwara, a powerful stimulus for its development can be
traced to contacts with Eastern culture. This can be proven, he
claims, if we look retrospectively at the history of the evolution
of Western poetry in the nineteenth century.
Further on Hagiwara presents a rather dubious general
conclusion:
Western culture and art are inherently explanatory and
contain very little of pure symbolism. The explanatory
approach implies the detailed analysis and explanation
of objects and their subsequent account in a speculative
form. The most typical in this sense is science, which can be
considered the symbol of Western civilization [27, v. 7, 122].
Rationalist by nature, Western culture generated a dual
perception of the reality (in due course resulting in the emer-
gence of dialectics), but could not embrace the world in all its
integrity. Meanwhile, various metaphysical and intuitionist
concepts emerged in the East. Zen Buddhism had the strong-
est impact on Japanese culture. In the bosom of Western
civilization, according to Hagiwara, spiritual life became
a derivative of the rational and the intellectual. In the East, on
the contrary, intelligence and objective knowledge have always
been subordinate to spirit (seishin).
Based on this division, Hagiwara concludes that Eastern,
in particular, Japanese art, with its conventional symbolic
system revealing the inner essence of phenomena, is superior to
Western art, whether oil painting, poetry or drama, all of which
have an explanatory character. Hagiwara’s conclusion was
unusual, to say the least, and would have been hardly credible
to the intellectuals of the Meiji-Taisho era. However, it can be
regarded as rather natural for the later Showa period, which
would last for more than six decades.
8. IN THE REALM OF SYMBOLS 227
“The people of the East do not perceive the world just
rationally or emotionally”, writes Hagiwara. Rather,
they strive, by paying attention not so much to form but
to the true inner content of things, to comprehend with
the heart the world invisible to the eye, to perceive the
world through extra-formal and super-formal direct feeling.
I am against the sheer emotional approach to spirituality,
against the descriptive nature of symbols [27, v. 7, 124].
Criticizing his compatriots for their feeble imitations, Hagiwara
convincingly shows that the Japanese Symbolists, while trying
to imitate the Western models, finally created something of
their own corresponding to the native tradition. On the other
hand, it was only after having mastered the poetic techniques
inherent in Symbolism that Western poetry could approach
the primordial principles inherent in Japanese art. (The wide
circulation of haiku in the West in the twentieth century is
perhaps the best proof of this idea).
With an enviable awareness, Hagiwara ascertains:
It is obvious that lately Occidental culture has actively been
acquiring Oriental features. Not only poetry, but also the fine
arts, music, and philosophy are moving closer and closer to
the spirit of Eastern metaphysics, i. e. they are becoming
more and more symbolist. Thus, late Impressionism in
Europe emerged under the influence of ukiyo-e woodblock
prints, and Post-Impressionism in painting was followed
closely by Impressionism in poetry, thus promoting a new
spirit in modern art1—namely, the spirit of Symbolism . . .
As a result, at present the whole world is turning to the
culture of Symbolism [27, v. 7, 125–126].
In conclusion, Hagiwara points out the basic distinction be-
tween Western Symbolism and traditional Eastern Symbolism.
The French Symbolists, according to his judgment, sought to
1 This is an allusion to the so-called “New art” (L’art nouveau).
228 Part 2. THE SYMBOLIST CHALLENGE
express only the contours and shades of objects, while Basho
and his successors showed the way to reveal, even in the
contours and shades, the essence of the object itself. Therefore, if
Symbolism is a kind of spirituality, then the Western Symbolists
cannot be true symbolists, as they reveal only the surface
shape and colors of things, something which has always been
unacceptable for Japanese poets. Accordingly, for Hagiwara
only those who can combine the best achievements of the
Western masters of the verse with Japan’s indigenous aesthetic
tradition will be a success.
One is inclined to agree with Hagiwara, as his conclusion
has arguably been confirmed by history. The most readable
and highly esteemed poets of Symbolism in Japan are those
who were willing to give up the templates and capable of
overcoming the magical influence of the Western models that
had been strenuously imposed on them by translators and
critics at the beginning of the twentieth century. In analysing the
works of Kitahara Hakushu, Miki Rofu, and other Symbolists
of the Meiji-Taisho period, it will be necessary to take into
consideration the two-dimensional, East-Western nature of
their art, no matter how much certain poems remind us of
their French, Belgian or German prototypes. While the notion
of the symbol might seem familiar, its Western and Oriental
versions are decidedly different. The Symbolism of the West
and Japanese Symbolism bear no more a resemblance than the
English custom of drinking tea with cream or lemon at 5 o’clock
in the afternoon does to the Japanese tea ceremony, where one
sits on one’s knees and drinks a dense, whipped green tea from
a ceramic cup according to a highly ritualized procedure.
THE ART OF TRANSLATION
If the forerunner of Japanese Romanticism was Mori Ogai,
the editor and one of the translators of the collection of West
European poetry Vestiges (Omokage, 1887), it was Ueda Bin
8. IN THE REALM OF SYMBOLS 229
Iwano
Homei
(1874–1916), the dedicated enlightener and talented critic and
translator, who was destined to become the predecessor of
Symbolism in Japan. Ueda Bin was still young in the Meiji 20s,
the period known in Japanese history as the years of “spiritual
revolution”. Japanese intellectuals were at the time involved
in the creation of a new national culture under the slogan
“Japanese spirit—Western learning”, but the most radically
oriented youth would strive to adopt not only knowledge but
also the very spirit of Western civilization.
Ueda’s father and grandfather were among the first Japanese
to have visited Europe, and the boy grew up in an atmosphere
of the highest respect for Western cultural values. He studied
at a special English school in Tokyo, and by the age of eighteen
had published his first translations of poetry by Byron and
Shelley, which were appreciated with enthusiasm by the
poets of the rising Romanticist movement. After entering the
faculty of English Studies at Tokyo Imperial University in 1894,
Ueda became very intimate with both the Romanticists of the
Bungakukai group and the literati associated with the journal
Teikoku bungaku, founded in 1895. The first issue of the journal
contained a long and substantial article by Ueda on “The
Literature of Belgium” (Berugi no bungaku).
230 Part 2. THE SYMBOLIST CHALLENGE
The same year, an outstanding scholar and researcher of
Japan’s classical heritage, Lafcadio Hearn, took the position
of professor of English literature at Tokyo University. He at
once noticed the gifted young man. After graduating, Ueda
continued his studies under Hearn’s guidance and deepened
his knowledge in the field of literature. Ueda Bin was also under
the considerable influence of Raphael von Koeber, a professor
of philosophy and aesthetics, who was of Russian origin. At
University, along with English, Ueda studied French, which
later became the key language of his translation activities.
After the publication of a long article in memory of
Verlaine that at once drew the attention of the literary public
to French Symbolism and to the author himself, Ueda retold
and commented on Verlaine’s poetic manifesto “Art poétique”
(The Art of Poetry) in his essay “Refined Accords with Myste-
rious Charm” (Yushu teiin). Verlaine’s appeal “de la musique
avant toutes choses” (“music before all else”) would for many
years to come define the main trend in the evolution of kindaishi
verse.
Ueda’s critical articles, published in Teikoku bungaku from
1895 to 1905, presented to the Japanese reader Gautier and
Leconte de Lisle, Baudelaire and Mallarmé, Rimbaud and Ver-
haeren. These articles include “New Voices in French Poetry”
(Furansu shidan no shinsei), “On the Destiny of Literature”
(Bungei seiu no renken), “The Meaning of Fiction” (Bungei
no hon’i), “My Understanding of Poems in the New Style”
(Shintaishi kenken), “Flower of the Heart” (Kokoro no hana),
and “Conversation on Poetry” (Shiwa), all of which received
a wide response.
The public appreciated with great enthusiasm his The
Victorian Lyre (1899), a short reader of English poetry for high
school which included translations of poems by Rossetti,
Swinburne, Kipling, and even the The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam,
which was considered a masterpiece at the time.
Inspired by the success of his translations, Ueda continued
to study European languages and shortly could read fluently
8. IN THE REALM OF SYMBOLS 231
in German and Italian. In the meantime, he became deeply ab-
sorbed in the Japanese classics. His philological studies on the
poetry of the ancient anthologies Manyoshu and the Shinkokinshu
under one of the shintaishi masters, Ochiai Naobumi, helped
Ueda to combine the principles of European Symbolism with
the native literary tradition.
In the first years of the twentieth century Ueda focused on
the translation of West European, mainly French and Belgian,
lyrical poetry. In June 1905 he published an article by Stephane
Mallarmé on Symbolism and a selection of poems by Verlaine,
Verhaeren, Régnier, and Rodenbach. In October of the same
year his epoch-making translation collection The Sound of the
Tide (Kaichoon) was published. According to Yasudo Yasuo, it
presented an “invaluable contribution to the development of
Japanese Symbolism” [130, 113].
The collection comprised 57 poems by twenty-nine poets,
four English, seven German, three Italian, one Provencal, and
fourteen French or French-Belgian. This distribution reveals
Ueda’s view of French poetry as the dominant poetic trend
in the literary world at the turn of the century. The poems by
Browning, Rossetti, and Heine, also translated with good taste,
were disregarded by the critics, while the French poetry caused
a storm of delight. This was probably due to the fact that
English lyrical poetry was already known well to the readers
through the translations and stylizations of the Romanticists,
while German poetry was relatively unknown. In any event,
it was French poetry that embodied those ideals of Symbolism
towards which many young Japanese poets were unconsciously
striving.
Though Ueda himself in the preface admitted his preference
for the Parnassians and included in the collection poems by
Leconte de Lisle and José Maria de Heredia, which he translated
with much love, it was the masterpieces of Baudelaire, Verlaine,
Verhaeren, Régnier, and Mallarmé that constituted the heart of
the collection. Ueda Bin’s preface became the first manifesto of
Japanese Symbolism:
232 Part 2. THE SYMBOLIST CHALLENGE
The use of the symbols in poetry, of course, is not new but is
as old as the world itself. However, the conscious utilization
of symbols as the main feature of poetic composition began
only about twenty years ago in new French poetry. The
function of the symbols is to make a reader feel the way
the poet does while creating his poems. The symbols do
not necessarily mean the same thing to everybody. The
reader, serenely relishing Symbolist poetry, experiences
indescribable pleasure in following his own feelings, which
the poet can hardly explain. Thus, the interpretation of this
or that poem may be different depending on the reader and
the age. The main thing is to arouse in the reader a similar
spiritual mood (quot. in [200, 50]).
The importance of The Sound of the Tide for the poetry of the
Meiji-Taisho period is difficult to overestimate. Kitahara
Hakushu praised Ueda’s talent many years later with these
words: “There can be no doubt that the artistic merit of Ueda
Bin’s magnificent translations was the result of long, persistent,
and pains-taking work. He can be justly called the father of our
modern poetry” (quot. in [98, 15]).
Ueda was the first to perceive the similarity of syllable
prosody in French and Japanese verse, which helped him not
only to convey skillfully the notorious “music” of Verlaine,
Verhaeren, and Mallarmé, but also to achieve refinement in the
sound of classical literary bungo forms in the context of a new
poetic diction:
Les sanglots longs aki no hi no
Des violins wioron no
De l’automne tameiki no
Blessent mon coeur mi ni shimite
D’une langueur hitaburu ni
Monotone urakanashi
(Verlaine) (Ueda Bin’s translation)
8. IN THE REALM OF SYMBOLS 233
On the eve of the twentieth century Teikoku bungaku pub-
lished an article by Ando Mushoshi entitled “On Decadence”
(Dekadan ron), in which the basic ideas of Romanticism and
other literary trends, including Symbolism, were labeled by the
author “decadent”. In a similar vein, in the article “Nervous
Literature” (Shinkeishi-tsu no bungaku), the German literature
scholar Katayama Koson criticized the German-speaking Symbo-
lists for their formal, hack approach. On the other hand, poet and
critic Iwano Homei extolled in Symbolism the sensual obsession
that he characterized as “mystical anomaly”. Following Ueda’s
introduction of Symbolism articles on the subject continued to
be published for many years in all the leading literary journals,
including Myojo (“Morning Star”), Taiyo (“Sun”), Subaru (“Ga-
laxy”), and Waseda bungaku (“Waseda Literature”).
In 1913, when Symbolism in Japan had reached its climax,
Homei published a translation of the book Symbolist Movement
in Literature (1899) by the English critic Arthur Symons, which
gave new strength to the enthusiasts and prolonged the exis-
tence of Symbolism as a trend in poetry up to the beginning of
1930s. In his essays “On the Poetry of Naturalistic Expressio-
nism” (Shizenshugiteki hyoshoshiron, 1928) and “Reflections
on Modern Expressionism Based on Ancient Japanese Philo-
sophy” (Nihon kodai shiso yori kindai hyoshoshugi o ronzu,
1928), Homei again emphasized the merits of Verlaine and
Mallarmé, and referred actively to Symons, trying to adapt his
aesthetic theory to the needs of Japan’s emerging nationalism.
The next hallmark of poetic translation after The Sound of
the Tide became the collection Corals (Sango-shu, 1913) put out
by the famous novelist but rather poor poet Nagai Kafu. The
section on poetry, which comprised approximately a third of
the book, contained thirty-eight poems by Baudelaire, Verlaine,
Rimbaud, Régnier, and other French Symbolists. Kafu arrived
at the decision to translate an anthology of French literature of
the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries after becoming
acquainted with the novels of Zola, Maupassant, and the
Goncourt brothers.
234 Part 2. THE SYMBOLIST CHALLENGE
In his preface to Corals, the translator-editor states:
Nowadays, ever since the opening of our country, our fellow
citizens treat overseas innovations differently. In particular,
they never get tired of admiring the original and eccentric
art of the West. Grieving that the Shogun’s militaristic
government had hindered the penetration into our country
of foreign ideas, the present authorities have decided to
put an end to this situation. The blessed constitutional
government has come at last. And thus the owner of the
Momiyama shoten publishing house collected some poems
by modern Western poets translated by me (not without
a dictionary) and published them in this book called Corals
(quot. in [132, v. 2, 376]).
Kafu observed with sympathy the development of the “move-
ment for free verse in the colloquial language”, and in his
translations tries to avoid archaisms and excessive aesthetic
refinement, introducing at times colloquial forms. However,
although the style and the language of Corals is generally
simpler than that of The Sound of the Tide, classical bungo still
prevails. Indeed, up to the beginning of the 1920s Symbolist
poetry could not manage without it.
Kawaji Ryuko, an ideological leader of the poets of Natu-
ralism and a staunch opponent of the Symbolists, would call
Corals the most outstanding achievement in the world of Japa-
nese poetic translation, heaping his praise on the poetry, which
seemed to him to have been translated from the soul. In reading
Corals, one gets the impression that it is a competent word-for-
word translation. Nonetheless, it is true that some of the poems
are translated in a very poetic way.
Many collections of translations were published after Corals.
These include: Lilac Flowers (Rira no hana, 1914) by Yosano
Tekkan, compiled after his meetings with French poets in the
well-known Parisian artist’s cafe “Closerie de Lilac”; Verlaine’s
Poetry (Verurenu shi-sho, 1915) by Kawaji Ryuko; Yesterday’s
Flowers (Kino no hana, 1918), Lost Jewelry (Ushinawareta ho-
gyoku, 1920) and Group under the Moon (Gekka no ichi gun,
8. IN THE REALM OF SYMBOLS 235
1925) by Horiguchi Diagaku; Flowers of Evil with an Appendix of
the Poems in Prose (Aku no hana fu sanbunshi, 1919) by Baba
Mutsuo; Modern French Poetry (Gendai furansu shi-shu, 1921) by
Yanazawa Takeshi; A Selection of French Poetry (Furansu shisen,
1923) by Yamanouchi Yoshio; Modern French Symbolism (Kindai
furansu shochoshi-sho, 1924) by Suzuki Shintaro; Modern
French Poetry (Kindai furansu shi-sho, 1925) and The Poetry of
Verhaeren (Verhaeren shi-shu, 1925) by Kaneko Mitsuharu;
and a translation of Verhaeren’s Les Flammes hautes (Tenjo
no hono, 1925) by Takamura Kotaro. Among the Japanese
poets of the Taisho period, the most popular of their French-
speaking counterparts was Emile Verhaeren, the Belgian poet
of strong feelings and large-scale images, whose poetry was
found fascinating by both the Symbolists and the authors of
Democratic School.
The library of Western poetry was further supplemented
by translations of Whitman, Traubel, and Carpenter, as well
as by the collection of Anglo-American poetry White Sparrow
(Shirako suzuma, 1920), edited by Saijo Yaso. White Sparrow
includes poems by Yeats, Hyde, Amy Lowell, Poe, and even
Rabindranath Tagore. In addition, Tagore’s remarkable Gitanjali
collection was published in a separate edition in 1915 and
played an important role in formation of a new sensual attitude
for Japanese poets.
Almost twenty years after his Vestiges, Mori Ogai introduced
to Japanese reader the names of two new German poets in the
Shorea Tree collection (Sara no ki, 1915). The book included
the work of Richard Dehmel and Alfred Henschke (Klabund),
translated in magnificent vers libre in the colloquial language.
In late 1920s, numerous translations of Rilke’s poetry also
appeared.
From time to time new translations of the poetry of English
Romanticism, of Goethe and Heine, Wild, Rossetti, and Omar
Khayyam continued to be published. The powerful influx of
foreign poetry was of course accompanied by the plentiful
and various translations of the prose, drama, literary criticism,
236 Part 2. THE SYMBOLIST CHALLENGE

art criticism, and philosophical works of Western authors.

This steam of Western literature and ideas was like a pipeline
providing fuel for Japanese writers, poets and artists. The
9 SUSUKIDA KYUKIN—
NEW SONGS
richness and variety of the poetry of Japanese Symbolism are,
to a considerable degree, the indirect result of the numerous
translations that filled the book market of the Meiji-Taisho
period.

The late Romanticists Susukida Kyukin and Kambara Ariake,

known already to the readers, were destined to become also the
pioneers of Symbolism in Japan. Such a strange phenomenon
as the complete and definitive transition from one artistic
method to another in the course of only three or four years
can be explained by the accelerated pace of development of
literature during the Meiji era, when Japanese writers were
striving to overcome as quickly as possible the gap between
their native literature and that of the West.
Formally, Susukida Kyukin’s third and fourth poetry col-
lections, Twenty-five Koto Strings (Ni ju go gen, May, 1905) and
Pearl Maiden (Shiratama-hime, June 1905), are considered to
be the first Symbolist collections, although the echoes of the
poet’s Romanticist past are still clearly audible in them. These
collections, released before the publication of Ueda Bin’s The
Sound of the Tide, were not influenced by French and Belgian
Symbolism. Though Kyukin was undoubtedly well informed
about European poetic life at the turn of the century, his poor
command of the French language and the literary tastes he
had developed during the period of Romanticism at first limited
his interests to poetry written in English. In this respect, Kyukin’s
mature works do not resemble the poetry of other Japanese
Symbolists, who were all initially influenced by the French poets.
In comparison to the collections of Romanticist shintaishi,
Twenty-five Koto Strings and Pearl Maiden display a more
238 Part 2. THE SYMBOLIST CHALLENGE
liberal poetic rhythm, relative freedom in the metrics, and
an abundance of symbolic images expressing the notion of
the incomprehensible mystery of life. Nevertheless, in both
collections poems with a preset metrical structure (teikeishi),
employing mainly the typical shintaishi meter of 7-5 syllables
per line, still prevail. Extremely complicated archaic bungo,
absolutely incomprehensible to the modern reader and lacking
any explanatory transliteration (furigana) or commentary on
the meaning and overtones of the puzzling exotic characters,
marks the poetic diction. The collections are also full of vague
reminiscences and allusions intended for the erudite reader
who has mastered Chinese and Japanese classical literature
and is also well-versed in European literature from Dante and
Shakespeare to Rossetti and Swinburne.
In Twenty-five Koto Strings, Kyukin, for the first time after
Kitamura Tokoku, turned to the form of the epic in his poem
“Messenger of the Universe” (Amatsuchizukai). The content
of the poem is rather vague and based on a myth recorded in
the Kojiki (Record of Ancient Matters, 8th C) about the divine
ancestors of the Japanese, Izanagi and Izanami. Along with the
Shinto mythology, the Buddhist concepts of impermanence and
karmic predestination are also present, mixed with the influence
of Western literature, especially of Keats’s “Hyperion”. The
amorphous nature of the narrative, the archaic vocabulary, and
the monotony of the traditional (7–5) prosody considerably
reduce the aesthetic value of “Messenger of the Universe”,
but Kyukin’s attempt at the “large” genre of epic poetry was
nonetheless an interesting experiment.
More typical of the poetry of early Symbolism, overloaded
with magnificent descriptions and vague associations, is the
long poem “Standing under a Ginkgo Tree” (Kosonjuka ni
tachite). The poet is carried by the force of his imagination from
Asia to Europe, then sees in his mind a poor fishing village in
some northern land, before finally winding up in the vicinity of
Kyukin’s home town, Okayama. In contrast to the landscapes of
other countries, the nature of Japan, embodied in the symbolic
9. SUSUKIDA KYUKIN—NEW SONGS 239
Susukida
Kyukin
image of the ginkgo, a “typically Japanese” tree, appears in all
its striking beauty.
Like a fearless soldier, the gingko sends the arrows of its
leaves towards the autumn wind. The falling of autumn leaves
gives rise to complicated and strange parallels in the poet’s
mind. Falling leaves remind him of the descent of the Phoenician
goddess Ishtar (Ashdor) into the netherworld, where she leaves
a piece of her magnificent dress on each of its seven gates.
There can be no doubt that the image of the gingko alludes
to the well-known ode by Shimazaki Toson, “The Evergreen”
(Tokiwagi):
Look, how courageous and sad
Is an evergreen tree that never withers!
In this eternal beauty the grief is no less,
Than in the withered grass of a winter meadow . . .
However, Kyukin’s use of the gingko does not imply any of
the Romanticist notions associated with tree symbols (the olive
tree standing for peace, the upas for evil, bamboo for firmness,
pine for fidelity, etc.). Rather, his tree is only an axis around
which the countless worlds described in sophisticated poly-
semantic metaphors rotate in poetic space.
240 Part 2. THE SYMBOLIST CHALLENGE
The most important collection by Susukida Kyukin, Constel-
lation of Aries (Hakuyokyu, May, 1906), is considered to be one
of the masterpieces of Meiji poetry, due mostly to two long
poems included in it. Despite the complexity of the lexicon, the
abundance of non-standard readings of the characters, and the
heavy grammatical structure, these poems, nowadays written
on numerous stone stellas, bewitch by their melodious harmony,
the richness of the colors, and the intoxicating sensation of the
beauty of nature they evoke.
The poem “Oh, I Wish I Could Be in the Land of Yamato!”
(Aa, Yamato ni shi aramashikaba), which has been translated
and analyzed for Western readers by Donald Keene, begins
with a description of Yamato in the early hours. The morning
becomes noon, and finally the day imperceptibly changes to
twilight. The composite division of long poems according to the
principle of time or seasonal sequencing is generally typical of
Kyukin’s mature poetry. The power and magnificence of nature
in autumn is the background, and though grown dull under the
ravages of time, the beautiful palaces and temples of the ancient
capital remain. A nostalgic sadness for irrevocably lost time,
for the Nara and Heian culture that has fallen into oblivion,
fills the poem, as it did in Kyukin’s early odes devoted to the
masterpieces of old craftsmen. There, far back in the past, in the
“Golden Age” of Japanese civilization, he sees his ideal.
“Oh, I Wish I Could Be in the Land of Yamato!”1 has all the
hallmarks of Kyukin’s best poetry. It is an extremely elaborate
and ornamental poem, rife with archaic words, and with
an adoration of nature close to fetishism. Nevertheless, the
poem is distinguished from the aesthetically eloquent odes of
his Romanticist period by the pathos of love for his native land,
for primordially Japanese values in nature and art.
Kyukin’s poem also vividly reveals an interesting feature
typical of the poetry of both Japanese Romanticism and Sym-
1 Yamato is the name of one of the central province in the old admi-
nistrative structure of Japan.
9. SUSUKIDA KYUKIN—NEW SONGS 241
bolism and which can be considered a product of the East-West
synthesis. This original work of art, so full of the reminiscences
of the Manyoshu and other classical Japanese literary monu-
ments, in the beginning and in the refrain contains a paraphrase
of Robert Browning’s famous poem “Home-Thoughts from
Abroad”, which begins with the lines: “Oh, to be in England //
Now that April’s there . . .”
There is no question here of imitation or of direct borrowing.
The same is true of the refrain from Kyukin’s other masterpiece
in Constellation of Aries, “Nostalgia” (Bokyo no uta), where the
refrain “kanata e, kimi to iza kaerimashi” (Oh, I wish I could
return there with you!) contains a direct allusion to Goethe’s
“Mignon’s Song”, which was included in the translation col-
lection Vestiges: “Dahin! Dahin // Möchte ich mit dir, o mein
Geliebter, ziehn”. The function of such paraphrases in the con-
text of kindaishi, which are quite frequent but not always imme-
diately apparent, is rather complicated. In the first place, they
play the role of a disguised epigraph that sends the reader to the
corresponding source of the poet’s inspiration and establishes
the appropriate emotional tone. This does not prevent the para-
phrases from being mixed with epigraphs taken from the work
of other poets. Secondly, the paraphrases from European poetry
create a contrasting background for the best perception of the
deliberately decorative and stylized “pseudo-antique” nature of
kindaishi verse. That is to say, the paraphrases help to emphasize
the modern essence of kindaishi. One is reminded here of the
device of honkadori, whereby writers of medieval tanka would
incorporate famous lines from the classics in their own work.
However, the true originality of Kyukin’s works is not in
the allusions to European poetry but in the elaborate crafting
of purely Japanese material, in the exploration of those cultural
values without which the life of any Japanese would lose its
meaning.
Turning, like many of the literati at the beginning of the
twentieth century, against the stereotypical tanka poetics of
ancient anthologies like the Kokinshu and the Shinkokinshu,
242 Part 2. THE SYMBOLIST CHALLENGE
Kyukin deliberately opposed impetuous freedom and creative
imagination to the rigid regulations of classical poetry. While
Shimazaki Toson in his shintaishi turned to folk poetry as
a source and composed examples of “poems to sing”, many of
which have indeed survived as songs, Kyukin chose another
path. He saw the beauty of verse not in its transparency, but in
vagueness, not in melody, but in rhetorical floridity. His style
was meant for a narrow circle of intellectuals, those capable of
enjoying a refined play of words and characters and an infinite
variety of implied allusions. It was these qualities, still valued
in the literary world of the early twentieth century, that brought
Kyukin the reputation of a Japanese “Parnassian” (koto-ha
shijin), but which also soon resulted in the moral and artistic
crisis that played a fatal role in his further literary career.
Even when Kyukin’s talent was flourishing, his readership
was limited. Later, as a result of changes in education and in
the norms of the literary language, most of his poems became
incomprehensible even for literary critics. Nowadays, reading
and decoding his poems, even in annotated editions, requires
even more effort than it takes to read medieval manuscripts.
Perhaps in due course Kyukin could have composed wonderful
poems in a different style, but his poetic career ended abruptly
and unexpectedly. After Constellation of Aries, which became
his “swan song”, Kyukin gave up poetry for good. In readers’
minds he remains the author of several incomprehensible
refined masterpieces. However, his poetry nonetheless occupies
an honorable place in multivolume collections of modern
Japanese verse. Perhaps, as poet and critic Kawai Suimei
suggests, there is a special significance to the short “Kyukin-
Ariake” epoch in Japanese literary history: “Kyukin, while in
terms of poetic gift an individual of the new type, managed
to penetrate the depths of the Manyoshu, the Kokinshu, and the
ancient myths, and draw from them a harmonious perception
of his native land and its culture” [7, v. 2, 169].
10 KAMBARA ARIAKE—
THE LEGACY OF
THE PRE-RAPHAELITES
Along the same lines as Kyukin’s Symbolist collections we
find Kambara Ariake’s (1876–1947) Spring Bird (Shuncho-shu),
published in 1905. The title of the book, which marks a new
stage in the development of kindaishi, is an allusion not to the
poetry of Byron, Keats or Rossetti, Ariake’s favorite poets
during his youth, but to Basho’s haiku about a bird sleeping
among the cherry blossoms.
In the preface, which has become one of the manifestoes of
early Symbolism, Ariake shares with the reader his ideas about
the mission and destiny of poetry:
Everything connected with the notions of nature and hu-
man life that differs essentially from our perceptions in
the past certainly requires new artistic techniques. In the
same way, when summer arrives people give up wearing
their spring clothes. However, those attached to old habits
resist making the effort to think about something new. In
the swift stream to which I can compare poetic reform, it is
impossible to avoid encountering those forces that will try
to stop the spiritual impulse. To be sure, it is no easy task
to adjust the sounds, melody, lexicon, and verse structure
to new meanings, to perceive anew the entire system of
our native language, and to penetrate the secret depths of
modern times. Therefore, I am ready in advance to accept
all reproaches concerning the imperfections and ambiguities
of my creations.
244 Part 2. THE SYMBOLIST CHALLENGE 10. KAMBARA ARIAKE—THE LEGACY OF THE PRE-RAPHAELITES 245

Seeing, hearing, and all other senses of an artist must be

fresh and clear. He should always maintain his enthusiasm
and vivacity of spirit . . . To perceive nature means to conceive
yourself. For example, if nature is the spots on a leopard’s Kambara
skin, then you are probably the eyes of this leopard . . . May Ariake
the illusive leopard living inside myself and acting in the
world of nature enter the heavenly garden of poetry!
Our senses—seeing, hearing, and the others, in the
spiritual and emotional perception of the modern individual
have become confused and mixed up. This is the reason why
there appear such images as: “the sound of silvery light” or
“the colors of monotony”.
Here we could speak of “the eyes of the heart” and “the
ears of the heart”, but we can also feel here the flavor of the
human soul. After all, only a rough and insensible person
would dare call the sense of smell “vulgar” [20, v. 1, 152].
In particular, he discovered in the notions of shirabe (melody),
Further on, Ariake develops a thesis about the importance of omomuki (prettiness, charm), nioi (aroma), and kage (shadow,
synesthesia (inter-replacement of feelings) in classical and silhouette) manifestations of “Eastern Symbolism”. The current
modern poetry, especially in the poetry of Symbolism. He of words in a verse, their interaction, reflection, and mutual
refers to examples by Sei Shonagon and by Basho, where the emphasis are defined, according to Ariake, by the cardinal
voice of a bird is characterized by color, and he discusses aesthetic category yugen (secret meaning), which he held to be
the “flavor” of ancient bronze. But the author uses these more or less equivalent to the category of the “mysterious” in
classical examples, apparently, to illustrate the famous con- Mallarmé’s poetry.
cept of French Symbolism concerning “correspondences”, Ariake also discovered in the poetry and painting of Dante
which was formulated by Baudelaire in his poem of the same Gabriel Rossetti (1828–1882) some correspondences with his
name: “Les parfums, les couleurs et les sons se répondent” own views on creative activity. In his article “Reflections on
(Smells, colors, and sounds answer each other, are manifest Rossetti” (Kaiso Rossetti) he writes:
in each other). The same idea was developed many years later
by the great Irish poet W. B. Yeats in his book Ideas of Good and In Rossetti’s works you will not find an excessive splendor
Evil (1903). of descriptions. He is always rushing to a vague, mystical
domain of psychology. The shades of color appear as if
Seventeen years after the publication of Spring Bird, when
rotating in a dance, and his poems are like pictures. In them,
Japanese Symbolism, by resisting “base materialism” still held the talent of the artist merges with the gifts of a poet. If not
a strong position, Ariake wrote in the preface to his book of for the acquaintance with Rossetti’s work, my poems could
collected poems on the importance of correspondence, shades, never exist [16, v. 58, 403].
and semitones. Quoting Verlaine’s phrase “Pas la couleur,
rien que la nuance!” (Not the color, only the nuance!), he Ariake’s theoretical discourse on poetry had no less an impact
correlated it with some concepts of classical Japanese poetry. on the Symbolists of the next generation than his poetry or
246 Part 2. THE SYMBOLIST CHALLENGE
the excellent translations and essays on French literature by
Ueda Bin. As for Ariake’s poetry, along with the masterpieces
there are poems that come across as rather boring and colorless.
The best poems included in Spring Bird are in the traditional
metric pattern (7–5) with some modifications that produce
smooth, well measured melodies, bringing a musical harmony
to the rhythm.
The long poem “Morning Has Come” (Asa nari), impres-
sionist in style, presents an example of Symbolist urbanism,
which is especially significant, since such a topic had never
actually been touched upon in kindaishi poetry before. As in
other poems in the collection, here we feel the direct influence
of Verhaeren’s poems depicting the depressing, gloomy
beauty of the modern bourgeois city with its palaces and
slums, banks and factory-prisons, satiated money-bags and
penniless paupers. Still, Ariake is alien to the decadent pathos
of Verhaeren, Verlaine or Rimbaud, who in refined sonnets
praised death and despair and cherished the “flowers of evil”.
Nonetheless, it is significant that Ariake, known as the poet of
refined feelings and images, here for the first time chooses as the
object of his poetic art some of the dirtier and repelling aspects
of the city, thereby involuntarily foreshadowing the courageous
experiments of the Naturalists.
For a Japanese poet, the river is the symbol of the city.
The poem depicts the river and the city in subdued colors,
semitones, and shades. The lyrical images are born from the
combination of two views of the city: the city as beautiful
and the city as ugly. In the “ugly” view we see the muddy
waters of the river and the garbage floating downstream,
the dirty abutment of a bridge, and the early morning fetid
vapors wreathing the riverbank like mould. In the “beautiful”
view we are presented with the wavering reflections of the
white walls of a warehouse in the water, the sight of casual
pedestrians on the bridge, seagulls sailing over the waves,
peasant’s carts laden with vegetables on the way to market,
and people hurrying to work.
10. KAMBARA ARIAKE—THE LEGACY OF THE PRE-RAPHAELITES 247
Ariake skillfully unfolds his imagery, passing from the
description of the white walls of market buildings to the bridge
behind them, then on to the river mouth, where the seagulls
rush over the foam of the tidal waves. The poem is also very
dynamic in terms of time: from the stillness of early dawn to
the rush hour, when the river and the bridge are crowded with
working people. The idea of “perpetual motion”, so typical
of Symbolist poetry, is conveyed in each five-line stanza by
successive changes in the surrounding against the powerful,
unceasing flow of the muddy river. The reflections in the water
begin to glisten, the depths of the river become visible, the sea
tide advances; gradually the haze dissipates, the figures of
passers-by are seen, the boards of the bridge creak, the water
changes shades, the wind ceases, boatmen float by with their
songs . . .
Ueda Bin, an admirer of Ariake’s talent, called “Morning
Has Come” the best poem of the collection. He also had this
comment:
In fact, in order to understand the poem completely requires
some effort, and it is likely that my interpretation of the
meaning is different from the author’s. However, that hardly
changes anything, as the author is a poet of Symbolism, and
the readers are not at all obliged to understand the meaning
of such poems in strict accordance with the author’s ideas
[208, v. 1, 162].
Ariake’s urban poetry, despite its coloring and other features
akin to Verhaeren’s poetic technique, lacks the social pathos
that was expressed so clearly in the work of the Belgian
poet and that distinguishes his muse from that of his French
counterparts. The world of Verhaeren’s symbols reveals the
sufferings of people in the dark labyrinths of stone jungles,
where they are chained by poverty to the drudgery of the
factories and docks. Meanwhile, Ariake simply observes
from a distance, creating a pleasing picture of the city in
a combination of light and gloomy colors. With a sinking heart
248 Part 2. THE SYMBOLIST CHALLENGE
he savors the terrible greatness of the industrial landscape,
without actually thinking about the lives of the wretched
inhabitants of the workers’ quarters:
Look! Here are the factory shops,
Shrouded in dirt and soot,
Behind them in the distance in a solid wall,
You see a heavenly light
...................................
A bird cries—oh, those are the blows of a hammer!
That is the ring of metal—
The terrible sound of a fight
Running like a blade into the heart!
“Who wouldn’t Feel it in his Heart”
(Dare ka wa kokoro fusezaru)
Although social problems basically remained alien to the
Japanese Symbolists, in some of the poems in Spring Bird (and
nowhere else in Ariake’s work) we can sense a criticism of
bourgeois morality, of the spirit of selfish money-making. In
the context of the poet’s entire oeuvre such poems look rather
strange, even out-of-place, and should probably be regarded as
“Imitations of Verhaeren” or “Improvisations on the Themes
of Verhaeren’s Poetry”. However, this does not diminish their
artistic merit:
Look! The volumes of the book of fate,
Those manuscripts with the golden letters
on their covers are silent.
The stars appear.
The debtors (and I among them) have gathered.
Nobody knows how to pay off his debts.
Ahead there is the pitch dark of a dungeon, a sepulchral hill . . .
What will happen? Oh, this night of the soul!
“Night of the Soul” (Tama no yoru)
10. KAMBARA ARIAKE—THE LEGACY OF THE PRE-RAPHAELITES 249
Spring Bird met with an animated response from the critics
and was warmly received by readers. Shortly after the book’s
publication, Sakurai Tendan wrote the article “On Ariake’s
poetry” (Ariake no shiron) for the journal Teikoku bungaku. Ueda
Bin, Baba Kocho, and Yosano Tekkan published in Myojo a joint
critical analysis of the collection in which they proclaimed
the author the pioneer of Symbolism. In his essay “Japanese
as the Language of Poetry” (Shigo toshite no nihongo) the
distinguished ethnographer, folklorist, and poet Origuchi
Shinobu had the following to say about Ariake’s collection:
It conveys a certain movement of the soul. It is pleasant
and at the same time disturbing, awakening an impulse
which is impossible to put into words. If we think soberly
we will realize that the book has caused this thrill through
its unprecedented impulse of expressiveness (quot. in [7,
v. 2, 237]).
In comparison to the impressionist poems of Spring Bird, the
sonnets included in Ariake Collection (Ariake shu, 1908) look
like refined samples of introspective metaphysical poetry. The
pathos of the poems is focused exclusively on the domain of
love relations. Afflicted, as it were, with the aspiration to
approach the ideals of European Symbolism, Ariake embarked
on the path of complicating the imagery and the language of
his poems, constantly coming back to the completed works
and editing, correcting, and trying to improve them. He was
infatuated more and more by the idea of the self-sufficient
beauty of form, of magical words, and of correspondences in
colors, sounds, and smells.
Later, in summing up his views, Ariake wrote that Sym-
bolism is a certain kind of generalization, a synthesis of sen-
sations, and its mission is to create an illusion or an illusive
vision (see [16, v. 58, 401]). He put forward the notion of the
“sign concept” (kigo gainen), implying a semiotic connection
between the Symbolist image and life. In his opinion, a poet
adds a special sense to the objects and phenomena of reality,
250 Part 2. THE SYMBOLIST CHALLENGE 10. KAMBARA ARIAKE—THE LEGACY OF THE PRE-RAPHAELITES 251

providing them with a symbolical meaning, thus carrying them
from the real world to the other world, the world beyond.
In his quest to follow the French Symbolists in their forma-
listic endeavors, Ariake arrived at the perception of a principle
deeply rooted in the aesthetics of Romanticism and typical
also of the aesthetics of Baudelaire, Verlaine, and, especially,
Mallarmé, that is, the principle of “two worlds”. This per-
ception produces in the poet a fundamental “disagreement
with the existing situation and the search for an oppositional
approach, for contrasts and antitheses” [455, 230]. The imagery
in the majority of Ariake’s poems thus offers in opposition to
the ordinary, “real” world a world of elevated feelings.
It is curious that the Japanese critics have not noticed in
Ariake Collection the clear tendency towards the “reverse step”.
Following the experiments of Spring Bird, rather than moving
on to new territory, the poet took a spiral route that brought
him back to the infatuations of his younger years. Thus the
1908 collection also includes translations of poems by Rossetti.
Taking as a basis his own Romanticist compositions, Ariake
tried to adjust the poetic technique of the polychromatic mystic
image elaborated in them to the principles of Symbolism. Soma
Gyofu, who was soon to become the leader of the Naturalist
school, was rather ruthless in his assessment of this turn:
Even after taking into consideration Gyofu’s polemic passion
and youthful ambitions, we still have to admit that his views
are quite objective. And although the attacks of a still unknown
writer could not shake Ariake’s reputation as a prominent poet,
history confirms that Gyofu was in certain respects correct.
Ariake, like Kyukin, suddenly broke off writing poetry after
1908. His late collection, Collected Poems of Ariake (Ariake shi-
shu, 1922), although it included a few new poems along with
the old ones, did not attract the attention of readers. Unnoticed
passed also his further poetic translations from Rossetti and his
literary critiques of the 1920–30s.
Together with Kyukin, Ariake, who lived a long life, has
remained in the minds of his compatriots a poet of the Meiji
period and the founder of Japanese Symbolism. Along the path
blazed by him proceeded the brilliant galaxy of Symbolists of
a new generation led by Kitahara Hakushu and Miki Rofu.

We cannot say that the collection does not depict at all the
sufferings, sorrows, and anxieties of the modern individual.
Perhaps the author did try to describe these things. The
trouble is that he fails. He cannot describe what he wants,
and in the end it all looks as if he carves with a hammer . . .
He does not depict people’s sufferings and troubles as they
are, but paints them with joy and pleasure.
Ariake, while expressing his feelings, tries first of all to
display a refined poetic technique, and in this way he brings
the evolution of shintaishi to its climax . . . But if we assume
the possibility of the survival of poetry in Japan as a kind
of literature, this possibility can only be realized if we
completely get rid of the so-called shintaishi effect presented
by Ariake in this collection [7, v. 2, 285–286].
252 Part 2. THE SYMBOLIST CHALLENGE
11 THE “PAN SOCIETY”—
SAKE! IN CRYSTAL GLASSES
The first years of the twentieth century were marked by the
increased interest of the intellectuals in European literature and
art of the fin de siècle, where the leading positions in poetry were
occupied by the French Parnassians and Symbolists and in art
by the Impressionists and Post-Impressionists. The journals
Subaru and Okujo teien (“Rooftop Garden”), which had replaced
Myojo, were instrumental in promoting the slogan “art for the
art’s sake”. Their model was the poetry of Kyukin, Ariake, and
their direct successors. The journal Hosun (“Initiative”) and the
young painters who would assemble around it followed the
same direction. Proponents of Symbolism also participated in
the lively discussions on literature and art in the pages of Taiyo,
Bunsho sekai (“The Literary World”), and Waseda bungaku. That
was a time when the young intellectuals would see nothing
but art, a time filled with the intoxication of vague yearnings,
of dreams and poetry, when new trends in art emerged on
the basis of self-awareness and talent. It is worth adding that
it was also the period of an unprecedented rise in nationalism
after Japan’s victory in the Russo-Japanese war. Likewise, it
was a period that saw an intensification of repression, the arrest
and execution of participants in the socialist movement, the
pauperization of the proletariat, the growth of brutal capitalist
exploitation, and the formation of militant imperialist ideology.
Still, all these factors could not stop the continuation of the
“spiritual revolution” of the Meiji-Taisho period.
11. THE “PAN SOCIETY”—SAKE! IN CRYSTAL GLASSES 253
In France, the “damned poets” desperately resisted the im-
pact of cold-hearted bourgeois civilization, proclaiming their
break with philistine society. In Japan, on the contrary, the
poets blessed the same bourgeois civilization, associating its
arrival with their most cherished expectations. They perceived
Western culture uncritically, as though through rose-colored
spectacles, just as we sometimes perceive the culture of the
East. The dramatic personalities of Baudelaire, Verlaine, and
Rimbaud were for them only the “symbols” of a great poetic
tradition. The imagined atmosphere of artistic Paris would drive
them crazy. The sound of the words “Montmartre”, “Mont-
parnasse”, and “Luxembourg” would make them tremble
with joy. They imagined the life of bohemians in Paris as light-
hearted and cheerful, as in a Puccini opera. In this way they
created a cult of the bohème, a cult that resulted in the emergence
of the “school of aestheticism” (tambi-ha) in literature, with the
“Pan Society” (Pan no kai) at its center.
The name “Pan Society” (from the name of Pan, the god
of woods and wild nature in ancient Greece), with its implied
reference to the orgiastic, Dionysian nature of the union of poets
and artists, is believed to have been suggested by Kinoshita
Mokutaro. From German books on art he knew about the
existence of a society of the same name in Berlin at the end of
the nineteenth century. He was attracted to the name’s eccentric,
mythological implication, and by its fashionable European
sound. (There is also a Japanese equivalent of the name “Pan”,
bokuyoshin, literally “god of shepherds”, but it was ignored).
Kinoshita Mokutaro himself was also the principle initiator in
setting up the society.
The activities of “Pan Society” started in December, 1908,
when Kinoshita, Kitahara Hakushu, Yoshii Isamu, Nagata Hideo,
Hirano Banri, and other writers began to meet on a regular basis
for a “suare” (soirée), parties with poetic readings, songs, and
literary discussions. Their meeting place was at first a restaurant
on the right bank of the Sumida River not far from the bridge
at Ryogoku. At the time the word “café” in Japan had not yet
254 Part 2. THE SYMBOLIST CHALLENGE
become popular, but the word “restaurant” implied Western
exoticism. Sometimes they referred to the same small restau-
rant in the Japanese way, gyuniku-ya, i. e. “a tavern where beef
dishes are served”. This was how the European-style taverns
were called in the first years of the Meiji period, as in traditio-
nal Japanese cuisine there was no beef. Kinoshita Mokutaro de-
scribes those days in his Memoirs of the “Pan Society”:
At that time we would read with love theoretical and
historical works on Impressionism. On the other hand,
under the influence of Ueda Bin’s translations, we would
dream about the life of the Parisian artists and poets and
would be eager to imitate them in every possible way.
Through the ukiyo-e woodblock prints we would also
feel with all our heart the charm of the artistic tastes of
the Edo period. Thus the “Pan Society” became the result
of romantic aspirations in which foreign lyrical tones and
colors were perceived through the lyrical tones, colors, and
aesthetic attitudes of the Edo period.
It was hard at the time to find a building in the style of
a western café. There were no such establishments in Tokyo.
And so, one Sunday, when I was strolling about the city
(I had a request from my friends to find a place with a river
view if possible, if not on the quay, then at least in some
picturesque corner of shitamachi [i. e. the old downtown
quarter]), I was lucky enough to discover a small Western-
style restaurant right in front of the Ryogoku bridge. Since it
is depicted in the woodblock prints of Hiroshige, Hokusai,
and other Edo masters, the Ryogoku neighborhood is
famous all over the world. It is a typical neighborhood of
the old city near the Sumida River.
Probably, there is no need to remind the reader that
after Edo woodblock prints came to Europe in the late
nineteenth century they strongly influenced the Impressio-
nists. When the works of the Impressionists appeared in
Japan, this resulted in a re-evaluation of Edo art. It is no
wonder, then, that the neighborhood of the Ryogoku Bridge
over the Sumida, a favorite subject for many ukiyo-e masters,
in fact, the homeland of Edo art and now also saturated with
a foreign spirit, was especially dear to the “Pan Society”
poets [132, v. 1, 314].
11. THE “PAN SOCIETY”—SAKE! IN CRYSTAL GLASSES 255
The same ideas are expressed in the Kinoshita’s poem
“Ryogoku”, written in 1910:
Passing under the Ryogoku bridge,
The big launches fold their masts.
“Hey!”—captains keep calling each other.
The fifth of May. All around is quiet.
A cool breeze comes from the river.
Soft splashes of the oars of a high-speed boat going from Yotsume.
Colorful butterflies flitting over the waves.
Fine, clear saké from Nada, like a chrysanthemum
Exhales a familiar languid aroma,
When poured into a glass.
From the second floor of the restaurant
I look at the dull sunset.
I see in the evening sky the silhouettes of birds—
Birds flying over the domes of palaces
Of the governors in fantastic countries—
And for some reason my heart is in confusion.
The modern literary critic Noda Utaro wittily and rather
perceptively called the whole poetry of the “Pan Society” “Edo
saké poured into a crystal glass” [132, v. 1, 316]. To develop
this comparison, we could add that this glass stands on a high
European coffee table in a small house made of wood and paper,
and at this table a Japanese with a moustache, having first
removed his shoes, sits in a tailcoat, holding a fan in his hands.
The incongruities in this picture, though they might appear
whimsical or even absurd, nevertheless accurately depict the
reality of the “Pan Society”. Such a mixing of cultures would
have seemed quite normal to the participants in the gatherings.
The small restaurant at Ryogoku was directly associated in their
minds with the culture of the literary and artists’ cafes of Paris,
above all with the famous “Closerie de Lilac”.
In the spring of 1909, the whole group moved to the left river
bank of the Sumida, to a quarter of Saga where they settled into
256 Part 2. THE SYMBOLIST CHALLENGE
a restaurant called “Nagayo”, not far from the bridge of the
same name. By this time the “Pan Society” had already become
well known in the literary circles of Tokyo and was considered
the most fashionable “salon”. In Nagayo the glasses would
ring, a dark blue flame would burn in bowls of rum, French
poems would be recited, and the strings of a shamisen would
twang the old tune of a kouta song. Ueda Bin would read his
new translations, Wakayama Bokusui and Yoshii Isamu would
recite, or better, chant their tanka about wine, about the joys and
sorrows of the world, about love, melancholy, and the bitterness
of separation. The poet and sculptor Takamura Kotaro, who
returned from Paris in June, would tell his friends about France,
and about Rodin. A young German traveler, Frits Ramp, the
only foreigner in the “Pan Society”, would generously share his
experience of recent wanderings along the roads of China. Aoki
Shigeru would show his new pictures and draw the portraits of
the guests. Then all of them, waving their glasses, would sing in
chorus the hymn of the “Pan Society”:
Crimson are clouds high in the sky,
Crimson is wine in our glasses.
Why should we grieve, if anyway,
There are crimson clouds in the sky!
This quatrain composed by Kitahara Hakushu was set to
the tune of the song “The Bugler” (Rappa-sotsu), popular at the
time of the Russo-Japanese war.
The atmosphere of the bohemian revelry in the “French-
Japanese” style was described by Takamura Kotaro in his poem
“Presentation”:
The wind, blowing from the glasses,
Shakes the small paper lanterns of Pan.
Colored lights rush about, flash . . .
Near the restaurant, decorated as a Western café, there
was an old Edo-style tavern (ryoriya) called the “Togawa”. As
11. THE “PAN SOCIETY”—SAKE! IN CRYSTAL GLASSES 257
a sign of their devotion to Edo art, the poets and artists of the
“Pan Society” would sometimes hold their congregations at
this traditional tavern, and then a noisy crowd in their frock
coats and tails would sit without shoes on the tatami straw
mats in front of low tables. Instead of glasses with ruby wine
they would raise small cups of saké in a toast to the muses and
follow with talk of Verlaine, Van Gogh, Rodin, Hokusai, and
Hiroshige. In a lyrical quatrain stylized as a kouta folk song,
Kitahara Hakushu sings about those parties at the Togawa:
Putting on my light jacket,
I go again tonight to the Togawa.
The dim yellowish light of gas lanterns on the bridge
Shines either with love or with envy, and fills me with anxiety.
The Nagayo bridge was located at the mouth of the Sumida
river, near the port. In the distance was the isle of Tsukuda with
a small fishing settlement, and on the right bank of the river
there was a hotel for foreigners. This picturesque city landscape,
so typical of Tokyo at the beginning of the twentieth century,
was described in Kinoshita Mokutaro’s famous shokyoku
(miniature) “Tsukiji Crossing” (Tsukiji no watari):
Either the boat comes from Boshu, or it goes to Izu.
The melody of a flute sounds in the distance—
It comes from there, behind the crossing,
from the island of Tsukuda.
And the lights of the hotel Metropole are shining.
From our perspective, the sensual aestheticism that thrived
in the “Pan Society” was in many respects exaggerated,
almost to point of the grotesque. Such an attitude toward
Western culture, however, was generally typical of the Meiji-
period intellectuals, who adopted a smart outward Western
appearance and strove to capture the achievements of Western
science, technology, architecture, painting, and literature. The
258 Part 2. THE SYMBOLIST CHALLENGE
dazzling tinsel of the Western exotic would often hide from
the poets and artists of the “Pan Society” more important
aesthetic values. Their pursuit of charm “in the Western way”
would quite often bring about rather strange results—like the
famous poem by Kinoshita Mokutaro “Liquor with Gold Dust”
(Kimpunshu), presenting a play of English and French lexical
borrowings:
o-do-wi Dantsigu
kogane uku sake
o gogatsu, gogatsu, rikyoru gurasu,
waga baa no sutando gurasu
machi ni furu ame no murasaki.
“Eau de vie”, the liquor “Danzig”1.
Saké with floating particles of gold.
Oh May, May! A glass of liquor,
The glass is on our bar counter.
Purple rain falls on the city . . .
All the words in this poem are written in characters but
provided with special readings (ateji) indicating the correct
European-sounding pronunciation which, in the author’s
opinion, should strengthen the impressionist effect and provide
the necessary lyrical spirit. The small streets of a Japanese
city shrouded in a purple-grey veil of rain serve only as
a background of a sketch from the life of the westernized Tokyo
bohemians.
Sometimes the masterpieces of European art would
become sources of inspiration for Japanese poets. Takamura
Kotaro in his poem “Cathedral in the Rain” (Ame ni utareru
katedoraru) depicts Notre-Dame de Paris, Kambara Ariake
admired the pictures of Rossetti, Kinoshita Mokutaro idolized
1 The author means an expensive type of liquor which contains gold
dust.
11. THE “PAN SOCIETY”—SAKE! IN CRYSTAL GLASSES 259
Manet. However, the achievements of Western painting and
architecture were invariably projected onto Japanese material.
The quintessence of such a dual perception is presented in
a quatrain by Kitahara Hakushu prompted by Whistler’s picture
“Nocturne in Dark Blue and Gold” with the image of the bridge
over the Thames:
kin to ao to no nokutyurunu
haru to natsu to no duetto
wakai Tokio ni Edo no uta
kage to hikari no waga kokoro
Nocturne in gold and dark blue.
A duet of spring and summer.
In young Tokyo—the songs of Edo.
Shadows and light in my heart.
This picturesque miniature appears in a new light if we
recollect that Whistler, one of the leaders of the Art nouveau
movement, was a passionate admirer of the Japanese aesthetic
and, like the French Post-Impressionists, borrowed many
techniques from Edo ukiyo-e prints.
As for the “Pan Society”’s contribution to poetics, Noda
Utaro has argued that
It is possible to say that Meiji poetry, including Symbolist
poetry, prior to the “Pan Society” was monochromatic, that
is, that major importance was given only to the musicality
of verse. Only since the “Pan Society” did kindaishi become
“colored”; the images, born out of thoughts and feelings,
received in verse a generous polychromatic coloring [132,
v. 1, 332].
No matter how exaggerated this estimation might be, it is
impossible to disagree that in the mature works of the Japanese
Symbolists colors, sounds, and aromas merged for the first time
in a uniform powerful symphony. The “Pan Society” provided
260 Part 2. THE SYMBOLIST CHALLENGE
nourishment for many literary journals and art magazines. It
had an impact not only on Subaru and Okujo teien, but also on
Shirakaba (“White Birch”), Mita bungaku (“Mita Literature”), and
Shin shicho (“New Ideological Trends”). Likewise, the “school of
aestheticism” established during this period would nurture the
development of brilliant novelists: Tanizaki Jun’ichiro, Nagai
Kafu, Morita Sohei, and many others. The adoration of beauty,
the emphasis on the exotic, on fetishism and painful sensuality,
defined the mainstream of tambi-ha aesthetics, which in turn
would be reflected in poetry and painting.
In 1910, the members of the “Pan Society” moved their
gatherings to a small restaurant in the Nihon-bashi area called
the “Sanshu-ya”. The parties and animated discussions over
glasses of wine went on for several months more, but soon the
bohemian life-style drew the attention of the authorities. The
government began an open persecution of the “Pan Society”,
considered an association of malefactors and a “menace to the
morals of the empire”. A trial of socialists and the execution of
Kotoku Shusui and his collaborators poured oil on the flames.
The literati of the “Pan Society” spoke up in the press in support
of freedom and democracy. Now they also became targets
of the police. The circle gradually narrowed and the society
lost its former cheerfulness and optimism. Then, at the very
beginning of the Taisho era (1912–1925), it quietly disintegrated.
The “Pan Society” was replaced by other groups, but its legacy
has been preserved in the lyrical poetry of Kitahara Hakushu,
Kinoshita Mokutaro, and Takamura Kotaro.
12 KITAHARA HAKUSHU—
THE MUSIC OF
A FORBIDDEN FAITH
Among the Japanese Symbolists there were many truly talented
poets, but few if any can compete in fame with Kitahara
Hakushu, the brilliant bard and aesthete who became the
most popular personality in the literary salons of Tokyo. Poets
of kindaishi and tanka alike idolized Hakushu, considering it
an honor to be ranked a member of his school. In Hakushu’s
works, the strengths and weaknesses of Symbolism are revealed
with an extraordinary clarity, as if under a spotlight: the
dazzling images and the vagueness of ideas, the melodic turn
of the stanzas and the complexity of the diction, the freshness of
the rhythms and the excessive abundance of colors.
Kitahara Hakushu (1885–1942, his real name was Ryukichi)
was born in the city of Yanagawa in Fukuoka Prefecture in the
north of Kyushu. Kitahara’s father was an owner of a large
distillery that he intended to leave to his heir. But the boy,
ailing and sensitive since early childhood, was fascinated by
poetry. He would frequently miss classes to read alone the
ancient anthologies and to compose tanka. The first publications
of the poems by the young Kitahara (under the pen-name
Sashui) appeared in Bunko in 1902. Inspired by his success, he
continued to compose tanka until he became a victim of a critic-
pedant who reproached Sashui for the misuse of geographical
names. The offended poet gave up for a while composing tanka
and decided to try his skills at kindaishi, but he did not create
anything noteworthy at this stage.
262 Part 2. THE SYMBOLIST CHALLENGE
Meanwhile, Kitahara, the senior, demanded that his son
come to his senses and engage himself in commercial activity.
Hakushu, who did not want to have anything to do with
commerce, was compelled to run away from home. When he
arrived in Tokyo, he enrolled in the preparatory English course
at Waseda University and plunged into the literary life.
Throughout 1904–1905 Hakushu kept on writing rather
weak poems in the new forms, although his interest in tanka did
not vanish and was, in fact, boosted by his acquaintance with
such outstanding masters of the genre as Wakayama Bokusui,
Yosano Tekkan, and Toki Aika.
In 1906, on the invitation of Tekkan, Hakushu joined the “New
Poetry Society” (Shinshisha) centered around the journal Myojo.
This was the starting point of his literary career. Hakushu’s name
began to be known in poetic circles. He kept company with
Kyukin, Ariake, Ueda Bin, Ishikawa Takuboku, and other young
poets. Hakushu’s early kindaishi, which earned him the name
“the Izumi Kyoka1 of poetry”, are marked by a rather facile pursuit
of the beauty of imagery and rhythm. The same is true of his
tanka, to which the poet returned in 1907. The one thing needed
to reveal the full potential of Hakushu’s talent was a suitable
topic. Soon such a topic was discovered, and nowhere else but
in the poet’s homeland, in the place where, three centuries be-
fore, the exotic culture of the “southern barbarians” had thrived.
Like Rudyard Kipling, Ezra Pound, and the Russian Nikolay
Gumilyov, Kitahara Hakushu was fascinated by travels to exotic
lands. He dreamt of finding revelation in remote countries,
of becoming acquainted with different beliefs, of seeing new
horizons. However, in the Meiji years only the lucky few such
as Takamura Kotaro and Mori Ogai were able to visit Europe, to
touch the sources of Western civilization. The majority of poets
and artists could not even think of such a trip, which would
cost a fortune.
1 Izumi Kyoka (1873–1939) is a famous novelist who was fond of exotic
topics and colorful style.
12. KITAHARA HAKUSHU—THE MUSIC OF A FORBIDDEN FAITH 263
Kitahara
Hakushu
Thus Europe was out of the question, but had not the
Portuguese and Spanish missionaries, merchants, and seamen
left traces of their civilization during their almost century-long
stay in Kyushu? So, in 1907, Hakushu made up his mind to
undertake a trip to the south together with his close friends. He
set off with Kinoshita Mokutaro, Yoshii Isamu, Yosano Tekkan,
and Hirano Banri to the western coast of Kyushu. Exploring
cathedrals, chapels, and warehouses built by the Portuguese
in Nagasaki and in Shimabara, on the island of Amakusa, they
strove to perceive the spirit of namban art.
“Southern barbarians” or namban was the name formerly
given to the Portuguese and Spaniards (and later the Dutch),
whose ships would come to the coast of Japan from the south-
ern seas. By the middle of the sixteenth century Nagasaki had
become the centre of European influence, which manifested
itself primarily in the spread of Christianity and the introduc-
tion to the Japanese of the basics of Western material culture.
Missionaries, mainly Jesuits, were so active that the number
of converts shortly reached several hundred thousand. The
teaching of Christ was appreciated not only on Kyushu but also
in the cities of Shikoku and southern Honshu, right up to the
capital, Kyoto, where the Nambanji temple was constructed.
264 Part 2. THE SYMBOLIST CHALLENGE
The warlord busy unifying Japan at the time, Oda Nobu-
naga, sympathized with the Jesuits and they supported him,
but Nobunaga’s successor, Toyotomi Hideyoshi, saw in the
alien faith a menace to his authority, and in 1588 issued the
first Anti-Christian decree. Hideyoshi’s policy of expelling
the Christians from Japan was continued by the Shoguns
of the Tokugawa dynasty in the seventeenth century. The
Shoguns made the isolation of the country their foreign
policy, and strict decrees threatened both the missionaries and
their Japanese converts with the death penalty. Many Jesuits
who did not obey the authorities and remained in Japan
were burnt at the stake, others were crucified or boiled alive.
Japanese proselytes were forced to participate in a ceremony
of public renunciation and to trample on Christian icons. The
peasant rebellion in Shimabara (1637–1638) under the banner
of Christianity was the last echo of the forbidden faith. After
the revolt was violently quashed by the united forces of the
samurai clans, Christianity in Japan formally ceased to exist.
The few surviving adherents of the faith were denounced
officially as evil sorcerers and witches. The accessories of the
Christian faith and objects connected with the Europeans,
icons, pictures, screens, figurines, engravings, lithographs,
books, maps, etc., were believed to be part of a devilish craft.
In Nagasaki today stand monuments to the Christian martyrs,
reminders of that tragic period.
According to Okamoto Yoshitomo, a specialist in namban art,
the influence of this culture was not limited to aspects of daily
life, language, and customs. Although the interest of the Japanese
in the Europeans was at first motivated by inquisitiveness and
by the desire to learn more about neighboring countries, it
eventually grew into the drive to understand everything about
the world lying outside Japan [309, 78–79]. For several decades
Christian art, especially religious painting, flourished in Japan.
The Japanese icon painters succeeded in this (for them) new
activity so well that samples of their work were even sent to
the Spanish court along with the envoys of the feudal lords of
12. KITAHARA HAKUSHU—THE MUSIC OF A FORBIDDEN FAITH 265
Kyushu. The missionaries, on their part, fostered the large-scale
import of religious objects from Europe. In 1584 alone some
50,000 pictures (mostly of portable size) of religious character
brought from Rome, Madrid, and Lisbon were distributed in
Japan. The influence of namban art resulted in the emergence
of a Western-style trend in painting during the Azuchi-
Momoyama period (1568–1603). Features of European art can be
discerned in the work of many artists, including Fujo Yuraku,
Kano Motohide, and Kano Tomonobu.
Despite the strictest interdictions and severe prosecutions,
the memory of the Christian period was kept alive in folk
beliefs, and victims crucified or burned at stake acquired
the aura of sacred martyrs. Legends about them were told
all over Japan, accumulating in due course many romantic
details. No wonder, then, that in the Meiji-Taisho period,
when Christianity was again permitted, it regained its attrac-
tiveness for the young people of Japan, becoming the spiritual
basis of the Movement for Democracy and People’s Rights.
Many writers and poets in search of new material turned to the
dramatic events of the seventeenth century. This theme found
its expression in short stories by Akutagava Ryunosuke (his
so-called kirishtan-mono). In poetry, Kitahara Hakushu, Kino-
shita Mokutaro, and Yoshii Isamu tried with variable success
to exploit these themes.
The trip across Kyushu gave Hakushu a powerful incentive
for creative activity. A conflict with Tekkan made him leave the
“New Poetry Society” together with Kinoshita and Yoshii, and
soon Hakushu became one of the initiators of the aestheticist
“Pan Society”. Shin shicho, Chuo koron (“Central Review”), and
other important magazines eagerly sought to publish Hakushu’s
poems, strikingly different in character from the works of the
early Symbolists. The true triumph of the poet, however, came
with the publication in 1909 of his collection Forbidden Faith
(Jashumon).
In a short preface to Forbidden Faith Hakushu reveals his
poetic credo:
266 Part 2. THE SYMBOLIST CHALLENGE
It is allusion, not the simple explaining of things, that gives
life to poetry. Is not the main goal of our symbols to reveal,
among the infinite fluctuations of the emotions, the faint
moans of the spirit that cannot be expressed adequately by
either brush or a word, and to plunge us into a melancholic
self-scrutiny as we strain to hear the distant joy of hardly
audible music? That is why we cherish mysterious subjects
and revel in illusive dreams, longing for the purple rot of
decadence. Alas, we adherents of the modern heresy cannot
forget the mournful sighs of marble illuminated by a pale
moon, the eyes of the sphinx eroded by the crimson, blurring
fogs of Egypt. We cannot forget the laughter of romantic
music at sunset, the mournful cries of the soul prior to and
after a baby’s crucifixion; nor can we forget the infinite
shudders of melting yellow wax, the rosin smell when
the third string of a violin is being wiped, the aggravated
nervousness of whisky warmed in a cloudy glass, the heavy
trance from the smell of poisonous grasses the color of
the human brain, or the sadness of a nightingale singing
wearily over our paralyzed feelings. And we cannot forget
especially the delightful touch of red velvet as it vanishes
into the faint sounds of a horn! [84, v. 9, 7–8]
The preface to Forbidden Faith is often taken as the manifesto
of decadent art, but this is different from the gloomy deca-
dence typical of European poetry of the “fin de siècle”. It is
an affected, theatrical, grotesque decadence that sometimes
verges on parody (of the French) and on self-parody, bringing
a hint of romantic irony. While the Russian Symbolist
K. Balmont relished the exotic images of India, Egypt, and
China, and Kipling’s poetic journey took him all over the
East, carrying “the white man’s burden”, Kitahara Hakushu
in his poems about namban presents his own version of exotic
dreams. Each phrase, each word, each character is pregnant
with a rich exoticism, shrouding the content in a mystifying
fog; yet the magic of the music, of the unfamiliar tones, and the
emotional pull inevitably fascinate the reader:
12. KITAHARA HAKUSHU—THE MUSIC OF A FORBIDDEN FAITH 267
As though I see again
all these heresies of a tormented century
and miracles that magically
the mighty Christian god bestows . . .
Here are the captains of the black ships
that come from the country of the red-haired.
Crimson foreign glass,
the enticing heady flavor of clove,
Brocade, excellent cotton, rum and wine—
here the merchandise of the Southern Barbarians at the port . . .
From “Secret Music of the Forbidden Faith”
(Jashumon hikyoku)
Muroo Saisei, in his Biographies of Favorite Poets, admits
that when he read for the first time Forbidden Faith, he could
understand almost nothing, but was very much impressed (see
[121, 9]). In fact, even for the well-educated reader it was very
difficult to understand this most complicated text, its characters
densely spotted with non-standard transcription readings, and
containing a host of half-forgotten medieval terms and names,
vague allusions, and obscure reminiscences. To comprehend the
meaning it was not enough to know that “black ships” was the
term the Japanese originally used to refer to European vessels,
that “the country of the red-haired” was Europe, and that “the
southern barbarians” was a name that applied to all Europeans
without distinction as to nationality. It was also necessary to
imagine the Catholic liturgy, the marble palaces caught in
the last rays of the sun at sunset, the face of the Virgin Mary
painted in oils on canvas rather than on paper. It was important
to perceive that in the poem the author refers to a microscope,
a telescope, a magic lantern, books written in ink horizontally
from left to right, instead of scriptures in India ink written
vertically from right to left . . . The abundance of archaisms of
Portuguese and Dutch origin (capitn, deusu, kirishitan, biidoro,
anjabeiru, araki, pateren), used to evoke the colorful world of
namban culture, completes the list of Hakushu’s refined techniques.
268 Part 2. THE SYMBOLIST CHALLENGE
Ominous symbolic images prevail in the poems of Forbid-
den Faith: poisonous grasses, suffocating vapors, blood-stained
crosses, black birds, etc. The disturbing colors and rhythms
create an atmosphere of uncertainty, a vague anxiety, an
unidentified fear. Sometimes the poet needs the Christian
accessories to reinforce the effect of lexical alchemy, the black
magic of words, as, for example, in the poem “The Red Bishop”
(Akaki sojo):
A Christian prelate, an adherent of the forbidden faith,
Looking intensively into the darkness,
stands alone under the moon
Among the red narcotic grasses, concealing poison . . .
Hakushu transforms the Catholic prelate into a fiend, a drug
addict and dispenser of poison. That was how the Tokugawa
authorities would depict the Jesuits, frightening the ignorant
peasants. Hakushu by means of hyperbolic stylization strives
to make an educated reader tremble—and achieves his aim.
In the context of the poem the historical discrepancy (a piano
in the sixteenth century!) and unjustified invective (hashish
smoking) passes unnoticed. All is redeemed by the intoxicating
melody of the verse and the unique lyrical mood.
Along with the infernal images of the Jesuits, the author of
Forbidden Faith deliberately depicts every possible non-Japanese
plant: hyacinths, heliotropes, tulips, acacias. He creates a whole
poetic bestiary in which he presents only foreign animals and
birds: an elephant, a leopard, a camel, a polar bear, a sloth,
a pelican.
Relishing the exotic pictures, Hakushu seems to have set
himself the goal of making the reader feel physiologically
the sensation of the moment and the mood that the author
wanted to convey. He does this using a host of available poetic
techniques, especially the broad use of images based on color,
sound, and smell, and the introduction of grammatical and
thematic parallels and rhythmic repetitions.
12. KITAHARA HAKUSHU—THE MUSIC OF A FORBIDDEN FAITH 269
With extraordinary vivacity the poet presents his impressions
of visiting the zoo in his poem “Cloudy Day” (Kumoribi), where
a psychological coloring is skillfully added to the descriptions.
From somewhere comes the sleepy breathing of a camel.
Look at the dirty stains of a felted sheepskin color,
The noxious odors coming from rotted straw.
The flowers scattered about in the slimy mud . . .
The critic Yano Minebito defines the role of Hakushu’s first
collection of poems in the history of Japanese literature in the
following way:
Forbidden Faith revealed to the reader a world hitherto
unknown in Japanese poetry. The basis of its style was
the liberation of sensual impulses and the flight of free
imagination. In Hakushu’s poems, perhaps for the first
time, light and shadows are divided with distinction, and
the shudders of the mind and physical pain were used as
important structural components in creating an impression
(insho). In other words, in Hakushu’s poems we can hear for
the first time the new music, and the performer’s flesh plays
the role of the musical keys.
Hakushu’s fascination with the play of light and shadow
can be explained by his professional stance, as he imposes
his sensual perception on the world around him. His rich,
unchained, and unlimited imagination attains new levels of
associations . . . He draws images of things to create a certain
lyrical mood (josho), using a suggestive method [84, v. 9, 55].
Though many poets of the Meiji-Taisho period could be called
“poets of mood”, there is no one like Hakushu when it comes
to mastering impressionist landscapes, in revealing a unique
(more often made up) impression of the moment. The poet
gradually involves the reader in a realm of sensual fantasy in
order to bring down on him a powerful cascade of colors and
sounds. The same artistic code was follwed in Hakushu’s tanka
poetry, which he kept on writing through all these years.
270 Part 2. THE SYMBOLIST CHALLENGE
Hakushu asserted that the most important thing in the
poems for him is the poetic mood (josho) and the final emotional
impression (kankaku no insho). In fact, the majority of the poems
in Forbidden Faith correspond exactly to this statement, though
it is possible to find among them a work with a definite “idea”.
The basic thing is a magic accord. Muroo Saisei, Hakushu’s
friend and disciple, recollects that when he reread “Secret
Music of the Forbidden Faith” forty-seven years after its first
publication, he once more could hardly understand anything,
but just as in his younger years he was fascinated by the calm
flow of beautiful, exotic words (see [121, 10]).
The modern literary critic Nakajima Yoichi rather strictly
evaluates the poems of Forbidden Faith, stressing that Hakushu’s
striving for superficial beauty did not result in the inner
reformation of verse: “The painful criticisms of civilization
and Christianity coming from Baudelaire are transformed in
Hakushu’s poetry into sheer aestheticism and the interest in
overseas color without any philosophical implications” [132,
v. 1, 225]. However, the comparison with Baudelaire at this
point is hardly correct, as in Hakushu’s early poems there is
certainly nothing like disillusion or a protest against the values
of bourgeois civilization.
Another modern critic, the famous poet Ayukawa No-
buo, presenting the opinion of the overwhelming majority
of specialists in Hakushu’s poetry, gives a more objective
assessment:
A lot of works have been written analyzing Hakushu’s
romantic sensual susceptibility, and much praise has been
expressed concerning his refined poetic techniques and
lexical riches; on the other hand, the limited nature of his
social interests, the weakness of his ideological approach,
and his poor comprehension of the spirit of his time is also
been well known. All these problems are also typical of
Kyukin, Ariake, and other poets who cultivated an aesthe-
tic approach, and therefore we should not put all the blame
on Hakushu alone. It would be better to underline the
12. KITAHARA HAKUSHU—THE MUSIC OF A FORBIDDEN FAITH 271
social importance of Hakushu’s poetry, which enhanced
the horizons of lyricism in the Japanese poetic tradition
[84, v. 9, 63].
Comparing Forbidden Faith with the works of Kyukin and Ariake,
Ito Shinkichi points out that the poets of early Symbolism
perceived beauty in accordance with the classical canon, while
Hakushu was not afraid to break the decayed walls completely
and construct a new building of his dreams on the old base.
Though this poetry can be called Symbolist, in the ideo-
logical sense it introduced a new trend into the kindaishi
tradition that would mark a turn from the classicist outlook
to the romantic one. And while these ideological shifts were
acquiring distinct forms, the passionate desire to create new
art would inflame the hearts of young writers and artists . . .
[56, v. 1, 89]
Spleen is as characteristic for Hakushu’s poetry as bitter
skepticism if for Baudelaire and gloomy sarcasm for Rim-
baud. His painful spleen is combined with an aloof Eastern
contemplation.
The melancholic mood so clearly seen already in some of
the poems of Hakushu’s first collection, in the course of time
began to dominate in his works, which gradually lost their tinsel
shine and the exotic garishness of their form. The scandalous
brightness of colors and sharpness of sensations were replaced by
a refined poetical touch of semitones and topics close to real life.
In spite of the fact that Hakushu’s second collection Remi-
niscenses (Omoide, 1911) included mostly works written during
the same period as Forbidden Faith, the selection of poems in
his new book was absolutely different. Reminiscenses is full of
melancholic nostalgia about the years of his childhood, about
his native town of Yanagawa, and about his naïve dreams that
were irrevocably lost.
In the long autobiographical sketch of ten chapters, which
serves as a preface to the one hundred and ten poems that follow,
272 Part 2. THE SYMBOLIST CHALLENGE
Hakushu reveals the deep meaning of the theme of “memoirs”.
He recalls the details of his childhood and adolescence spent
in a small town in the sunny south, recounts the awakening
of feelings, the seasonal changes, the native landscape. He
describes with tenderness his school days, his family where he,
as an elder son, was called “tonkajon” (a rich man’s son) in the
local dialect. The poet later came back to this tender nickname
and for no reason changed it to Tonka John in the English style.
The dominant theme in this “preface”, as well as in the collection
itself, is that of time, which inevitably runs and completely
disappears, dissolving words, deeds, loved ones.
In this “remembrance of things past”, the poet turns to
half-forgotten impressions of his cloudless adolescence in
Yanagawa, to the echoes of the voices of the past, to the
reflections of faded sunsets, to those cherished moments of
eternity that memory elicits from the darkness of non-existence.
The mood of the whole collection is set by the introductory
poem, “Prelude” (Joshi):
The odor of velvet,
The eye of a queen in a deck of cards,
The sad feeling that somehow arises
At the sight of the clownish Pierrot’s face . . .
In his Reminiscenses, Hakushu seems to pass from black
magic to white magic, from the gloomy and threatening images
of Japan’s forgotten past, to the unsteady, vague, and indistinct,
but gentle visions from his own past. With a loving care he
describes the small streets and canals of his native town in the
poems “Yanagawa”, and “Canal” (Suiro). The chime of a bell,
the sound of a flute, the roof of an old tea house, a tiny ball on
a string once given to him by his mother, the remote twanging
of a shamisen:; these all revive the atmosphere of the poet’s
childhood, bringing him, together with the reader, to a remote
corner of provincial Japan. In such poems Hakushu gives up
the metrical freedom, the rhythmic flexibility of kindaishi verse
12. KITAHARA HAKUSHU—THE MUSIC OF A FORBIDDEN FAITH 273
in favor of the traditional, and thus especially here appropriate,
7–5 meter. Along with the classical forms of bungo he introduces
into the text southern dialect patterns, specific verbal endings
(kikashanse, miyashanse), interjections and particles, to express
the local color. These particular poems inspired the poet’s life-
long interest in the folk song. The collection also contains some
remarkable lyrical miniatures in the vein of Verlaine that create
in the limited space of a quatrain a perfect harmony of colors,
sounds, and smells:
Aoi sofuto ni furu yuki wa
Sugushi sono te ka, sasayaki ka,
Sake ka, hakka ka, itsu no ma ni
Kiyuru namida ka, natsukashi ya.
The falling snow on my blue felt hat—
A remembered hand? Someone whispering?
The aroma of sake? The flavor of mint? Or is it
The traces of short-lived tears? How nostalgic!
“On the Blue Velvet Hat” (Aoi sofuto ni)
The nostalgic sadness implied in the very nature of
Japanese poetry presented in the musical form of kindaishi
opened to Hakushu the way to the readers’ hearts. Sometimes
he surprisingly manages to combine naturally tradition and
a modernist style by developing “classical” topics of loneliness,
old age, and poverty in a new context, against the background
of the modern city.
Spinning wheel, spinning wheel, quietly, slowly turning.
The evenings are sad when the spinning wheel turns.
In a room with a wooden floor, two pumpkins, red and gold,
are rolling,
In a room with a wooden floor labeled “Public Hospital”,
Sits an old woman, sad and alone.
Her ears hear nothing, her eyes cannot see . . .
“Spinning Wheel” (Itoguruma)
274 Part 2. THE SYMBOLIST CHALLENGE
The Reminiscenses collection is unique as an example of the
dual Eastern-Western perception of time. On the one hand,
we see a traditional perception of swift-flowing time, derived
from a cardinal postulate of Buddhism—impermanence
(mujo) of existance, manifested in the change of separate
events, sometimes with a shift between the present and the
past. The world, according to the renowned Buddhologist
F. I. Sherbatskoy, is presented in a form of something similar
to a film. The philosophical contemplation typical of classical
Buddhist poetry gives calmness and tranquility to many poems
from the collection.
On the other hand, Hakushu, with all the sharpness typical
of the Western artists of the modern age, grieves about the
perishable nature of a human life, the irreversibility of the
current of time, the eternal contradiction between the burning
passion of creative genius and the darkness of non-existence.
From this point comes his yearning to gain a foothold in time
by means of creative work, to oppose a tableau vivant of the past
to oblivion, to give a memorable description of moments in
eternity, to undo through his art the tight strictures of earthly
life. This is an Eestern version of the idea of ars longa, vita brevis
so brilliantly expressed by the Russian Nobel laureate Boris
Pasternak:
Do not sleep, do not sleep, you, artist,
Do not indulge in dreams!
You are the hostage of eternity
In the captivity of Time.
The Buddhist poet conceives himself as a part of eternity,
and therefore he calmly accepts the universal metamorphoses,
while the poet of the post-romantic era lives and creates under
the condition of inner dissonance, disharmony, and discontent,
the result of the contemplation of evil and the the striving for
inaccessible ideals. In a Japanese Symbolist like Hakushu, these
opposed concepts of creative activity combine, interlace, and
12. KITAHARA HAKUSHU—THE MUSIC OF A FORBIDDEN FAITH 275
oddly contaminate each other. It made Ueda Bin call Remi-
niscenses a synthesis of the traditions of the ancient Japanese
song and the newest trends in French art (see [130, 308]).
Takamura Kotaro, a great poet in his own right, Hakushu’s
friend and fellow-bohemian of the “Pan Society”, has written
about the remarkable role played by Reminiscenses in modern
Japanese literature:
In literary circles, Reminiscenses has been acknowledged
as a book that presents the mind of the present younger
generation in a new light, revealing previously unknown
facets of their thoughts. Reminiscenses does not just present
to readers what people usually feel, this book makes it
possible for people to experience feelings that they have
never felt before . . .
The scope of Reminiscenses is rather wide, as the book
refers to the events both of the present and the past.
When the soul is in the past, the body remains in the
present. The past and the present are interwoven with
a single thread. They embrace the author and his life as
a boy, evoking a vague feeling of anxiety, as when the
tongue is burned by a gulp of gin, as they penetrate deep
inside us [179, v. 7, 71–72].
After the publication of Reminiscences, Hakushu reached the
peak of his popularity in literary circles, but in 1912 he suffered
a severe blow. The husband of his mistress, Matsushita Toshiko,
found out about their love affair, reported it to the police, and
the famous poet was put behind bars. Although he was soon
released, his pride was painfully wounded. He also had many
family matter to attend to. After he eventually married Toshiko,
he left the capital and settled down for a while in Nara, but his
marriage turned out to be unhappy, and two years later the
couple broke up. However, his problems and hardships did not
distract the poet from his literary activity; indeed, it perhaps
even stimulated it.
The ten years after the publication of Forbidden Faith was
the most productive period in Hakushu’s life. His work was
276 Part 2. THE SYMBOLIST CHALLENGE
featured in the leading poetry journals founded during the
Meiji-Taisho period, Okujo teien (“Rooftop Garden”, 1909),
Zamboa (“Giant Grapefruit”, 1911), Chijo junrei (“World
Pilgrim”, 1914), and ARS (1915), as well as in Geijutsu jiyu kyoiku
(“Free Art Education”), Shi to ongaku (“Poetry and Music”),
Nikko (“Sunlight”), Kindai fukei (“Modern Landscape”), Shin
shiron (“New Poetics”), Tankaminzoku (“The Tanka Nation”),
and Tama (“Jasper”). Hakushu’s authority in the world of
kindaishi as well as in the world of tanka was at its height. His
opinion was highly respected even by those who opposed
Symbolism—the Naturalists and the poets of the Democratic
School. Hagiwara Sakutaro, Muroo Saisei, and other beginners
in poetry applied to him for his blessing. In fact, with the
exception perhaps of Takamura Kotaro, it would be difficult
to find a poet of Hakushu’s stature on the eve of the Taisho
period in Japan.
The year 1913 was marked by the appearance of two new
books by Hakushu. One of them, the author’s first collection
of tanka, Paulonia Flowers (Kiri no hana), became a sensation in
the sphere of traditional poetry and gave a start to the so-called
“Hakushu school”. The other, Tokyo Scenes (Tokyo keibutsu shi),
was a continuation of the line of Symbolist kindaishi collections.
The scetches contained in Tokyo Scenes are presented in
a purely impressionist manner though the device of the col-
lection, perhaps prompted by the well-known series of wood-
block prints by Hiroshige, A Hundred Sights of Edo (Edo
hyakkei). Depicting the city at various times of a day, in dif-
ferent illumination, in various perspectives, the poet tries to
understand the psychology of the crowd, this huge assem-
blage of minds and hearts. Many poems appeal due to the
unexpectedness of the metaphors, the projection of natural
phenomena onto the pictures of ordinary city life. Sometimes
the phenomena from the world of nature or even abstract
notions are shown in the appearance of “townsmen”. For
example, autumn is presented in the image of a young Tokyo
dandy (shinshi):
12. KITAHARA HAKUSHU—THE MUSIC OF A FORBIDDEN FAITH 277
On Sunday morning Autumn even smells differently,
Stuffing a newspaper into his pocket, he walks along the street.
The waves breaking about the coast grow white,
The damp silvery sand rustles—
As if small insects are chirping underfoot “scratch-scratch”.
Autumn is pacing,
Having opened a fashionable black umbrella over his head.
“Autumn” (Aki)
In another collection of poems, Rain over Ginza (Ginza
no ame), street sketches are presented against a dense veil
of autumn or winter rain, which alludes to some poems of
Verlaine. All Tokyo is enveloped in despondency. The rain with
a smell of apples turns into the rain of tears. And so the eaves of
houses, branches of trees, the birds in the nests, the cats in the
gates, even the chairs in a carpenter’s workshop, cry.
Hakushu published one after another new collections:
Pearls (Shinju-sho, 1914), Platinum Top (Shiragane no koma,
1914), Forget-me-nots (Wasurenagusa, 1915), Snow and Fireworks
(Yuki to hanabi, 1916). However, his passionate and vibrant
Symbolism was loosing its momentum.
In 1918 Hakushu moved to the small town of Odawara.
There he turned to a new domain. In his poems for children,
his talent began to sparkle with new facets. In every issue of
the children’s magazine Akai tori (“Red Bird”) appeared new
poems by Hakushu. He collected and edited folk children’s
songs and other works of poetic folklore. The poet later wrote,
“The composition of children’s verses and songs was probably
for me an attempt to get at the sources of poetry” [130, 309]. Yet
Hakushu’s poems were not “nursery rhymes” in the sense that
he directly adjusted them to children’s perceptions and speech
manners. They were for the most part beautiful verses about
the moon, maple leaves, butterflies, the evening dew, etc. The
lyrics were so pure, transparent, and musical that both adults
and children would read them with pleasure and learn them
by heart.
278 Part 2. THE SYMBOLIST CHALLENGE
Many of Hakushu’s poems were made into songs by famous
composers and became popular among children. It is believed
that during his lifetime the poet composed about nine hundred
poems and songs for children. The number is surprisingly
large, but quite feasible if we take into consideration Hakushu’s
enormous productivity.
Finally, the poet’s personal life returned to normal. In his
home in Odawara the poet arranged a comfortable study, which
he fondly called the Owl’s House (Mimizuku no ie).
Hakushu became more and more attracted to folk songs.
Among his poems of this period are “Songs of the Old Ainu”
(Oishi ainu no uta) and imitations of the folk four-line verse
dodoitsu and the kouta poetry of the “licensed quarter” of the
Edo period. A Collection of Kouta Songs by Hakushu (Hakushu
kouta-shu) was published in 1918. The old kouta, having ori-
ginally emerged from the culture of the “licensed quarters”,
formed the basis of the folk-song poetry of the Edo period. The
poems and songs from the famous kouta anthologies A Collection
of Songs of Our World (Toyo kouta-shu, 1688–1703) and Pine
Needles (Matsu no ha, 1703), among others, gained popularity
among all levels of society. The poetry of kouta had a considerable
impact on the romantic shintaishi of the late nineteenth century,
and it continued to play an important role in the formation of
kindaishi and gendaishi verse. Nearly all the well-known poets
of Japanese Symbolism, and even the Modernists up to the mid
twentieth century, would return to the kouta, some of which
were later transformed into the more modern genre of popular
song, enka. In this respect Hakushu was not at all an exception.
However, his interest in folk songs was not just a reflection of
fashion or mood; folk songs influenced the inner reorientation
of the poet, allowing him to comprehend the “soul of Japan”, to
see its culture in an absolutely different light.
“My songs, gradually overcoming the flow of traditional kouta,
imperceptibly plunge into the boundless distances of Symbo-
lism”, wrote Hakushu at the time. “The platinum rest and silence
of loneliness is enveloping me. Oh, what joy!” [132, v. 1, 227].
12. KITAHARA HAKUSHU—THE MUSIC OF A FORBIDDEN FAITH 279
Like Kitamura Tokoku, Hagiwara Sakutaro, Muroo Saisei,
Yamamura Bocho, and many other poets of the Meiji-Taisho
period, Hakushu in his mature years gave up Eurocentrism in
art and tunred to evaluating the philosophical depth of Eastern
aesthetics. In this, certainly, we see a reflection of the natural
evolution of Japanese culture of the twentieth century, which
would adapt various Western influences only to create on that
acquired base a new indigenous culture.
Hakushu’s collection Drawings in Black Ink (Suiboku-shu,
1923), by its very title, pointed to the traditional genre of
Japanese graphics. The poems collected in it display a noble
restraint, which distinguishes them from both the emotional
expressionism of Forbidden Faith and the muffled pathos of
Reminiscenses. The result of Hakushu’s mature talent, the poems
of Drawings in Black Ink are perfect in their own way. Perhaps,
it was their cold perfection, their faultless completeness, that
caused the critics to hesitate to consider them equals to the
exciting poems of Hakushu’s younger years.
Polychromatic paintings in due course fade, losing their
value, while ink drawings, especially when they have begun
to fade, on the contrary acquire the wabi/sabi flavor of olden
times that makes them precious. And while the modern reader
is hard put to overcome the complex lexical layers of Forbidden
Faith, in Drawings in Black Ink he will find even more charm
than Hakushu’s contemporaries, sated as they were with
traditionalism:
The pure white mantle—and over the snow field
The immense breadth of a cloudy winter sky.
Whether the cold transparent air
Is pale-lilac or greenish . . .
“A Bamboo in the Snow” (Yuki tatsu take)
To be sure, poems like this are not absolutely monochrome;
the color range in them is rather rich, but bright colors are
absent, as are excessively expressionist tropes. In “A Bamboo
280 Part 2. THE SYMBOLIST CHALLENGE
in the Snow” we see a combination of white, grey, pale-green,
lilac, and dark blue shades. Against a dim winter landscape the
dark contours of the bamboo trees are vividly depicted.
The majority of the poems in the collection are sustained in
a certain defined, at times rather whimsical, rhythm. In addition,
parallel devices and repetitions are widely used, which was not
typical of the free and relaxed style of Hakushu’s earlier poetry.
Thus, the poem “Night in Early Autumn” (Shoshu no yoru)
is designed as a cascade of grammatical parallelisms (with
a considerable number of sentences missing verbs), which are
connected by a short refrain, inversed for reinforcement:
Tsuki wa izayoi 7 (3–4)
Hon no akesome, 7 (3–4)
Inazuma da, kasukana. 9 (5–4)
Nurete hikaru wazuka no hoshi 12 (6–6)
Watagumo no usu murasaki 11 (5–6)
Inazuma da, kasukana . . . 9 (5–4)
The full moon of the sixteenth night
Has begun to decline a little,
Dim summer lightning.
The damp shimmer of the far away stars.
The lilac clouds like cotton wool.
Dim summer lightning . . .
Hakushu himself considered the presence of an echo of
the secret sense of existence, which he referred to as “new
yugen”, to be the basic quality of Drawings in Black Ink. In some
poems in the collection the yugen poetics, expressed in dim,
vague images and in isolated sketches, reminds one of the
poetic techniques of the classics. Hakushu, however, denied the
possibility of any direct analogy, asserting that in Drawings in
Black Ink he had created his own style, combining the special
features of traditional aesthetics and new modern poetry.
Hakushu sums up his new poetics in the essay “Autumn of
Meditations” (Kosatsu no aki, 1922):
12. KITAHARA HAKUSHU—THE MUSIC OF A FORBIDDEN FAITH 281
Only the poetry that comes out shining from a melting
pot, where the feelings, ideas, and passionate impulses
of the poet have been melted, radiates the light of true art.
Abstract, theoretical descriptions cannot become poetry. It
is very important that the words flow in a poem naturally.
Each word must have a concrete meaning and be filled at the
same time with a deep life rhythm, color, and flavor [86, 102].
It is difficult to call such poetry Symbolism, although the
poet continued to consider himself a Symbolist to his last days
and his disciples and followers put into practice what they consi-
dered to be Symbolist poetic techniques discovered by Hakushu.
In Drawings in Black Ink Symbolism has a purely Japanese nature,
comparable with Saigyo’s tanka and Basho’s haiku, encompassing
the categories of yugen and mono no aware, sabi, and wabi. The
noble-minded simplicity of Zen poetics distinguishes also Haku-
shu’s famous masterpiece “Larches” (Karamatsu):
karamatsu no hayashi wo sugite
karamatsu wo shimijimi to miki.
karamatsu wa sabishikarikeri.
Tabiyuku wa sabishikarikeri
* * * * *
Passing through the larch forest
I closely observed the the larch trees.
So sad were the larch trees,
So sad was my lonely journey . . .
* * * * *
Oh this world! It is so sad and so beautiful!
Life is not for long but so abundant with joy:
Just to listen to the murmur of the mountain stream,
To this rustle of the wind in the larches . . .
After the publication of Drawings in Black Ink, a noticeable
decline in Hakushu’s creative work began to manifest itself.
The tragic events of 1923—the the great Kanto earthquake,
282 Part 2. THE SYMBOLIST CHALLENGE
repressions against workers and socialists, the murder of
Koreans, the country’s division into two confronting parties
according to class affiliation—took the poet unawares. Ha-
kushu, who all his life had tried to avoid difficult social
problems, felt ill at ease in the whirlpool of literary passions.
The apologists of Democratic and Proletarian poetry, the
Futurists and the avant-garde poets, all fiercely attacked the
supporters of “pure art” and the advocates of the “Japanese
spirit”, who sought to revive the greatness of the nation in order
to make it truly worthy of the ancient sobriquet “Land of the
Gods”. Hakushu, who was caught in the middle, nevertheless
chose, albeit with some reservations, the nationalist trend of
“Japanism”, the trend that would later lead many intellectuals
directly into the bosom of the militarist regime.
Fortunately, he was strong and reasonable enough to resist
becoming part of the propaganda machine. With persistence
and skill he continued every day to write poems, mainly
landscape poetry, sometimes modernist verses, but mostly
tanka. It is the tanka he wrote that constitutes the most valuable
part of Hakushu’s poetic heritage of the 1930s, a time when the
poets associated with the journals Shi to shiron (“Poetry and
Poetics”), Rekitei (“Accomplished Deed”), and Shiki (“Seasons”)
pushed aside his poems written in free forms.
In 1937 Hakushu came down with a serious kidney ailment.
He was also nearly blind and loosing his working ability
dramatically, but he did not let the brush out of his hand
until 1940. Kitahara Hakushu died in February, 1942, soon
after he had been elected to the Academy of Fine arts. For the
generations that came after he has remained the genius of the
epoch of Symbolism.
13 MIKI ROFU—
A GLOOMY INSPIRATION
In the history of Japanese literature, next to the name of the
brilliant and eccentric Kitahara Hakushu stands the name of
the no less talented but less original poet, Miki Masao, known
under the pen-name Rofu (1889–1964). When at the height of
their fame, the two poets constituted an era in Japanese poetic
history known as the “Hakushu-Rofu period” (Haku-ro jidai),
which lasted for approximately five years.
Rofu gained popularity with his collection Decayed Garden
(Haiyen), published in September, 1909, half a year after
Hakushu’s Forbidden Faith. At once Rofu was proclaimed the
second great poet of Symbolism, though only a few months
earlier he had sided with the Naturalists and even published
a typical Naturalist poem, “Black Door”.
Whereas Hakushu’s poetry, especially in the early collec-
tions, was characterized by extravagance and an exotic style,
Rofu’s lyrical poetry charmed his contemporaries with its
sincerity, its smooth melodies, and the perfect harmony of its
verses. Following the publication of Decayed Garden, Nagai Kafu,
by this time already a renowned fiction writer and a translator
of the French Symbolists, wrote in a letter to Rofu:
Your recent poems, my friend, manifest an extremely
complicated fusion of feelings. If before the music seemed
like a plain melody, now I recognize various kinds of
harmony. In the lexicon and grammar there are sometimes
exceptions to the rules of classical bungo, but in general the
poetic diction is above reproach, and I believe, nowhere
 284 Part 2. THE SYMBOLIST CHALLENGE 13. MIKI ROFU—A GLOOMY INSPIRATION 285

in odern poetry can such a clear, comprehensive meaning

be found [7, v. 2, 310].

Rofu’s poetry bears the imprint of Wordsworth’s imagery

Miki
and in certain ways resembles the poetry of nature in the Rofu
Romanticist shintaishi vein explored first by Shimazaki Toson.
The most refined movements of the soul are expressed through
the ever-changing images of nature, against the background of
the relentless flow of time.
After Rofu had broken the bonds of the strict shintaishi
metric prosody (teikeishi), he nevertheless continued to care
about the rhythmic arrangement of the verse, and by means of
знак препинания?

rhythmic alternations sought to achieve smooth changes in the

melodic cadences
Melancholic thoughtfulness and silent sadness permeate the
As in all of Rofu’s poems, the tune here is arranged as
best poems in the collection: “In the Woods” (Mori ni itarite),
a combination of separate rhythmical intonation groups without
“Melody of a Foggy Night” (Kiri no yoru no kyoku), “Summer
any strict coordination:
Twilight” (Natsu no tasogare), and “Melancholy of a Moonlight
Night” (Tsuki yo no kanashimi). However, as Nakajima Yoichi
shizuka naru rokugatsu no yo ni
points out, during that period the mournful moods in Rofu’s
poetry were more than anything a tribute to Symbolist fashion, kaze karuku ayumisareba
and the melancholy is borrowed from the drama of Maeterlinck shirajira to no wa akarumi tsuki izu.
(see [7, v. 2, 229]).
In the following poem from Decayed Garden, it is the evening Kaze wa ima chihei yori
or night landscape as a background for the poet’s low mood Chikaranaku usobukihajime,
that prevails: Koushi no koe, ito, nemuge ni, tooku yori tsutaekitaru.

Night. Together we go—
Under the moon our faces are pale.
We walk along a footpath through the wood, where they sleep
In the sweet dream of a small bird.
Through a fragrant field of freshly mowed barley.
Without words
Memory reminds the heart
Of hopeless love, and again of reminiscences—
Ah, these quiet memories . . .
“Quiet June Night” (Shizuka naru rokugatsu no yoru)
Imitating the French symbolists, Rofu strove to create
“musical” verse, the expression of the “music of the soul”, in
order to convey lyrical melancholy, languor, and the suffering
of unrequited love. Like the poetry of Japanese Romanticists,
Rofu’s lyrical poetry sometimes appears excessively senti-
mentalist.
The dominating theme of Decayed Garden as well as other
collections by the poet is the idea of memories, the sorrow of
nostalgia. In the beginning, it was just a pose, but later it would
reflect Rofu’s true state of mind, his ever-gloomy mood. His
286 Part 2. THE SYMBOLIST CHALLENGE
conception of the “dual world” arises from the conflict between
the mournful “present” and the beautiful “past”. His dreams
and hopes point there, to the past, where the vague light of
the Ideal is shining. In Tatsuno, the poet’s home town, stands
a stone monument, into which is carved the poem “My Native
Land” (Furusato no):
I hear the voice of the flute
In my native land
Over a coppice in the field,
At night, when the moon is dim.
In these simple lines, written by the eighteen-year-old
Rofu, is reflected, as in a drop of water, his poetic vision with
all its pensiveness, musicality, romantic spirituality, and sad
awareness of the flow of time. There are even simpler and more
unpretentious lines composed by Rofu—as in the famous lyrics
of his most popular song, “A Red Dragonfly” (Aka tombo), now
perhaps the only well-remembered work of the master. Still, in
general his poetry tends towards obscure and gloomy images.
A feeling of loneliness, reminiscent of Basho’s wabi, fills
such poems from Decayed Garden as “Concealed in the Soul”
(Naishin), “Leaves and a Traveler” (Ko no ha to tabibito), and
“After a Kiss” (Seppun no ato ni). These lyrical miniatures
contain the melancholoy of Verlaine, but in a way that is more
appealing to the Japanese heart and mind:
My soul, turning pale,
Intently peers somewhere, hears something.
In the twilight a faint reflection of the sunset
Slowly, stealthily, creeps through the window.
“Concealed in the Soul”
In the article “My Way of Composing Poetry” (Waga shisaku
no kairo), Rofu gives his special interpretation of beauty: “The
more refined the form and the color, the better the poem. The
13. MIKI ROFU—A GLOOMY INSPIRATION 287
more natural the rhythm, the better. That is beauty” [7, v. 2,
357]. Rofu worked on his poems continuously, improving the
rhythm and brushing up the diction, not with the pedantic
fastidiousness of Ariake, however, but by following an inner
impulse. In his free and relaxed kindaishi style the poet is the
master of rhythm, not the slave.
In his Records of a Winter Night (Toyo shuki, 1913) Rofu
writes:
Rhythm is a force that gives birth to words. The foam of the
ocean waves produces amazing beauty, but below it there
is another force that raises these bubbles of foam from the
depths. The same can be said of rhythm. A poet can become
drunk with the thousand different changes, the infinite
transformations of rhythm. Even in a separate word there
is the force of rhythm. The same force is present in the most
complicated diversity [117, 112].
Kanashimi ga ari / tansoku ga ari / kasuka ni shite
Danzokusuru / toogata no hibiki
Mayoeru arashi . . .
This sadness, these sighs, the distant peals of thunder.
Somewhere there is a wandering storm . . .
“Storm” (Arashi)
Rofu uses differentiations of rhythm and sound to describe
the long peals of the distant thunder, the rush of the wind, and
a sad feeling of loneliness. The poem is alive due to various
kinds of personification, a favorite poetic technique of the
French symbolists. Not only is the storm whistling, singing,
and sobbing in the distance, but also the abstract, contemplative
notions are imparted the features of a living things: melancholy
“writhes on the fallen leaves”, tenderness, “in tears like a nun,
sighs heavily”. The world of nature surrounding the poet gives
rise to strange images in his soul, which are in turn reflected in
Nature.
288 Part 2. THE SYMBOLIST CHALLENGE
With extraordinary speed Rofu published one large collec-
tion after another: Sad Dawn (Sabishiki akebono, 1910), White-
Handed Hunter (Shiroki te no karyudo, 1913), Garden of Ghosts
(Maboroshi no denen, 1913), Phantoms in Canes (Rokan no
genkei, 1920), etc. Gradually he would be inspired deeper
and deeper by Symbolist techniques and the magic charm of
transcendental aspirations. In his Records of a Winter Night are
expressed several typical ideas on Symbolism:
— “symbol is a window to the soul”; “no symbol is distant
from the invisible world”;
— “the best poet is an eternal champion of energy and
an eternally self-contemplating person”;
— “nature is just a form of appealing to the emotions”;
— “the one who has recovered in his body the spirit (ki) of
mountains, grass, and trees becomes a Symbolist”.
There are also many reflections on the aesthetics of Symbo-
lism in other of Rofu’s works, such as “Symbols of Objects”
(Bussho) and “Basho” (Basho).
Without limiting himself to the poetry of Symbolism per
se, Rofu strives to see the surrounding reality as a “forest of
symbols”, dreaming of dwelling permanently in this magic
forest. Writing to Hakushu, he put it this way:
My basic stand, and it may be yours as well, is as follows:
in every possible way it is necessary to try to get adjusted
to the world of symbols until our lyrical spirit wakes up.
After all, we live in the world of symbols, like birds in the
branches of a tree. I am deeply convinced of the truth of this
motivation for creative work [7, v. 2, 335].
In his theoretical essays, of course, Rofu primarily based his
views on the concepts of the French symbolists, and his opinions
on some issues correspond closely with the ideas of Verlaine
or Mallarme. Nevertheless, the core of Miki Rufu’s poetry (as
well as the poetry by the majority of writers of the Meiji-Taisho
period) is also related to the values of the indigenous tradition.
The critic Nojima Yoichi makes a disputable but witty point,
13. MIKI ROFU—A GLOOMY INSPIRATION 289
which just might be applicable to Rofu’s poetry: “Perhaps,
precisely because of his superficial understanding of Western
Symbolism, because of his inability to seize its true essence,
the poet could not discover the secret deep world in traditional
Japanese Symbolism” [132, v. 2, 232].
Rofu with all seriousness studied classical Japanese literature
in order to reveal features similar to the poetry of Symbolism.
His research continued Kambara Ariake’s course and was
part of a large-scale discourse on the nature of the symbol in
the pages of the main journals. While in actuality a poet of
European orientation, in theory Rofu supported the old values,
defending the priority of national culture.
Nobody will deny that Symbolist poetry found its way to
Japan due to the influence of the poets of French Symbolism,
but its spirit had existed in Japan since ancient times. I don’t
simply mean something vague like Symbolism in general
has been known from time immemorial. I would like to say
rather that the spirit of Japanese literature has manifested
itself in wonderful symbolist works. If we analyze the
poetic style that Basho developed in his haiku, we will see
that, despite the difference in name, the spirit that filled
Basho’s heart at the time was also the spirit of Symbolism.
Today we consider mystery (yugen) to be the basis of the
Symbolist style. The specific feature of this technique lays
in the fact that a poet avoids the explanatory attitude and
prefers suggestiveness. He does not sort out things accord-
ing to categories and ranks, but perceives them as a whole
and simplifies them, whenever possible, in an attempt to
transcend reality, to overstep its bounds [208, v. 1, 229].
Rofu asserted that Japanese Symbolism not only preceded
the work of Verlaine, Rimbaud, and Rodenbach, but that it
stood much closer to the ideals of Symbolism than the poetry
of European Symbolists. Rofu sought to reveal the spirit of
Symbolism in tanka and in haiku, in theatre and in Japanese
painting and ceramics. He even declared Confucius to be
a Symbolist! [121, v. 2, 396]
290 Part 2. THE SYMBOLIST CHALLENGE
Yet Rofu’s extremist views fail to grasp the real situation:
Symbolism as a poetic trend of the late nineteenth and early
twentieth century was not the same as the symbolist tendencies
in the pre-modern literature and art of the Far East. The
comparison between them is possible only in accordance with
the principle of typological analysis. Still, one cannot deny
completely Rofu’s conclusion concerning the affinity between
European Symbolism and the Japanese creative tradition.
Is it possible that in classical art Rofu and his contemporaries
tried to find some kind of counterbalance to the negative attitude
of the European poets? After all, classical Japanese poetry
with its cardinal concept of the eternal in the ceaseless flow of
time (or to use Goethe’s words, “the constant within change”)
was inherently the poetry of harmony. Composing haiku was
considered to be a way to spiritual enlightenment, satori. The
suggestiveness (yojosei) and allusion (anshisei) of medieval art
were only devices to achieve samadhi, a state of mind giving
a person harmony with the world and himself. This was the
“philosophers’ stone” that European Symbolist aesthetics,
and the modernist aesthetics that replaced it, was lacking. No
wonder, therefore, that Rofu sees the unattainable ideal of the
artist in Basho but not in Verlaine or Mallarmé:
In the shadow of a tree I am reading carefully Basho’s
haiku. I am being seized by the desire, just like this poet, to
reach the depth of samadhi. But my heart is saddened by the
clouds. The forms of things are dim, they do not give a clear
reflection. Absent-mindedly I try to listen to my own soul,
but my ears are closed. My eyes, trying to catch the unusual
shades, seem screened by a coat of lacquer [7, v. 2, 335].
Although in Miki Rofu’s poems the influence of Basho’s haiku is
hardly noticeable in comparison, for example, with the influence
of the latter’s poet of Rofu’s contemporary Muroo Saisei, the
obsession with Basho’s works is characteristic of Rofu’s articles
and essays of the period 1909–1914. Meanwhile, Rofu’s view
on nature had little in common with the aesthetics of haiku, in
13. MIKI ROFU—A GLOOMY INSPIRATION 291
which the comprehension of the “souls of things” (monogokoro)
implies the full detachment or non-involvement (mushin) of
the lyrical hero. Moreover, the tendency towards obscure
expressions, towards a vague descriptiveness, which continues
from one collection to another, is generally opposed to such
categories of Basho’s poetics as karumi (“lightness”) or fuga no
makoto (“true refinement”), but comes close to the category of
yugen as understood by the poets of the Shinkokinshu.
In the collection Sad Dawn, the main topics are isolation,
despair, and death. His best collection is considered to be White-
Handed Hunter (Shiroki te no karyudo), published in 1913.
Explaining the meaning of the title, Rofu wrote: “If you want to
study the soul of nature, you should become a hunter, carrying
your search into the depth of nature. In order to write poems, one
should start hunting from ‘the moment of silence’” [7, v. 2, 331].
Rofu derives this concept of silence, the ideal embodiment of
mystery (yugen), partly from the traditional suggestive aesthetics
where the use of “lacuna”, a pause, a blank space, has been
practiced since ancient times, and partly from similar ideas of
Mallarmé. Nevertheless, it is inadequate for an understanding
of Rofu’s poetry to speak only of this poetics of “silence”.
The best example of the East-West synthesis in Rofu’s
poetry is believed to be the poem “Perishable Body” (Genshin),
in which the critics note a mixture of the influence of Basho and
Rodenbach (see [132, v. 2, 232]).
The collection White-Handed Hunter included poems that the
author had been writing for nearly three years. The memories
of this period remained:
For the three years before the publication of White-Handed
Hunter I was at a loss. I went to the northeast, travelled along
the Tokaido route, and lived for a while in Kyoto. I was so
overwhelmed with doubts and scepticism at the time that
I was on the brink of giving up poetry. Living in Numazu,
I would sometimes go to a temple. I had once been a novice
at a temple in Kyoto. All my troubles left me, and what
remained were memories full of deep meaning [7, v. 2, 329].
292 Part 2. THE SYMBOLIST CHALLENGE
In most of the poems from the collection the background is
a sad evening landscape illuminated by the last rays of sunset.
The images of drooping or toppled flowers, the icy cold wind,
and the cooling earth are filled with despair and sadness. It is
precisely this feeling of the sharp melancholy of reality, not
unlike Basho’s sabi, that gives a unique charm to such poems
as “Praying for Death” (Shi no negai), “Mountain Top in a Fog”
(Sagiri no mine), and “At the Road” (Michi no hotori). In the
preface to White-Handed Hunter Rofu wrote:
In these poems I have just tried to express my life
impressions, presenting them in an adequate form. Of
course, having such a goal, I did not put down everything
that had happened to me with a documentary accuracy.
I was trying to express myself and what had accumulated
in my soul in words [112, v. 2, 59].
Although it is possible to believe that in White-Handed Hunter
the author really did strive to express all his doubts and
anxieties with strict sincerity, even in the best poems of this
collection Rofu’s sentimentality and affectation, at least for the
European reader, diminish considerably their merits:
In my heart, filled with twilight,
The snow of memories falls and gathers in snowdrifts,
Falls monotonously, sadly,
Softly and quietly.
There, under the snow, my sorrows sleep.
My voice stops, dies under the snow.
I lean against a flaring tomb with my chest . . .
“The Bell over the Snow”
(Yuki no ue no kane)
Rofu’s next collection, Garden of Ghosts (Maboroshi no
denen), did not differ much in character from the previous one,
although the poet himself considered it to be an important step
forward. This is what he has to say about it in his preface:
13. MIKI ROFU—A GLOOMY INSPIRATION 293
It is absolutely natural that poetic style (shifu) is renovated
in due course, just as, for example, nature changes in
accordance with the seasons. I would be glad if you admit
that the poems included in the present collection are distinct
from the previous ones. But despite all formal distinctions
my heart has not changed at all. I compose poems using my
heart as a foundation. I believe that a verse is a symbol of
the heart. That is why my goal is creativity [7, v. 2, 348].
In Garden of Ghosts, Rofu’s talent as a poet of Symbolism reaches
its zenith. In some poems (those from which sentimentalist
mournings have been mostly banished) the harmony of
a picturesque image and musical rhythm generates a natural
unity that becomes a “symbol of the heart”.
shizukesa,/ yuki no ue ni 4–6
hi no hikari / sasou nari 5–5
mi no sabishisa,/ shinobi-shinobi 6–6
sora yori fuku 6
Silence. Over the snow
The sunshine flows.
The sadness bit by bit
Blows from heavens . . .
“After the Snowfall” (Yuki no ato).
Rofu’s poetry alongside Hakushu’s would define the vogue
for many years, but this does not mean that he did not have his
opponents. Many poets of the emerging Modernist movement
would hasten to separate themselves from the poetry of vague
symbols—to say nothing of the Naturalists, who accused Rofu
of being an apostate who betrayed their cause, and the poets of
the Democratic School or the socialist Life School, who regarded
him as a decadent bourgeois. Hagiwara Sakutaro in his crucial
article “It is Time to do Away with the Poetry of Miki Rofu and
his School” (Miki Rofu ippa no shi o hatsui seyo, 1917) summed
up the opinions of the more radically minded critics.
294 Part 2. THE SYMBOLIST CHALLENGE 13. MIKI ROFU—A GLOOMY INSPIRATION 295

Rofu’s poetry consists of poems expressing an emotional This sudden splash of religious obscurity played a fatal
attitude for the sake of emotional attitude [jocho no tame role in Miki Rofu’s literary biography. Prolific as usual, he
no jocho], and they do not differ at all from Hakushu’s continued to publish one collection of poems after another—
Reminiscences, except that Kitahara and his followers all in the vein of extreme Christian mysticism. Alhough some
proceed mainly from a feeling [kangaku], while the poetry
poems in these later collections are still marked by refinement
of the Rofu school is more contemplative [kanenfu] in
character. This is perhaps the only difference between and musicality, they do not belong any more to the poetry of
them. If we try to outline in the poems by Mr. Rofu and Japanese Symbolism. This should more properly be considered
his imitators the content of the idea which is apparently clerical poetry, as its content is limited mostly to the concept
there—somewhere—we will unfortunately come up of faith. For long decades Miki Rofu was destined to live as
with a million different interpretations. In a word, this is “a poet of the remote past”, although his poetry of the early
nothing but “pseudo-poetic secret ideas” put into a banal Taisho period has not lost its charm, even to the present day.
form. In the twilight a herd of cows is peacefully grazing Kitahara Hakushu enthusiastically comments on this poetry:
on a meadow, or there is the sound of an evening bell in
“Reading Miki’s perfect poems they appear like polished
a temple illuminated by the illusive light of the moon, and
jasper. I experience the greatest pleasure and simultaneously I
in the depths of this lyrical outpouring there is supposed
to be some secret. Then, a flock of nymphs in a gloomy feel a sense of shame at my own work, which, alas, has many
and mysterious fog appear, or the golden sun smiles from imperfections” [7, v. 2, 338].
a wooded shade [26, 117]. The influence of Rofu’s poetry is especially evident in the
work of the late Symbolists Saijo Yaso, Horiguchi Daigaku,
The unforgiving critic concludes his article with the call to Yanagizawa Ken, and Kitamura Hatsuo.
oust the poetry of Miki Rofu and his followers from the poetic
world of Japan, since they do not meet the spiritual demands of
the people. Hagiwara’s polemic discourse, of course, is biased,
and the critic unfairly underestimates Rofu’s merits. Perhaps
Hagiwara’s aggressive attitude was provoked by the strange
transformation that occurred with Rofu in 1915.
Soon after the publication of his collection Garden of
Ghosts, Rofu, together with Kitahara Hakushu, undertook
a trip to Hokkaido, which at that time was still sparsely
inhabited and almost undeveloped. There the friends had
an opportunity to visit a Trappist monastery. Hakushu, who
had once written poems about the drama of the Christian
movement in Kyushu, remained basically untouched by the
life of the sacred brotherhood. Rofu, on other hand, greatly
impressed by the Christian idea of salvation, converted to
Catholicism and later spent several years within the precincts
of the monastery.

14 “MINOR”
SYMBOLISTS
After Baudelaire, Verlaine, Rimbaud, and Mallarmé, the so
called “minor Symbolists” occupied the proscenium of French
poetry: Jean Moréas, Gustave Kahn, Albert Samain, Henri de
Régnier, Jules Laforgue, Francis Jammes, and Stuart Merrill.
A similar situation could be found in Japan, where the Symbo-
list movement was not limited to the works of Kyukin, Ariake,
Hakushu, and Rofu. At the same time Kinoshita Mokutaro and
Noguchi Yonejiro began their careers in literature. Later, in the
middle of the 1910s, the poetry of Symbolism attracted Hinatsu
Konosuke and Saijo Yaso, Sato Haruo and Murayama Kaita,
Horiguchi Daigaku and Mitomi Kyuyo. The panorama of the
poetic world during the Meiji-Taisho period would obviously
be incomplete without them.
KINOSHITA MOKUTARO—
THE TASTE OF BEAUTY
Kinoshita Mokutaro (1885–1945) was one of the pioneers of
Symbolism and could probably have shared in due course the
laurels of Kitahara Hakushu if his medical studies had not
distracted him from poetry.
When Kinoshita was a student he was extremely fond of
the poetry of Shimazaki Toson and Doi Bansui. He learned
German and French and read for himself Goethe and Brentano,
14. “MINOR” SYMBOLISTS 297
Verhaeren and Rimbaud. In March 1907, the young doctor
joined the “New Poetry Society” that had formed around the
journal Myojo under the leadership of Yosano Tekkan. In the
summer of the same year, he went along with Hakushu, Tekkan,
Yoshii Isamu, and Hirano Banri on their trip around Kyushu.
When they encountered the Christian culture of the “Southern
Barbarians” all five friends were greatly impressed by it. The
exotic namban topic became one of the crucial elements in
Kinoshita’s poetry:
Get together to see, people! The black ships have arrived!
All black, they look like ravens.
Don’t laugh! Look: The people from those ships are
also all black—
the hats, the pantaloons . . .
“Black Ships” (Kurobune)
After his return to Tokyo, Kinoshita Mokutaro became one
of the initiators of the “Pan Society”. His interest in the painting
of the French impressionists and in the poetry of Verlaine and
Mallarmé had a strong impact on the style of Kinoshita’s early
poems, probably no less than his interest in Edo poetry and
ukiyo-e woodblock prints. Kinoshita’s Symbolist verses, written
in a rather complicated language employing an archaic lexicon
and bulky bungo forms, appeared in the pages of Subaru and
were reviewed positively by the critics. However, the poet’s
personal collection of poems, After Dinner Songs (Shokugo no
uta), was not published until 1919, by which time Subaru and
the “Pan Society” had already melted into the past.
Except for several lyrical miniatures describing the plea-
sures of bohemian life and conveying the atmosphere of “Pan
Society” soirées, nearly all poems in After Dinner Songs are
excessively florid, indistinct, and vague. Treating the symbol as
an Absolute leads the author to the loss of any comprehension
of the essence of reality. Even such famous poems as “Asakusa
Temple” (Asakusa-dera), “Pathetic Melody of an Autumn
298 Part 2. THE SYMBOLIST CHALLENGE
Kinoshita
Mokutaro
Morning” (Aki no asa no jocho) or “A Portrait of Kitahara
Hakushu” (Kitahara Hakushu shi no shozo), are too overloaded
with elaborate epithets, exotic comparisons, and esoteric, far-
fetched meanings of the characters to evoke an instant response
in the heart of the reader.
The title of “sweet minstrel” was awared to Kinoshita mainly
for his poems of 1910–1911 conveying a Franco-Japanese aroma
of bohemian life: “Liquor with Gold Dust” (Kimpunshu),
“Sherry” (Serishu), “A Woman from the Bar” (Baa no onna),
etc. Depicting, like Hakushu in Tokyo Scenes, genre scenes of
life in the capital, he enriches the content of his verse with a set
of “things European”. As a result, even an ordinary drinking
party would be shrouded in his poem in exotic wording.
Today, however, it is not the poems dazzling with the names
of French liquors that seem most interesting, but his reserved,
melodic “mood poetry”:
The autumn sun exhales the crimson sunset.
The leaves of a bay tree whisper of something.
Soon these streets and my thoughts will plunge
Into the darkness completely . . .
“The Last Beams of Sunset” (Zansho)
14. “MINOR” SYMBOLISTS 299
His acquaintance with the folklore of the Edo era, in
particular with kouta songs, played an important role in
Kinoshita Mokutaro’s work. Many poems from his After Dinner
Songs are deliberately stylized and were adapted to the form of
kouta for the collection Lyrical Songs (Jojo shogin).
Along with kindaishi poetry, Kinoshita tried his talent in
other literary genres: he wrote dramas, short stories, essays,
critiques, and reviews on modern painting. However, medicine
always came first, not literature. His close contacts with Mori
Ogai, who was also a writer and a doctor, had a great impact on
Kinoshita Mokutaro. After receiving an advanced degree in the
area of skin diseases, he went to Manchuria to work, and then
in 1921 was sent to France for training. Back home in 1924, after
several months of work at provincial universities, he returned
to Tokyo. His departure for Manchuria was the end of Kinoshita
Mokutaro’s poetic career. In the 1920s he continued publishing
prose, but gave up writing poetry completely. In 1930 appeared
his Collected Poems of Kinoshita Mokutaro (Kinoshita Mokutaro
shi-shu). It contains mostly poems composed at the beginning
of the Taisho period.
HINATSU KONOSUKE—
SYMBOLIC LITURGY
Hinatsu Konosuke (1890–1971) is better known as an author
of the three-volume History of Meiji-Taisho Poetry (Meiji Taisho
shi-shi), Romanticist Literature in the Meiji period (Meiji roman
bungaku shi), Poetics of Romantic Symbolism in England (Igirisu
roman shocho shifu), and other critical works. He also translated
a collection of poetry by Oscar Wild, Edgar Allan Poe, and other
English poets.
A graduate of the English Literature Faculty at Waseda
University, Hinatsu always emphasized his aversion to the
national poetic tradition. He prefered Keats, Browning, Rossetti,
Yeats, and the French Symbolists to Saigyo, Basho, and Buson.
300 Part 2. THE SYMBOLIST CHALLENGE
Hinatsu
Konosuke
During the Taisho—early Showa period Hinatsu Konosuke
gained a name in the literary world for his numerous collections,
including Hymn to Radical Change (Tenshin no sho, 1917),
Madonna in Black (Kokui seibo, 1921), The Old Style Moon (Kofu
no tsuki, 1922), and The Yellow-eyed Notebook (Kogancho, 1927).
Today, however, these works are of purely bibliographical
interest. They are all large books containing hundreds of
poems, nowadays mostly forgotten due to their metaphysical
vagueness and extreme complexity of style.
A mystic and an occultist, Hinatsu put forward the original
concept of “theistic hyper-symbolism”. The essence of the poet’s
theism is revealed in the treatise of thirteen short chapters that
was published as the preface to Hymn to Radical Change:
The soul of the world, full of light and flowing into space,
merges with the hearts of creators, and through them
is conveyed to the feelings of other people, penetrating
into their souls. In the history of art many fine images are
nothing else but the bird’s twitter one fine vernal morning
[195, v. 4, 282].
Asserting that art has always been the destiny of an elite, chosen
by the gods, who stand above the crowd, Hinatsu harshly
14. “MINOR” SYMBOLISTS 301
criticized the writers of the Democratic School, who sought to
deprive the artist of his sacred aura: “In the divine realm god
gives life to talent. In the human world civic duty gives life to
talent. Talent is the invisible bridge connecting the divine and
the human. The ideals of the present democracy are directed at
burning this bridge” [195, v. 4, 283].
Offering his interpretation of Symbolist poetry, Hinatsu
writes:
True poetry is not just poems, it is the poet himself.
Afflicted with a passionate impulse, we take the transparent
luminosity of verse from the inner world and carry it into
the world of images, trying to turn abstraction into reality
and put in on paper . . . The Soul of symbolic writings
(shokei moji) is transferred by vision to the brain. The visual
perception must reveal what lies beyond the sound (oncho).
A poet’s mission is to create beauty in the combination of
the visible form and the sound of a poem [195, v. 4, 284].
Having thereby proved the necessity of encrypted writing,
and stipulating further the advantages of an “elevated bungo
style” over “prosaic” colloquial language, Hinatsu in every
possible way complicates for the reader the perception of even
the simplest poems. A plethora of non-standard readings of
characters (ateji) and the use of rare and out-of-date characters
transform the text into a sheer rebus. And whereas in the poet’s
first collection we can still find certain poems full of fresh
feeling and telling of the pleasures of life (“At this Time I Live”
(Kakaru toki waga iku), “Blood” (Chi), “Citizens of the Sea”
(Umi no shimin)), in Hinatsu’s subsequent books the poetry
dissolves in a vague haze of Christian mysticism. Images of
Saint Mary, wise priests, and pilgrims praying for forgiveness
fill the poems. The splendor of the décor of Catholic cathedrals,
expressed in sophisticated ornate descriptions with florid
epithets, is imposed on the reader. The religious ecstasy that
supposedly brings the poet divine inspiration, at times, appears
like a parody of Forbidden Faith by Kitahara Hakushu.
302 Part 2. THE SYMBOLIST CHALLENGE
Hinatsu called his poetic style “Gothic-Roman” and was
very proud that he could “project” the canons of European
architecture on Japanese poetry. Many contemporaries praised
the theistic works of Hinatsu Konosuke, regarding them as
the climax of Symbolism. Hagiwara Sakutaro, for example,
considered Hymn to Radical Change to be a true revelation.
Similar delusions were experienced by the French critics of
those years, who asserted that the top symbolists were not
Baudelaire, Verlaine, and Rimbaud, but Moréas, Samain, and
Laforgue. Hinatsu’s particular understanding of the nature of
Symbolism, incidentally, also affected his remarkable critical
work, History of Meiji-Taisho Poetry (1920).
MITOMI KYUYO—“THE WORLD IS
THE EXPRESSION OF MY EGO”
Mitomi Kyuyo (1889–1917, real name Yoshiomi), who died
while still quite young, left behind a brief but brilliant trace in
the literature of the early twentieth century. In the period when
Symbolism was dominant, Kyuyo, then a student of the faculty
of English Literature at Waseda University, together with Kato
Kaishun, Hitomi Tomei, and Imai Hakuyo, set up the “Free Verse
Society” (Jiyushi-sha), which called for the turn to colloquial
language in Symbolist poetry. In 1910, on Kyuyo’s initiative,
a poetry club, the “Soirée des grimaces”, an analog to the popular
“Pan Society”, was established. The club existed for several
months, holding its soirées at the small restaurant “Kagurazaka”,
but broke up by the end of the year. At the same time Kyuyo,
with the help of his friends, launched the monthly almanac
Shizen to insho (Nature and Impression), in which he introduced
to readers the works of the French “impressionist” poets—
Verlaine, Rimbaud, Mallarmé, and others. After graduating
from university, Kyuyo devoted a few years to the study of new
French poetry. From time to time he would publish articles and
reviews in his almanac and some of the major literary journals.
14. “MINOR” SYMBOLISTS 303
Kyuyo’s poetry is rather pretentious. Although it lacks
depth, it is full of musicality and picturesque images, helping to
create a mood, a unique “impression of a moment”:
A silent echo
Resounds near the water at noon.
The boundlessness
Of spilling mournful memories . . .
“Near the Spring” (Izumi no hotori)
The impressionist approach typical of Kyuyo’s lyrical
sketches defines also the character of his numerous poems in
prose. “In the world of feelings where he [Kyuyo] dwelled”,
writes Murano Shiro, “the poet, overcoming the boundary
between the ethical categories of good and evil, opens for
himself another world, a world of symbols, where his utmost
self-expression is possible” [80, 90].
Kyuyo lived as he worked, following his heart and his
emotional impulses. Death hit him unexpectedly: he drowned
while swimming. His only collection, Collected Poems of Mitomi
Kyuyo (Mitomi Kyuyo shi-shu), was published posthumously in
1926.
MURAYAMA KAITA—
FLIRTING WITH DEATH
In 1919, the life of another remarkable poet and a talented
artist, Murayama Kaita (1896–1919), came to an end. Since his
childhood Kaita had been interested in painting, but he also
became engrossed in reading the poetic translations by Ueda
Bin and Mori Ogai and the novels of Natsume Soseki. After
finishing school in Yokohama, he became a student at the
Japan Art Institute in Tokyo. In 1914 one of his paintings won
an award at the Institute’s exhibition. A girl named O-Tama
posed for the picture. The young artist fell passionately in love
304 Part 2. THE SYMBOLIST CHALLENGE
with his model, but the romance with the geisha soon ended in
a complete break off. Heartbroken, Murayama, who had always
been inclined to eccentric behavior, took to drinking and started
wandering around the country. However, he did not give up
painting and continued to compose impressive poems on wine,
love and death:
My soul is gloomy on this spring evening
On the eve of summer, in the rain.
I shed my bitter tears
Over a magnificent glass —
The sky reflected in it
Gradually darkens . . .
“When I Drink” (Yoeru toki ni)
An admirer of Van Gogh, Gauguin, and Rimbaud, Murayama
perceives the ideal of the artist in the desperate decadent who
challenges society and lives only according to the laws of art:
The people of the crowd are stupid. They are a combination
of pigs and children. Deep in their hearts is where the
Individuals are concealed. People’s lives are just storage
vessels for these Individuals. Break down the walls of this
prison! You are God yourself! You are! So break down the
walls of the prison and let out the Individuals to replace the
pigs and children! [42, v. 17, 217]
Nevertheless, Murayama not at all an advocate of the
“escape from society”. He was concerned about the interests
of the nation and turned to his colleagues with an appeal on
behalf of the Japanese people:
Mighty and fine Yamato people! We passionately crave for
healthy art. Let us fill our songs with blood and embroider
them with flesh. Let’s throw our songs up, like the sun, high
in the sky. Let’s act like lions and tigers in our songs! This is
the way our ancestors chose. Let’s adorn the land of Yamato
with our healthy art!
14. “MINOR” SYMBOLISTS 305
And then, as if falling into an ecstatic trance:
Oh, courageous, brave people of Yamato! Return to your
true selves! Return to the red circle of the sun. Like a wild
animal, pursue your beloved! Smash in pieces the sad love
of the painful past century! Kill white women and pour their
blood over yourself! Be sated with their blood and flesh, oh,
sons of Yamato! [42, v. 17, 220–221]
Murayama, however, was no cruel hero, no “strong perso-
nality” of the Nietzschean type. On the contrary, overwhelmed
by numerous complexes, weak-willed and lacking self-
confidence, the artist was in need of strength, at least according
to this poetic plea:
Oh, Strength! Strength!
I am waiting for you,
Strength!
Will you come to me?
If you do not come,
I will have to turn into a tramp,
And the world will become complete darkness . . .
“Oh, Strength! Strength!” (Chikara yo, chikara yo)
During his short and stormy life Murayama did not acquire
the strength he needed, but he was granted an irrepressible
passion, which his contemporaries compared to self-immolation
by fire. His character demanded new impressions and new
pleasures in unreasonable doses. He would work like one
possessed, not leaving his easel, and he would drink. “He was
very fast in everything”, recollects Yamazaki Shozaburo. “He
could gobble even a thick book in one evening. He ate three
times faster than most people do. He smoked two, three packs
of cigarettes a day. He could walk twenty ri a day. And he never
rested” [42, v. 17, 248].
He loved life and wrote much about the beauty of life, but in
his poems there is a note of hopelessness:
306 Part 2. THE SYMBOLIST CHALLENGE
Oh, my life is like dynamite!
Love! Love! Love!
Wine! Wine! Wine!
Extinguish my life!
Terrible! Terrible! Terrible!
“My Life is Burning” (Waga inochi wa moesakaru)
In 1918, wandering along the coast, Murayama came down
with a cold that developed into pneumonia. For several months
he fought the illness, and then died in a small remote house
in Chiba Prefecture. His death-bed poems are full of gloomy
premonitions. The poet addresses God, asking for mercy or,
reconciled, composes odes to Death. Fear, pain, and despair in
these poems go along with the hope for salvation, a vague faith
full of romantic irony:
I play now with death,
Pale, suffocating, prostrate on the bed,
All day long under this beautiful sky
I play with death, becoming crazy . . .
“Entertaining Death” (Shi no asobi)
Murayama Kaita left many brilliant paintings and hundreds
of poems of which only a few had been published earlier in
magazines. The collections Kaita’s Songs (Kaita no utaeru, 1920)
and A Continuation of Kaita’s Songs (Kaita no utaeru sono ato,
1921), compiled and published by the poet’s friends, instantly
gained recognition and came to occupy a special place among
the works of the “minor Symbolists”.
NOGUCHI YONEJIRO—
A COSMOPOLITAN MUSE
Poet and literary critic Noguchi Yonejiro (1875–1947) can be
considered one of the most intriguing figures in Meiji-Taisho
literature. He was a person who managed to implement the
14. “MINOR” SYMBOLISTS 307
idea of the East-West synthesis of cultures in his life and work.
Noguchi gained popularity only at the end of 1910s when he
was no longer young. However, it was in his younger years that
he started to create his wonderful poems so different from those
written at the time by other kindaishi poets.
“I have waken up for voyages at seas, my heart full of
wind with rain”, Noguchi recollects. He spent half of his life
wandering, but his nostalgiac yearning for his homeland, the
feeling of closeness to the centuries-old traditions of Japanese
culture, would make him a truly national poet and a devoted
propagandist of Japanese poetry in the West.
The Noguchi family traces its origin to the ancient samurai
clan of Minamoto. Yonejiro received a classical education
and became independent at an early age. After leaving Aichi
Prefecture, he studied English language and literature at Tokyo
University. At the same time he took a great interest in Zen
philosophy and attended lectures by Shiga Shigetaka on the
“Spirit of Yamato”. The young man was intent to be at the
centre of cultural life in the capital.
In 1893, Noguchi made up his mind to see the world and
set sail for America. He was probably the first real Japanese
writer to visit the USA. For two years the young Noguchi
wandered across America, earning his living by occasional
jobs. Eventually he was hired as a correspondent for a Japanese
newspaper agency in San Francisco in 1895. Soon after that he
became acquainted with the eccentric aged poet Joaquin Miller,
who lived alone in a mountain hut outside Oakland. Noguchi’s
talks with the American bard made such a strong impression
upon him that he gave up his promising job in the agency and
also took up lodgings in the mountains. His only companions
were books by Basho and Edgar Allan Poe.
During this period, leading the life of a mountain hermit,
Noguchi for the first time started to write poems in English,
which he would then translate into Japanese. Sometimes he
would also write in Japanese, translating into English. Several
of his English poems were published in the magazine Lark
308 Part 2. THE SYMBOLIST CHALLENGE
and enjoyed considerable success. In 1896 he published his
first collection in English, Seen and Unseen. A year later, after
a trip to Niagara Falls, he published another collection, The
Voice of the Valley. Critics praised the poet for the fresh feeling
and novelty of the images, but their flattering reviews were
probably motivated by the affection aroused by the personality
of the lonely young Japanese writing poems in English. In fact,
his poems are quite good.
After I had run away from the difficulties and troubles of
my life in America, I was able to contemplate nature and
enjoy tranquility and peace of mind for the first time. I felt
like my thoughts and feelings, warmed by my hot blood,
were boiling, shrouded in a purple veil. They splashed out
in lyrical poetry [81, v. 12, 197].
This was basically poetry of nature evoked by an Anglo-
American muse. Noguchi wrote his Japanese poems in the
colloquial language, in a free, unrestricted manner. His verses,
written almost fifteen years before the first experiments of
the naturalists with kogo jiyushi (vers libre in colloquial forms),
anticipates the path of new poetry developments at a time
when the Romanticist shintaishi was only beginning to gain
strength in Japan. No wonder that in his homeland, where
Noguchi’s collections of poems were published shortly after
his debut in English, they were not given an appreciative
welcome; poets who wrote sweet metrical verse in the vein
of Shelley, Wordsworth or Keats could not yet imagine other
aesthetic principles, such as those followed by their American
contemporaries at the end of the nineteenth century.
After his move to the eastern coast of the USA, Noguchi
settled in New York for a while to earn money for a trip to
Europe. In London in 1903 he published at his own expense
a third collection of poems, From the Eastern Sea. The book,
which was highly praised by Thomas Hardy, Arthur Symons,
and Dante Gabriel Rossetti, contained several true masterpieces,
including the poem “Hokusai’s Mt. Fuji” (Hokusai no Fuji),
14. “MINOR” SYMBOLISTS 309
Noguchi
Yonejiro
which personified for Europeans as well as for the Japanese the
mysterious and beautiful “soul of Japan”:
Touching its sacred breath,
We come back to the God image.
Its silence is a song, a heavenly song . . .
In contrast to England, in Japan, where Noguchi’s third
collection was issued a year later, it was evaluated with restraint
and did not evoke much of a response in poetic circles, which
were still under the spell of the Romanticists.
From England Noguchi returned to America, and after
the beginning of the Russo-Japanese war he was sent as a free
lance reporter for several American newspapers to Japan to
monitor the course of military actions. At this point his years
of traveling came to an end. Noguchi obtained a position as
a teacher of English language and literature at one of the Tokyo
universities. Soon he was ranked as an honorable professor.
In 1914 he visited England to give lectures at the invitation of
Oxford University. His lectures, published as a book, opened
to the Western reader a colorful panoramic view of Japanese
poetry from the ancient period to modern times [307].
310 Part 2. THE SYMBOLIST CHALLENGE
For a while Noguchi almost abandoned poetry. Then in 1921
he began to publish one after another lyrical collections in the
Symbolist vein: The Poems of a Person with Double Citizenship
(Nijukokusekisha no shi, 1921), An Apple Has Fallen (Ringo
hitotsu otsu, 1922), The Blood Silently Boils (Chinmoku no
chishio, 1922), Standing on the Mountain (Sanjo ni tatsu, 1923),
and Symbolist Poems (Hyosho jojoshi, 1925).
Noguchi’s mature poetry differs not only by a subtle under-
standing of nature, an ability to notice the great in the small,
but also by a tendency toward philosophical generalizations,
something not typical of Japanese Symbolists.
Critics have varied in their evaluations of Noguchi Yonejiro’s
poetry. Some of them praised the collections published in the
1920s for the poet’s broad-minded approach and the poetry’s
wide-ranging language and expressive images. Others criticized
them for their lack of a psychological approach or for their
“non-Japanese” vision of reality. Hagiwara Sakutaro remarked
peevishly:
His choice of topics, the author’s ideas, the use of poetic
language, and, finally, the most important thing, the poetic
mood, are not at all Japanese. The impression we get is that
of reading literal translations of the work of some Western
poet [81, v. 12, 204].
The opinions of his contemporaries, however, accustomed as
they were to the “beautiful eloquence” of the Symbolist poetry
of Hakushu and Rofu, were biased. Time has settled all disputes
surrounding Noguchi Yonejiro’s poetry, and nowadays he
occupies an honorable, though not superior, place among the
classical modern poets. The man who was in a certain sense
ahead of his time, who left a remarkable trace not only on
Japanese but also on Anglo-American literature, was a fine poet
and a Symbolist by vocation.
Noguchi Yonejiro’s son, the famous architect and designer
of the twentieth century Noguchi Isamu, continued his father’s
work, combining in his art the aesthetics of the West and of the
East.
14. “MINOR” SYMBOLISTS 311
SAIJO YASO—THE GLEAM OF
PARIS STREET LIGHTS
The nature of the late Japanese Symbolism in many respects can
be defined by the artistic manner of Saijo Yaso, a poet of love
and tender sorrow. Saijo Yaso (1892–1970) lived a long life and
continued to write poems up to his last days, but in the 1930s
his refined, languid poetry was pushed aside by the dynamic
Modernists. He remained faithful to Symbolism through the
days of the avant-garde boom, the short period of Proletarian
literature, the gloomy years of military psychosis, and during
the post-war period, when the old idols were replaced by new
names. Due to Saijo Yaso, Symbolism in Japan outlived its
time and became an integral part of modern gendaishi poetry,
though in the readers’ mind Saijo, like many other Symbolists,
remained a poet of the 1920s.
Born in Tokyo, Saijo Yaso began studying English while
still a child and in 1915 graduated from the Faculty of English
Literature at Waseda University. He was especially infatuated
with the poetry of D. G. Rossetti and W. B. Yeats. He read
Verlaine and Rimbaud in translation and admired the talent
of Hakushu and Rofu. While still a student Saijo started
publishing his poems in the journals Waseda bungaku (“Waseda
Literature”), Kamen (“Mask”), and Mirai (“The Future”). He was
well acquainted with Rofu, Kawaji Ryuko, Hinatsu Konosuke,
and Horiguchi Daigaku.
The publication of Saijo’s first poetic collection, Gold Sand
(Shakin, 1919), became a significant event in the literary world of
the Taisho period. Together with the collections of Kinoshita
Mokutaro, Murayama Kaita, and Horiguchi Daigaku, Saijo’s
book represented a new wave of Symbolism, which managed to
hold its own against the Naturalists, Sensualists, humanists from
the “White Birch” group, and participants in the movement for
democratic poetry. The roots of Symbolism thus appeared to be
extraordinarily strong. Symbolism was destined to maintain its
popularity for no less than twenty five years, and to a great extent
its survival was due to the popularity of Saijo Yaso’s poetry.
312 Part 2. THE SYMBOLIST CHALLENGE
In the preface to Gold Sand the poet says of his method: “In
composing poems I have always hoped to attain only a perfect
compliance with the images born in my soul” [132, v. 2, 292].
The poems are mostly written in bungo, but in a light manner,
without weighty or clumsy archaisms and metaphysical specu-
lations. Transparency and lucidity from the very beginning
formed the foundation of Saijo’s refined style, which the critics
would call “elegance” (shoshanarizumu):
I will count the stars—there are seven in the sky,
There are nine glowing houselights,
Under this rock there are countless shells—
But my love is sad and lonely . . .
“At the Sea” (Umi nite)
The poems in the Gold Sand collection are not overloaded with
associations, and there symbolic meaning is comparatively easy
to grasp. Unlike the dim, vague images of Hinatsu Konosuke,
in Saijo’s poems the contrasts of light and shadows, sound and
silence, are presented distinctly:
Someone is passing my window,
Saying, “It’s dark, dark . . .”
A gas lamp is buring in the room,
Though it must still be day outside . . .
“Somebody” (Dare ka)
Simplicity becomes in Gold Sand the rule for every verse, just as
in haiku poetry, where impression depends on details, accurately
noticed and successfully expressed:
I saw
A white hat
Rolling down the dunes to the sea . . .
“The Phantom in the Dunes”
(Sunayama no maborosh)
14. “MINOR” SYMBOLISTS 313
Given his propensity for simple, melodic verse, it was no
wonder Saijyo Yaso turned to composing poems and songs for
children. In 1924 the Complete Collection of Children’s Songs by
Saijo Yaso (Saijo Yaso doyo zenshu) was published. The same
year the poet went to France, where he studied at the Sorbonne
for two years, assiduously learning French and studying
literature. Attending the Mallarmé Society and the artistic cafés
of Montparnasse, he made acquaintance with the leading French
poets, including Valéry, Jacob, and Jouve. The figurativeness of
the French poetry of the post-Symbolist period was appealing
to Saijo’s heart. He turned to colloquial language in his work
once and for all in the attempt to achieve complete transparency
of ideas and sentiments:
I open the moonlit night
As I open a large book,
Flipping through the white pages.
People, carriages,
Willow trees near the bridge—
All of them are beautifully printed letters . . .
“The Book” (Shomotsu)
After returning to Japan, Saijo continued to write poems
with success for a few more years. Critics responded favor-
ably to his new collection, Wax Doll (Roningyo, 1926). By
this time, however, the poetry of Symbolism was already out
of fashion. In his later collections, such as Handful of Crystals
(Hito nigiri no hari, 1947) and Dark Blue Armchair (Aoi isu,
1952), Saijo tried to compose poems in a different style—
humanist verse with deep meaning and a tendency towards
realistic description of the world—but readers preferred to
regard him as the author of Gold Sand and Unknown Sweetheart
(Mishiranu aibito, 1922). They could not acknowledge him as
a realist, and Saijo thus suffered from the inability to change
his image, which had become deeply rooted in the hearts of the
readers.
314 Part 2. THE SYMBOLIST CHALLENGE
During the “period of darkness”, when Japan was over-
whelmed with nationalist propaganda, Saijo Yaso behaved
in a more decent manner than many of his fellow poets. He
refused to collaborate with the authorities and for many
lyears lived in self-imposed exile in a remote rural village.
After the war, unlike his more active contemporaries, he
mostly refrained from any literary and public activities. The
huge monograph On Rimbaud’s Works (Rimbaud ron, 1947)
was the chief product of his solitary years. Saijo’s poems of
the postwar period are of no particular interest. He was not
included in the list of “old masters” who became tutors to the
new generation of poets.
SATO HARUO—
THE COLDNESS OF MOONLIGHT
The position of Sato Haruo (1892–1964) in Japanese literature,
though he left to posterity many poems and poetic translations,
is more attributable to his excellent prose than his poetry.
Although we cannot reproach Sato with imitation, all his
poetry, produced after World War I during the period of great
social upheaval, was written in the vein of late Symbolism,
and in that sense was already outdated. As early as 1925, the
sceptical Harigwa Sakutaro had the following to say about the
poet and his work:
Sato Haruo is a poet of the past. Above all, the diction of
his poems and his feel for the poetic language are so archaic
that he just falls out of the modern poetic world. His poetry
probably appeals only to those who appreciate the poetry
written ten years before. Neither his ideas nor the form, in
which is revealed his tastes, appeal to the mentality of the
modern poet. The mind of the modern poet has gone far
ahead [156, v. 16, 85].
14. “MINOR” SYMBOLISTS 315
Sato
Haruo
As always, Hagiwara is severe in his criticism, but in this
case his opinion is on the whole justified. Sato Haruo was
a remarkable personality in the Japanese literary world, but he
should probably be counted a second-rate poet.
Raised in the family of a provincial doctor in Wakayama
Prefecture, Haruo was an unbalanced child. He could never
get on well with his teachers, and conflict followed him all the
way to university. After graduating with a degree in Chinese
literature, Sato hardly ever dealt with the subject for more than
twenty years, and only in 1940s turned to the translation of
Chinese poetry.
In 1908–1909 Sato published his first poems (tanka) in
Myojo and Subaru. He became a member of the “New Poetry
Society”, where he made the acquaintance of Yosano Tekkan
and Yosano Akiko. At that time their long-term friendship with
Horiguchi Daigaku began. The romantic pathos of the Myojo
group’s poetry deeply impressed the seventeen-year old, and
in his poems of later periods we can still hear the echoes of
Romanticism. Sato also considered Mori Ogai and Nagai Kafu
to be his teachers and spiritual guides.
Among Sato’s first kindaishi poems, published in Subaru in
1911, along with rather inexpressive lyrical miniatures, there
316 Part 2. THE SYMBOLIST CHALLENGE
was a long poem in defense of the socialist-anarchists convicted
in the “High Treason Incident” of 1910. At that time Sato wrote
many short stories, essays, pieces of literary criticism, and
would turn to poetry seldom and rather reluctantly. He became
very close with the novelist Tanizaki Jun’ichiro and soon fell in
love with Tanizaki’s wife. According to Yoshida Seiichi, it was
this love affair, which had been going on for many years, that
was the source of inspiration for Sato’s first poetic collection,
Command of Feelings (Junjo shi-shu, 1921).
Most of the poems in the collection fall into the categories
of stylized song poetry in the kouta vein or Romantic shintaishi
based on the traditional metric pattern and grammatical forms
of bungo:
Kobore matsuha o kakiatsume
Otome no gotoki kimi nariki,
Kobore matsuha ni hi wo hanachi
Warabe no gotoki ware nariki . . .
Like a little girl,
You gathered a pile of dry pine tree needles,
I, like a little boy,
Made a bonfire . . .
“Love at the Seaside” (Umibe no koi)
Like Saijo Yaso, Sato put the transparency and musicality of
verse above all. The images in his poems are simple, straight-
forward, and expressive. It was as if he wrote poetry to serve
as lyrics for the newly emerging popular song variety known
as enka. In fact, many poems by Sato Haruo, as well as by Saijo
Yaso, did become big enka hits. The simplicity of the images
combined with a unique lyrical intonation is what distinguishes
poetry for song lyrics from the more “intellectual” poetry that
appeals not so much to the heart, but to the reader’s mind. All
Sato Haruo’s poems, whether good or just mediocre, are poetry
from the heart:
14. “MINOR” SYMBOLISTS 317
I am suffering from love —
That is why the patches of moonlight make me cold,
I perceived the sadness of life—
And I sigh, looking at the gleam in the waves . . .
“Song Composed on the Beach at Night”
(Suiben no tsukiyo no uta)
In Command of Feelings there are references to the Bible and
to Basho, and echoes of the Manyoshu and English poetry of the
late nineteeth century, but all this is full of unique color and in
an individualistic poetic style nourished by a Japanese muse:
Wandering about an autumn meadow,
I came across a flower.
Memories dear to my heart welled up.
I plucked it—and its petals fell off.
“Fragment” (“Dansho”)
“A person following his feelings, opening his heart in
a song, finds in it a certain consolation”, wrote Sato Haruo in
his preface to the collection. “Thus a sick person weeps and
groans, trying to relieve his sufferings a little” [156, v. 16, 7].
While we can say that a distinctive feature of Sato’s first
book is the spontaneity and novelty of the feelings expressed,
in A Collecion of Poems by Sato Haruo (Sato Haruo shi-shu,
1926) the topics are rather “premeditated”, and the imagery is
often artificial. The poet creates imitations of the ancient “long
songs” (choka), classical Chinese poems, and folk tunes. In the
pursuit of musicality he often resorts to repetition, anaphora,
and epiphora.
In his Early works Sato Haruo achieved a considerable
variety of rhythmic patterns and strengthened the verse
arrangement by using not only the usual assonance but also
introducing occasional rhyme. Nevertheless, this poetry
gives the impression of an artificial, “tailor made” accom-
plishment.
318 Part 2. THE SYMBOLIST CHALLENGE
Another collection, Dust from the Wheels (Shajin, 1929), con-
taining translations of Chinese poetry by the poetesses of the
Ming and Qin dynasties, was a kind of prologue to Witch (Majo,
1931), a larger collection which revealed new sides of Sato
Haruo’s talent—an intellectual approach, subtle irony, and the
free usage of the potentency of European literatury techniques.
Recreated by the poet’s imagination, the “classical” female
images of Mary Magdalene, Beatrice, and Lorelei are presented
in a new, unexpected light. In his long poems Sato developed
the musical principle of the “sonata”. He also experimented
to some extent with calligraphic forms. However, in these
poems, as well as in the translations of English and American
authors of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries included
in the collection, we do not feel the crucial element—natural
inspiration and the free ascent of spirit. Many of his other
collections of poems are just like that—elaborate, interesting,
but “dry”. The last of them, Haruo’s Poetic Life (Haruo shizon),
was published posthumously.
HORIGUCHI DAIGAKU—
THE SONGS DISAPPEARS FOREVER
The fame of Sato Haruo’s devoted friend Horiguchi Daigaku
is more often attributed to his brilliant translations of French
poetry than to his own poems. This is a view that is not quite
justified. Horiguchi Daigaku (1893–1981) together with Sato
Haruo and Saijo Yaso should be considered the best three poets
of late Symbolism.
Horiguchi, the elder son of a high-ranking official in
the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, was born in Tokyo. While at
school Daigaku tried composing haiku. He then switched to tanka,
and in 1909 joined the “New Poetry Society”. For a while he
successfully published his tanka in Subaru, but Yosano Tekkan,
who appreciated the nature of the poet’s talent, advised him to
turn to kindaishi. Horiguchi’s literary career was unexpectedly
14. “MINOR” SYMBOLISTS 319
Horiguchi
Daigaku
interrupted in 1911 when his father was offered a diplomatic
post abroad, and he took his son with him to see the world.
Daigaku’s interest in poetry did not fade during the long years
he spent traveling with his father to Mexico, Brazil, France,
Belgium, Spain, and many other countries. During these ten
years he managed to publish at home three collections of
translations, mostly from French and Belgian poetry.
In 1919 Horiguchi Daigaku’s first collection, The Moon and
Pierrot (Gekko to Piero), appeared. To be sure, many of the
poems included in it imitate the works of Verlaine, Rimbaud, and
Claudel, but more often they are cases of deliberate stylization.
Oh, how painfully pale he is,
Poor Pierrot !
His cheeks are white like chalk.
In this moonlight,
In the shifting shadows
He looks like a ghost!
These lyrical miniatures of four or five lines are very specific;
they seem to present a purely Western interpretation of the
traditional topics of tanka and haiku poetry:
320 Part 2. THE SYMBOLIST CHALLENGE
Autumn!
Evening!
Mournful shudders in my soul!
Falling leaves!
Choro-choro!
“Falling Leaves” (Rakyo)
Horiguchi’s next collection, Writing on the Water (Mizu no
men ni kakite, 1921), reveals a more mature poetic skill. From
sophisticated imitations of the European style the author turns
to serious Symbolist poetry of a humanist nature:
Words are beautiful,
And like everything beautiful, they are short-lived and die easily.
Words live as long as we pronounce them—
Once pronounced they’re gone.
Words die so easily.
“Writing on the Water” (Mizu no men ni kakite)
The traditional images of love, death, despondency, melan-
choly, expressed in scenes of withering nature and fading
daylight, form the core of Horiguchi Daigaku’s poetry. The rest
consists of original and witty poems that have little or nothing
to do with the traditional poetry of Symbolism:
A person who, watching a snowfall,
Says “It looks like the blossoms are falling from the trees!”
And who, while watching the blossoms scattering,
Says “It looks like snowflakes falling”—
That person might be called a poet.
“Poet” (Shijin)
The tendency towards a break away from Symbolism, to-
wards Modernist experiment, manifested itself clearly in
Horiguch’s third and the last remarkable collection, New Path
(Atarashiki shokei, 1922). In its brave challenge, “Poetics”
14. “MINOR” SYMBOLISTS 321
(Shiho) foreshadows the famous Death Sentence (Shikei senkoku,
1925) by Hagiwara Kyojiro, and has much in common with the
outbursts of the Futurists, who had declared war on poetic
conventions and restrictions.
Tear off those attached noses of symbols!
Wash your faces and show yourselves in your natural state!
We are the poets of today’s world.
Let’s compose poems without thinking and or following rules!..
In fact, Horiguchi Daigaku was not about to drive the nails
into the lid of the coffin of Symbolist poetry. On the contrary,
his collection of 1926, A Pillow of Sand (Suna no makura), was
an obvious step back to good old Symbolism. But this did not
matter much, as the collection was published after the anthology
of Franco-Belgian poetry Group under the Moon (Gekka no ichi
gun), which confirmed Horiguchi’s brilliant reputation in the
literary world.
Sato Haruo was right to call Group under the Moon a fine
work expressing the new spirit of French poetry. The fruits of
Horiguchi’s evolution as a poet over a fifteen-year period found
their fullest expression in his translations from Baudelaire,
Verlaine, Mallarmé, Régnier, Apollinaire, Samain, and Coc-
teau. The style and the language of these translations had
a great impact on the gendaishi poets, who saw in Horiguchi “a
forerunner of Showa poetry” [132, v. 2, 390]. Actually, having
lived up to the 1980s, Horiguchi remained a “forerunner” for-
ever, although he continued to write poetry and do translations
for another half a century and was awarded many literary
prizes. Horiguchi Daigaku’s work is best viewed as forming
a link between the poetry of the past and the future.

AUTHOR ’S AF T E R WOR D
The historical evolution of new Japanese poetry in non-con-
ventional forms confirms first of all the efficiency and produc-
tivity of the East-Western aesthetic synthesis upon which this
poetry was based. Shintaishi, kindaishi, and gendaishi poetry,
born in a tumultuous age of changes, even by the fact of its
existence, denied the conservative worldview of the ideologues
of “Japanism” and Pan-Asiatic nationalism. During a time of
active economic and socio-political transformations, when
the government relied on the instrument of state Shinto to
promulgate the concepts of a “chosen” divine Yamato race,
the uniqueness of “the Japanese mind”, and the superiority
of Japanese culture over the cultural values of the West, the
kindaishi poets alongside other cosmopolitan literati, artists,
architects, musicians, and theatre reformers firmly advocated
the unity of world culture. It was a daring and highly successful
attempt at “cultural globalization”.
In the bosom of kindaishi verse new ideas of nature and
society, of the place of human beings in the world, and of their
mission and vocation were being shaped. For the first time in
the long history of Japanese literature poets spoke overtly and
explicitly about love, politics, society, and art. In their works,
irrespective of the differences between the various schools and
trends, the poets of Romanicism and Symbolism transplanted
to Japanese soil revised and refined humanistic ideals borrowed
from the philosophical and aesthetic traditions of the West.
AUTHOR’S AFTERWORD 323
The epoch of Romanticism at the end of the nineteenth and
the beginning of the twentieth century was the first stage of the
conscious, creative introduction of Japan on the world cultural
stage. A crucial role in the critical mastering of European phi-
losophy and aesthetics was played by Mori Ogai, who managed
to adapt and apply the achievements of nineteenth-century
German philosophy to the situation of Japan during the Meiji
period. His initiative was continued by the members of the
Bungakukai literary group, who laid a theoretical foundation for
Romanticism and promoted the development of new poetry.
The activities of the young literati of the Bungakukai, headed
at first by Kitamura Tokoku and then by his followers, were
focused on an East-West synthesis of cultures, an active fusion
of the old and the new, a merge of native and foreign elements
in poetry. In their struggle for the freedom of the individual
against the obsolete Confucian moral code and the official
nationalist ideology, the Romanticists as well as the Symbolists
maintained a foothold in the religion and philosophy of the
West. In general they were supporters of “Western” ideals,
but their goal was the formation of an original aesthetics and
poetics and a new, not imitative, national literature. They
believed that the only way to overcome the centuries-long self-
isolation of Japan and create high-quality works expressing the
spirit of the age was to modernize Japanese literature, and in
particular poetry, on the basis of a moderate Westernization,
incorporating in this new creation the best achievements of the
Japanese classical tradition.
As Japanese Romanticism emerged several decades later
than Romanticism in the countries of the West, and evolved in
a country with strong cultural traditions of its own, it inevitably
acquired some distinctive features. The Bungakukai members
and their successors in Romanticism and Symbolism not only
had to master the experience of their European predecessors,
but also to adapt and finally to overcome it. Such an objective
to a certain extent would complicate the orientation of the Japa-
nese Romanticists. The efforts of Kitamura Tokoku, Togawa
324 THE SILVER AGE OF JAPANESE POETRY
Shukotsu, and Shimazaki Toson were required to define within
the wealth of Western literature a short list of writers that
could become “beacons”: Wordsworth, Shelley, Keats, Rossetti.
At the same time, the aesthetic relativity of the Romanticists,
inherited also by Symbolism, went across the limits of space
and time, prompting an interest in the great poets of the
past: Dante, Shakespeare, Milton. The writers of Japanese
Romanticism and Symbolism, acting as “intermediaries” be-
tween Japanese and Western literature, were never restricted
in their search to the works of one particular European poet or
literary school, or even to one particular country. English poetry
was favored by almost all the Romanticists, but Doi Bansui, for
example, valued Schiller and Hugo higher than Wordsworth
and other English poets.
The Symbolists later switched the focus almost exclusively to
French and Belgian poetry, trying to combine in their works the
latest achievements of Baudelaire, Verlaine, Rimbaud, Mallarmé,
and Verhaeren with the suggestive “symbolist” methods of the
traditional Zen arts. Their preferences were motivated by the
internal requirements of Japanese literature of the time. Both the
Japanese Romanticists and Symbolists tried to find in the works
of various Western and Eastern authors themes and imagery
corresponding to their aspirations. This tendency towards
a selective, individual approach to the “beacons” is also quite
evident in their attitude towards the native classical heritage.
Thus, Tokoku was critical of Tokugawa fiction and idolized
Saigyo; Toson stuck to the ideals of Byron, Shelley and Keats;
Ariake praised the myths of the Kojiki and Fudoki above all else;
and Kitahara Hakushu, after having worshipped the masters of
French Symbolism, eventually turned to Japanese folklore.
The vast scope of the resources (both of the past and the
present) the poets turned to and the continuous and intensive
introduction of new schools and trends helped foster the rapid
pace of the formation of modern Japanese literature, in which the
epigonic tendency in shintaishi Romanticist poetry and kindaishi
Symbolist verse was relatively quickly overcome, allowing
AUTHOR’S AFTERWORD 325
these new poetic genres to take their place as important and
indispensable constituents of world literature.
The lack of strict continuity in the process and the absence
of a harmonious system for mastering this vast literary heritage
undoubtedly make for a certain semblance of eclecticism in the
work of the poets of the Meiji period. Of course, eclecticism is
implied in the very nature of their art, but its effect should not
be overestimated. The same situation occurred during periods
of accelerated cultural development in many countries, bringing
to life new and vibrant literature and art. This was the case of
Russia in the same period of time, the pre-Revolutionary years
of the last decade of the nineteenth and the beginning of the
twentieth century. These years, which are now known now as
the “Silver Age” of Russian culture, witnessed an unprecedented
boom of poetry, which is still being enjoyed the world over.
Blok, Mayakovsky, Pasternak, Mandelshtam, Akhmatova,
Tsvetaeva, and other renowned Russian bards of the period
have found their place in the book of human civilization.
The Meiji-Taisho period in Japanese culture, which is often
designated the age of “spiritual revolution” (seishin kakumei),
can be easily compared to the Russian age of glory. The two
periods almost perfectly coincide in time and have in common
many specific features, including an extreme aesthetic relati-
vism, a cosmopolitan cultural approach opposed to the growing
militarism that threatened it, and a strong resolution to change
the world by the means of literature and arts.
In Russia, the Silver Age poetry and arts were strangled by
the iron hand of the Bolshevist dictators. In Japan, the liberal-
minded literati were eventually brought under the control of
the nationalist authorities and forced to accept the rules of their
game. However, the masterpieces of poetry, prose, literary
criticism, painting, and music created by the ingenious masters
of the Silver Age live on.
The names of Kitamura Tokoku, Shimazaki Toson, Kitahara
Hakushu, Miki Rofu and other poets of the Japanese Silver Age
are widely known in their motherland. However, in the West the
326 THE SILVER AGE OF JAPANESE POETRY

fame of these outstanding poets is dimmed in comparison with GLOSSARY

European and American masters of modern verse. Translations
of research on traditionalist poets like Masaoka Shiki, Ishikawa
Takuboku, and Yosano Akiko are given precedence in Western
Japanese Studies. But Shiki, Takuboku, and all the other Meiji
poets of tanka and haiku were writing against the background
of the modern shintaishi and kindaishi of the Romanticists and
Symbolists, which was the mainstream of the new Japanese
poetry, and they also used many crucial elements of the novel
aesthetic theories.
Perhaps now, a hundred years after the Japanese Silver
Age, the time has come to revisit and reassess Romanticism
and Symbolism in Japanese literature—the schools that paved aika—an elegy, lamentation
anshisei—allusiveness (in the poetics of Japanese Symbolism)
the way for the triumphant march of modern poetry in the
ateji—ascribed readings of a character, often with some meta-
twentieth century.
phorical implications

banka—an elegy
bi—beauty (a category of aesthetics)
bibun—“refined prose”, a genre in Japanese Romanticism
bokka—bucolic poetry
bungakuron—literary theory
bungei—literature including poetry, prose and drama
bungo—classical old language of literature and official docu-
mentation
bungo jiyushi—vers libre written in classical bungo
bunjin—“a man of letters”, a definition of a model intellectual in
medieval Japan (and China)
Bushido—the samurai code of honor

cho—1. melody of the poem; 2. poetic meter

choka—(nagauta)“a long poem” in classical waka poetry
choka—an elegy
choshi—a long modern poem

engo—linkage of the words in tanka by associations, a traditional

poetic technique
328 THE SILVER AGE OF JAPANESE POETRY
fu—an ode
fueki ryuko—“the eternal in the flowing”, a category of the Zen
aesthetics
fuga no makoto—“the truth of the eloquence”, a category of the
haiku poetry
furigana—the reading of a character given for the better under-
standing of its meaning
furitsu moji—“the invisible letters”, the implied meaning of the
text in the Zen aesthetics
furyu—(from Chinese fenglyu) “wind and current”, the perception
of existence in the Zen aesthetics
gagen—refined rhetoric and writings in the traditional aesthetics
gaji—refined wording in the traditional poetics
ga-zoku—“elegant—vulgar”, a classical antinomy of the tradi-
tional aesthetics
geijutsushi—professional “high style” poetry
geijutsushijoshugi—aestheticism
gekishi—drama in verse
genbun ichchi—a movement in Japanese literature for the con-
vergence of classical and colloquial styles
gendaishi—1. a generic name for all the new Japanese poetry in
the non-traditional forms; 2. Japanese poetry in the new forms
since the late 20-s
genshi—original of a translated poem
gesaku—mass fiction of the late Edo period
giri-ninjo—“duty—human feelings”, a typical conflict in the
dramaturgy of the Edo period.
goku—the facture of the poetic imagery in the aesthetics of Japa-
nese Symbolism
Go-shichi (shichi-go) cho—classical poetic meter (5–7 or 7–5 syllables)
in the syllabic Japanese verse
gusukuritsu—the rule of the even number of lines in a poem or
a stanza
gusuonritsu—the rule of the even number of syllables in a poetic
line (in the meters like 6–4, 8–6 etc.)
GLOSSARY 329
haiku—classical poetic genre, a poem of 17 syllables
hanka—two conclusive tanka in the end of a classical long poem
choka
hanzoku—the principle of “anti-vulgarism” in the theory of
Japanese Romanticism
hiragana—one of the two Japanese alphabets
hiteikeishi—a poem not following any preset metric pattern
hiyu—a metaphor
honkadori—“borrowing from the classic poem”, a technique of the
tanka poetics
hyosho—1. symbol (an aesthetic category); 2. poetic expression
iki (sui)—“refinement”, a category of the pre-modern aesthetics
imayo—a genre of popular songs in the medieval period
in—a rhyme, an assonance
inbun—poetic texts for chanting
inkaku—“poetic form” in the poetics of Yamada Bimyo
jiga—“individual”, “personality” in the aesthetics of Japanese
Romanticism
jikyoku shi—“poems on a certain occasion” in classical tradition
jinsei-ha—humanist poetry
jinseishugi—“humanism” as an ethic category
jiongo—the sound and melody of the recited poem
jiyu minken undo—The Movement for the Liberty and Civil Rights
in the Meiji Japan
jiyushi—vers libre
jo—1.“introduction”, a classical poetic technique; 2. a foreword for
a collection of poetry
jojishi—epic poetry
jojo shokyoku—a genre of lyrical miniature in the kindaishi poetry
jojoshi—lyrical poetry
joku—a refrain
joruri—1. a genre of pre-modern folk ballad poetry; 2. plays for the
Joruri puppet theatre
josho—“lyrical tone”, a category of the kindaishi poetics
junga—“true alegance”, a category of classical aesthetics
330 THE SILVER AGE OF JAPANESE POETRY
junsuishi—“pure poetry” in the vision of Japanese Romanticists
and Symbolists
kachofugetsu—“flowers, birds, wind and moon”, a traditional genre
of the landscape painting and poetry
kakekotoba—a pivot-word in classical poetics based on the homo-
nymic metaphor
kakushinshi—“the reformed poetry” in the Meiji period
kanbun—the modified Chinese used for writing in medieval
Japan
kanbyo-ha—the Sentimentalist school in the new poetry
kangaku—the complex of the classical “Chinese learning” in Japan
kango—the words of Chinese origin in Japanese
kanjikanamajiribun—a literary text using both kanji characters and
kana
kanjo-ha—the Sensualist school in the new poetry
kankai no shi—poetry of contemplation
kankaku no insho—“a sensual impression”, a category of the
kindaishi poetics
kanshi—poetry in Chinese by the Japanese authors
karumi—“lightness”, a category of the haiku poetics
katarimono—“the tales”, a genre of medieval literature
kayo—lyrics of a song
keishiki—“form”, an aesthetic category
keitai—the formal pattern of a poem
kigo gainen—“the symbolic notion” in the poetics of Japanese
Symbolism
kindaishi—a generic name for the poetry in new forms of the Meiji-
Taisho period
kinsei shijin—(“poets of violets and stars”), the definition applied
to Susukida Kyukin and Kambara Ariake
kirishitan mono—the stories by Akutagawa Ryunosuke exploiting
the exoticism of the “Christian century” (16th С) in Japan
ki-sen—“elevated—base”, a typical antinomy of the traditional
aesthetics
kisukuritsu—the rule of the uneven number of lines (rhythmic
units) in a poem (tanka, haiku and the most part of kindaishi)
GLOSSARY 331
kisuonritsu—the rule of the uneven number of syllables in a line
(rhythmic unit) in the traditional 5–7 or 7–5 meter
ko—filial piety, a traditional Confucian virtue
kochoho—a hyperbola
kodai—“antiquity”, an aesthetic category in the theory of Japanese
Romanticism
koga—“the old refined style”, a category of traditional aesthetics
kogo—a lexical archaism
kogo—colloquial language
kogo jiyushi—vers libre using colloquial language (as opposed to
bungo jiyushi)
kogoshi—poetry in colloquial language
koha no shi—“ stern poetry” , a definition for the ballads by Doi
Bansui
kokoro—“heart”, “soul”, “spiritual essence”—a category of the
traditional aesthetics
kokugakusha—the scholars of the National Learning school in the
Edo period
kokusui hozon—the principle of “preserving national identity” in
the Meiji culture
kotodama—“the soul of the words”, a category of the traditional
poetics.
kouta—popular songs of the Edo period created by the girls from
the licensed quarters
ku—a stanza or a line in a poem
kuchuin—an assonance, an alliteration
kugire—a cesura , a breaking point between the rhythmic units.
kusuritsu—the rule of using 5–7 rhythmic units in Japanese poetry
kyakuin—rhyme
kyo—“chivalry”, a category of the traditional aesthetics
kyomu—“void” in the Buddhist philosophy
makurakotoba—constant epithet, a traditional poetic device in
tanka
meisokeishi—meditative poetry (by Doi Bansui)
min’yo—the folk songs
minshushi-ha—the school of Democratic Poetry
332 THE SILVER AGE OF JAPANESE POETRY GLOSSARY 333

mirai-ha—the school of Futurism
mondo—philosophic dialogues in Zen Buddhism
mono no aware—“the sad charm of everything in this world”,
a category of traditional aesthetics
monogatarishi—ballads using the plots of the ancient myths
monogokoro—“the heart of the things”, a category of traditional
aesthetics
monotama—“the soul of the things”, a category of traditional
aesthetics with Shinto implications
moro-ha—“the Misty school”, a trend in Japanese Romanticist
poetry
mu—void, nothingness—a category of Buddhist philosophy
mujokan—impermanence, the crucial presumption of Buddhist
worldview
mushin—“abandoning one’s ego”, a category of Buddhist philo-
sophy and Zen aesthetics
nagusami—“enjoyable entertainment”, a major principle of the
commoners’ culture in the Edo period
naibu seimei—“inner life”, a source of creativity in the aesthetics of
Japanese Romanticism
naimenteki rearizumu—“inner realism”, an aesthetic category in
the theory of Japanese Romanticism
naiyo—“content”, an aesthetic category
namban—“Southern barbarians”, a derogative definition of the
Spaniards and Portuguese in medieval and pre-modern Japan
naniwa-bushi—long folk ballads of the Edo period
nayami—“suffering”, a notion relevant to Sehnsuht in German
Romanticism
netsui—pathos, an aesthetic category in the theory of Japanese
Romanticism
nihonshugi—“Japanism”, a nationalist ideology in Japan
oka—“Westernization” of Japan
on(setsu)suritsu—the classical prosody (5–7 syllables) of Japanese
verse
oncho—the melodic facture of a poem
onkosakutai—a poetic prosody characterized by the alternative use
of the 5–7 and 7–5 rhythmic units
poetori—poetry, a synonym of the Japanese term shika
puroretaria bungaku—the Proletarian Literature movement in
Japan
ren—a stanza
renai jojoshi—lyrical love poems
renga—“ linked verse”, a genre of medieval poetry requiring plural
authors
riso—an ideal, an aesthetic category in the theory of Japanese
Romanticism
ritsu—rhythm in poetry
ritsubun—any piece of poetry or rhythmic prose
ritsugo—poetic diction
romanshugi—Romanticism
ryoka—poetry serving official ideology of Japanism
ryoka—songs for children and youth in the Meiji-Taisho period
sabi—“the patina of time and sad beauty of the world”, a category
of the Zen aesthetics and of haiku poetics
sammai (Samadhi)—“the state of enlightenment” in the Buddhist
philosophy
sanbika—Christian psalms
sansara—the mundane life of suffering in the Buddhist philo-
sophy
satori—“enlightenment” in the Zen Buddhist philosophy
seishin—“spirit”, an aesthetic category in the theory of Japanese
Romanticism
seishin kakumei—“the spiritual revolution” in the Meiji-Taisho
period
seishin no jiyu—“spiritual freedom” in the theory of Japanese
Romanticism
setsu—a tact in the verse
sewamono—the bourgeois life drama for the kabuki and Joruri
theatres in the Edo period
334 THE SILVER AGE OF JAPANESE POETRY
shan-shui (Chinese)—Jap. san-sui, the traditional genre of land-
scape painting and poetry
sharebon—erotic popular fiction in the Edo period
shi—1. a generic name for all the non-conventional poetry
mostly of foreign origin in medieval and pre-modern Japan;
2. an equivalent of shintaishi poetry in the age of Romanticism
shika—a generic name for poetry
shiku—1. stanza; 2. a line in a poem
shinju—a double suicide of the lovers, a typical tragic outcome of
the pre-modern bourgeois life drama (sewamono)
shintaishi—“poetry of the new style”, the major poetic form in the
age of Japanese Romanticism
shintaishi undo—a movement promoting new shintaishi poetry in
the 1880–1890s.
shinwa—myths
shirabe—“the melody” of the poem, an aesthetic category
shiron—poetics
shisei—“a poet as a saint” in the aesthetics of Japanese Roman-
ticism
shishi—epic poems
shishi—poetry highliting some historical events
shizen—“nature” in the aesthetics of Japanese Romanticism
shizenshugi shi-ha—the Naturalist school in poetry
sho—a part of a long poem in the shintaishi poetry
shocho—“a symbol”, an aesthetic category
shocho-ha—the Symbolist school in Japan
shochoshugi—Symbolism
shoka—a folk song for the quire
shoka—a hymn to deity, a genre in the poetry of Japanese Ro-
manticism
shosetsu—1. a generic name for prose and fiction; 2. a novel
shoshi—a short lyrical poem
shu—stanza
shunga—erotic woodblock prints of the Edo period
taiwashi—a poetic dialog (in Toson’s poetry)
tanbi-ha—aestheticism in the arts and poetry
tanchoshi—a poem following one preset metric pattern
GLOSSARY 335
tanka—a classical poetic genre (a poem of 31 syllables)
tankyoku—a lyrical miniature, a short poem
teikai—“a meditative alienation of a wanderer”, an aesthetic
category introduced by Natsume Soseki
teikeishi—a poem following a classical metric pattern
ukiyo—the transcendent world of the earthly passions and
temptations, the notion borrowed by the Japanese Romanticists
from the Buddhist philosophy
ukiyo-e—the woodblock prints of the Edo period
uta—see tanka, waka,
utaidashi—the beginning of a poem or a song
utamakura—a typical beginning of a poem in the tanka poetics
using a toponym
uta-monogatari—classical genre of the Heian period, a series of
episodes giving a combination of prosaic narration with tanka
poetry
uwei (Chinese)—Jap. mui, the principle of No-action in Taoist and
Buddhist philosophy
wabi—“the charm of sad loneliness”, a category of the Zen
aesthetics
wabun—the language of classical Japanese poetry using only the
words of purely Japanese origin
wago—the words of purely Japanese origin as opposed to those
derived from Chinese
wagoshi—a poem in new forms using exclusively the words of
Japanese origin
waka—traditional genres of Japanese poetry like tanka, choka,
sedoka etc. Often used instead of the term tanka.
wakankongoshi—a poem in new forms using lexicon of both
Japanese and Chinese origin
wasan—a Buddhist psalm
yakushi—poetic translations
yamatodamashii—“ Yamato spirit”, the crucial concept of Japanese
nationalism
336 THE SILVER AGE OF JAPANESE POETRY
yocho—folk poetry and songs
yoga—Japanese painting using Western techniques that emerged
in the Meiji period (as opposed to the traditionalist nihonga
trend)
yojo—“extra-feeling”, a suggestive element in traditional Japanese
aesthetics
yojosei—suggestiveness in traditional Japanese aesthetics
yokyoku—plays for the Noh theatre
yomihon—a popular genre of mass literature in the Edo period
yoyu—the excessive artistic component (in the aesthetic theory of
Natsume Soseki)
yugen—“the mystic meaning” in the traditional poetics
zekku—“the trimmed stanza”, a sort of sonnet in the poetry of
Japanese Romanticism
Zen—Zen Buddhism
zokugo—“ vulgar lexicon” in the classical poetics
zuihitsu—“following the brush”, an original genre of essay in
medieval and pre-modern Japanese literature
10. Dolin A. A. Seiyo-no shika to mujokan.—“Sogo Bunka” (World
11. Dolin A. A. Shimazaki Toson no shiteki sekai to seiyo bungaku
BIBLIOGRAPHY
IN JAPANESE
1. Abe Unosuke. Miki Rofu kenkyu. V. 4. Tokyo: Nihon tosho
center, 1973.
2. Akatsuka Yukio. Shintaishisho zengo. Tokyo: Gakugeishorin,
1973.
3. Ando Tsuguo. Dentoshi to kindaishi.—“Kindai bungaku kansho
koza”. Tokyo: Kadokawashoten, 1962.
4. Ando Tsuguo. Gendaishi no tenkai. Tokyo: Shichosha, 1958.
5. Ando Yasuhiko. Taisho shi ni okeru hyumanizumu.—“Nihon
gendaishi shi”. V. 2. Tokyo: Yubunsha, 1973.
6. Ayukawa Nobuo. Kindaishi ni okeru “kindai” no ummei.—
“Kindai bungaku kansho koza”. Tokyo: Kadokawashoten, 1962.
7. Doi Bansui, Susukida Kyukin, Kambara Ariake, Miki Rofu.—
“Nihon-no shika”. V. 2,Tokyo: Chuokoronsha, 1969.
8. Dolin A. A. Nihon kindaishi ni okeru kokusaika no seishin.—
Transactions of the UNESCO International Seminar.” The
Fukuoka UNESCO Association Press, Fukuoka, 2008.
9. Dolin A. A. Roshia-no shiteki sekai.—”Gendaishi techo”, 1991,
# 5.
Culture), Tokyo gaikokugo daigaku Sogo bunka kenkyujo han,
1999, # 3.
no eikyo.—“Transactions of the 8th UNESCO International
Seminar.” The Fukuoka UNESCO Association Press, Fukuoka,
1994.
338 THE SILVER AGE OF JAPANESE POETRY
12. Ebizawa Shunji. Meiji bungaku to ei bungaku. Tokyo: Meijishoin,
1968.
13. Enchi Terutake. Gendai nihon shi shi. Tokyo: Shoshinsha, 1958.
14. Fujiwara Morihiko. Meiji ryukoka shi. Tokyo: Shunyodo, 1929.
15. Fukushima Tomoji. Kindaishi no shiso. Tokyo: Kyoikushuppan
center, 1997.
16. Gendai nihon bungaku zenshu. Tokyo: Chikumashobo, 1956.
17. Gendai nihon meishishu taisei. V. 1–12. Tokyo: Sogenshinsha,
1960–1961.
18. Gendai nihon shijin zenshu. V. 1. Tokyo: Sogensha, 1954.
19. Gendai nihon shijin zenshu. V. 1–34. Tokyo: Shinchosha, 1980.
20. Gendai shijin zenshu. V. 1–15. Tokyo: Sogensha, 1966.
21. Gendai shikashu.—“Nihon bungaku zenshu”. Bekkan V. 2.
Tokyo: Kawade shobo, 1973.
22. Gendai-no shijin. V. 1–12. Tokyo: Chuokoronsha, 1983–1964.
23. Gendaishiron taikei. Tokyo: Shichosha, 1966.
24. Haga Tooru. Shika no mori e—nihonshi e no izanai. Tokyo:
Chuokoronshinsha, 2002.
25. Haga Yaichi. Kokubungaku juko. Tokyo: Fuzambo, 1927.
26. Hagiwara Sakutaro. Miki Rofu ippa no shi wo tsuiho seyo.—
“Kindai shikaronshu”. Tokyo: Kadokawashoten, 1978.
27. Hagiwara Sakutaro. Shiron sampen.—“Gendai bungakuron
taikei”. Tokyo: Kawadeshobo, 1955.
28. Hasegawa Izumi (ed.). Kindai nihon bungaku ronso jiten. Tokyo:
Shibundo, 1963.
29. Hasegawa Izumi. Kindai bungaku ronso jiten. Tokyo: Shibundo,
1963.
30. Hasegawa Izumi. Shintaishi no kensei.—“Nihon gendaishi shi”.
V. 1. Tokyo: Yubunshoin, 1973.
31. Hasegawa Izumi. Toson to kirisuto kyo.—“Shimazaki Toson
hikkei”, Tokyo: Gakutosha, 1967.
32. Hinatsu Konosuke. Meiji roman bungaku shi. Tokyo: Chuoko-
ronsha, 1968.
33. Hinatsu Konosuke. Meiji-Taisho shi shi. Tokyo: Shinchosha,
1929.
34. Hinatsu Konosuke. Meiji-Taisho shi shi. V. 1–3. Tokyo: Shin-
chosha, 1929.
35. Hinatsu Konosuke. Shimpishiso to kindaishi. Tokyo: Shunjyusha,
1924.
BIBLIOGRAPHY 339
36. Hirano Ken. Shimazaki Toson. Hito to bungaku. Tokyo:
Shinchosha, 1966.
37. Hirosue Tamotsu. Zen kindai no kanosei. Tokyo: Kage Shobo,
1960.
38. Hisamatsu Senichi, Yoshida Seiichi. Kindai nihon bungaku jiten.
Tokyo: Tokyodoshuppan, 1956.
39. Hisamatsu Senichi. Nihon bungaku shi. Tokyo: Shibundo, 1956.
40. Homma Hisao. Meiji bungaku shi. Tokyo: Tokyodo, 1957.
41. Homma Hisao. Zoku Meiji bungaku shi.—Nihon no bungaku
zenshi. Tokyo: Tokyodo, 1956.
42. Horiguchi Daigaku, Saijo Yaso, Murayama Kaita, Ozaki Kihachi.—
“Nihon no shika”, Tokyo: Chuokoronsha. Tokyo: 1968.
43. Hyoron nempyo.—“Gendai bungakuron taikei”. Tokyo:
Kawadeshobo, 1955.
44. Ikeda Ben. Sato Haruo. Tokyo: Ichigayashuppan, 1951.
45. Ino Kenji. Kindai nihon bungaku shi kenkyu. Tokyo: Miraisya,
1954.
46. Ino Kenji. Kindai nihon-no bungaku. Tokyo: Fukumura shoten,
1954.
47. Ino Kenji. Meiji bungaku shi. Tokyo: Kodansya, 1985.
48. Ino Kenji. Shimazaki Toson. Tokyo: Yushindo, 1963.
49. Irokawa Daikichi. Meijino bungaku. Tokyo: Iwanamishoten,
1982.
50. Ishimaru Hisashi. Gendai nihon bungaku shi. Shiryo to kaisetsu.
Tokyo: Yashima shobo, 1959.
51. Ishimaru Hisashi. Kindaishi. Tokyo: Iwanami shoten, 1958.
52. Ishimaru Hisashi. Shochoshi no inyu to tenkai.—“ Nihon no
gendaishi shi”. V. 1. Tokyo: Yubunsha, 1973.
53. Ishimaru Hisashi. Wakanashu kara rakubaishu e.—“ Shimazaki
Toson kenkyu”. Tokyo: Yuseido Shuppan, 1961.
54. Ito Sei. Kindai nihon bungaku shi. Tokyo: Kobunsha kappa
books, 1958.
55. Ito Sei. Nihon bundan shi. V. 1–4. Tokyo: Kodansha, 1956.
56. Ito Shinkichi. Gendaishi kansho. V. 1–2. Tokyo: Shinchosha, 1971.
57. Ito Shinkichi. Gendaishi no kansho. Tokyo: Shinchosha, 1968.
58. Ito Shinkichi. Shi no sekai. Tokyo: Shakaishisosha, 1967.
59. Ito Yasuji. Moho, bunka, nihonjin. Tokyo: 1952.
60. Iwano Homei. Kogo shi mondai.—“Kindai shikaronshu”. Tokyo:
Kadokawashoten, 1973.
340 THE SILVER AGE OF JAPANESE POETRY
61. Iwano Homei. Sjizenshugiteki hyosho shiron.—“Kindai shika-
ronshu”. Tokyo: Kadokawashoten, 1973.
62. Iwasaki Juntaro. Meiji Bungaku shi. Tokyo: Shubunkanshoten,
1927.
63. Kagami Kunihiko. Dante Gaburieru Rosetti to Meji-no shijintachi.
Tokyo: Bunkashobohakubunsha, 1990.
64. Kagitani Yukinobu. Showa shi ni okeru seio chi no eikyo.—
“Nihon gendaishi shi”. Tokyo: Yubunsha, 1973.
65. Kamei Katsuichiro. Kindai nihon bungaku shiron. Tokyo:
Kobundo, 1954.
66. Kanno Akimasa. Shigaku no sozo. Tokyo: Heibonsha, 2001.
67. Karaki Junzo. Kindai nihon bungaku shiron. Tokyo: Kobundo,
1953.
68. Karaki Junzo. Nihonjin no kokoro no rekishi. V. 1–2. Tokyo:
Chikumashobo, 1970.
69. Kataoka Yoshikazu. Nihon romanshugi bungaku no kenkyu.
Tokyo: Hoseidaigakusyuppankyoku, 1957.
70. Kato Shuichi. Nihon bungaku shi josetsu. V. 2. Tokyo: Chiku-
mashobo, 1980.
71. Katsumoto Seiichiro. Kitamura Tokoku to Bungakukai.—“Nihon
no kindai bungaku”. Tokyo: Yomiurishinbunsha, 1964.
72. Kawaguchi Shinichi. Shin bungaku. Tokyo: Senbundo, 1963.
73. Kawaji Ryuko. Nihon gendaishi. Tokyo: Shokoshisha, 1928.
74. Kawamura Masatatsu. Kitahara Hakushu no sekai. Tokyo:
Shibundo, 1997.
75. Kawazoe Kunimoto. Kindai nihon bungakuron. Tokyo: Waseda
daigaku shuppanbu, 1959.
76. Kemmochi Takeo. Gekishi to jojishi.—“Nihon gendaishi shi.
Koza. V. 1. Tokyo: Yubunshoin, 1973.
77. Kimata Osamu. Hakushu kenkyu. Tokyo: Yakumoshorin, 1943.
78. Kimata Osamu. Myojo ha.—“Nihon no kindaishi”. Tokyo:
Yomiurishinbunsha, 1967.
79. Kindai bungaku kansho. Koza. Tokyo: Kadokawashoten,
1962
80. Kindaishi shu.—Nihon no shika. Tokyo: Chuokoronsha, 1970.
81. Kinoshita Mokutaro, Hinatsu Konosuke, Noguchi Yonejiro, Nishiwaki
Junzaburo.—“Nihon no shika”. Tokyo: Chuokoronsha, 1969.
82. Kinoshita Mokutaro. Shishu Jashumon wo hyo su.—“Kindai
nihon shikaronshu”. Tokyo: Kadokawashoten, 1973.
BIBLIOGRAPHY 341
83. Kitagawa Tooru. Shi no kindai wo koeru mono. Tokyo: Shi-
chosha, 2000.
84. Kitahara Hakushu.—“Nihon no shika”. Tokyo: Chuokoronsha,
1968.
85. Kitahara Hakushu. “Shokugo no uta”. Jo.—“Kindai shika-
ronshu”. Tokyo: Kadokawashoten, 1973.
86. Kitahara Hakushu. Jiden.—“Sakka no jiden”. V. 27. Tokyo:
Nihontosho center, 1995.
87. Kitahara Hakushu. Kosatsu no aki.—“Kindai shikaronshu”.
Tokyo: Kadokawashoten, 1973.
88. Kitamura Tokoku shu. “Nihon gendai bungaku zenshu. Tokyo:
Kaizosha, 1927.
89. Kitamura Tokoku zenshu. V. 1–3. Tokyo: Iwanamishoten, 1960.
90. Kitamura Tokoku. Tokugawa jidai-no heiminteki riso.—“Gendai
bungakuron taikei”. Tokyo: Kawadeshobo, 1954.
91. Kiyohara Sadao. Meiji shoki Bunka shi. Tokyo: Kenbunkan, 1935.
92. Kobori Keiichiro. Mori Ogai to E. Hartman.—“Nihon kindai
bungaku no hikaku bungakuteki kenkyu”. Tokyo: Shimizu-
kobundoshobo, 1971.
93. Kojima Masajiro. Mori Ogai kenkyu.—“Nihon bungaku koza”.
V. 16. Tokyo: Shinchosha, 1928.
94. Konosu Yukiko. Meiji Taisho honyuaku wandarando. Tokyo:
Shinchosha, 2005.
95. Koumi Eiji. Gendaishi nyumon. Tokyo: Yamatoshobo, 1970.
96. Koyama Shin’ichi. Nihon shika no taikei. Tokyo: 1925.
97. Koza nihon kindai bungaku shi (Odagiri Hideo hen). V. 1–2.
Tokyo: Otsukishoten, 1956.
98. Kubota Hanya. Nihon no shocho shijin. Tokyo: Kinokuniya-
shoten, 1963.
99. Kuroda Saburo. Shi ni okeru kotoba to keishiki no mondai.—
“Kindai bungaku kansho koza”. Tokyo: Kadokawashoten,
1962.
100. Kuwabara Takeo. Dento to kindai. Tokyo: BungeiShunjyu,
1972.
101. Maeda Ai. Meiji no kanshi.—“Nihon gendaishi shi koza”. V. 1.
Tokyo: Yubunshoin, 1973.
102. Manyoshu. Tokyo: Ofusha, 1973.
103. Maruyama Masao. Nihon no shiso. Tokyo: Iwanamishoten,
1963.
342 THE SILVER AGE OF JAPANESE POETRY
104. Matsubara Tsutomu. Nihon kindaishi no jojo kozo ron. Tokyo:
Izumishoin, 1994.
105. Matsumura Midori. Susukida Kyukin. Tokyo: Kadokawashoten,
1957.
106. Matsunaga Goichi. Kitahara Hakushu. Sono seishun to fudo.
Tokyo: Nihonhososhuppankyokai, 1981.
107. Meiji bungaku no ga to zoku. Tokyo: Iwanamishoten, 2001.
108. Meiji bunka shi. Koza. V. 1–10. Tokyo: Yoyosha, 1954–1955.
109. Meiji bunka zenshu. V. 20. (Bungaku, geijutsu). Tokyo: Nihon-
hyoronsha, 1967.
110. Meiji no Nihon.—“Nihon no rekishi” (Okada Fumio et al.
hen). V. 11. Tokyo: Yomiurishinbunsha, 1958.
111. Meiji-Taisho yakushishu. Tokyo: Kadokawashoten, 1971.
112. Miki Rofu, Kinoshita Mokutaro, Ishikawa Takuboku, Takamura
Kotaro.—“Gendai nihon shijin zenshu”. Tokyo: Sogensha,
1955.
113. Miki Rofu. Shiwa. Tokyo: Nihontosho center, 1993.
114. Miki Rofu. Toyo shuki.—“Kindai shikaronshu”. Tokyo:
Kadokawashoten, 1973.
115. Miura Jin. Kenkyu Rofu, Saisei no jojoshi. Tokyo: Akiyama-
shoten, 1978.
116. Miyagawa Toru. Gendai nihon shiso shi. V. 1–3. Tokyo:
Aokishoten, 1971.
117. Miyoshi Tatsuji. Shijin no shogai (Hagiwara Sakutaro). Tokyo:
Chikumashobo, 1949.
118. Miyoshi Yukio. Bunjin no shi—“Nihon no shika”. V. 16
(appendix). Tokyo: Chuokoronsha, 1968.
119. Morita Sanetoshi. Miki Rofu kenkyu. Tokyo: Meijishoin, 1999.
120. Muramatsu Takeshi. Doi Bansui—shijin no shozo.—Nihon no
shika. Tokyo: Chuokoronsha 1969.
121. Muramatsu Takeshi. Susukida Kyukin, Kambara Ariake,
Miki Rofu—shijin no shozo.—“Nihon no shika”. Tokyo:
Chuokoronsha, 1969.
122. Muroo Saisei. Waga aisuru shijin no denki. Tokyo: Shinchosha,
1966.
123. Nakajima Yoichi. Shochoshi. Shochoshugi no shintenkai.—
“Nihon gendaishi shi. Koza”. V. 2. Tokyo: Yubunshoin, 1973.
124. Nakamura Mitsuo. Nihon no kindaika to bungaku.—“Nihon
no bungaku shi”. Tokyo: Iwanamishoten, 1959.
BIBLIOGRAPHY 343
125. Nakano Yoshio. Doi Bansui.—“Gendai nihon bungaku
zenshu”. Tokyo: Chikumashobo, 1957.
126. Nihon bungaku daijiten (V. 1–5, Fujimura Tsukuru hen).
Tokyo: Shinchosha, 1935.
127. Nihon bungaku daijiten. Tokyo: Kasamashoin, 1976.
128. Nihon bungaku shi (Hisamatsu Senichi hen). Tokyo: Shi-
bundo, 1961.
129. Nihon bungaku shi. V. 1–13. Tokyo: Iwanamishoten, 1996.
130. Nihon bungaku shojiten. Tokyo: Shinchosha, 1973.
131. Nihon bunka no rekishi. V. 12. Taishop-Showa. Tokyo:
Shogakukan, 1981.
132. Nihon gendaishi shi (Murano Shiro, Seki Ryoichi, Hasegawa
Izumi hen). V. 1–4. Tokyo: Yubunshoin, 1973.
133. Nihon gendaishi taikei. V. 1–14. Tokyo: Kawadeshoboshinsha,
1974–1976.
134. Nihon kindai bungaku to gaikoku bungaku. Tokyo: Yomiu-
rishinbunsha, 1969.
135. Nihon meishi shusei—kindaishi kara gendaishi made. Tokyo:
Gakutosha, 1996.
136. Nihon no shijin zenshu (kindaishi, gendaishi). V. 1–34. Tokyo:
Shinchosha, 1966–1980.
137. Nihon no shika. V. 1–31. Tokyo: Chuokoronsha, 1967–1971.
138. Noda Utaro. Kishi no akashiya. Kinoshita Mokutaro bungaku
nyumon. Tokyo: Gakufushoin, 1955.
139. Noda Utaro. Pan no kai to tambiha shijin no tanjo.—“Nihon
gendaishi shi”. V. 1. Tokyo: Yubunsha, 1973.
140. Odagiri Hideo. Gendai bungaku shi. Tokyo: Shueisha, 1975.
141. Odagiri Hideo. Nihon kindaishi no ayumi. Tokyo: Ondori-
shinsho, 1978.
142. Odagiri Hideo. Tokoku ron.—“Meji no sakkatachi”. V. 1.
Tokyo: Eihosha, 1955.
143. Okano Takeo. Meiji no bunjin. Tokyo: Sekkasha, 1963.
144. Ono Shigeki. Wakaki hi no Kunikida Doppo. Tokyo: Aporonsha,
1960.
145. Ooka Makoto. Kindaishi no jojo.—“Kindai bungaku kansho
koza”. Tokyo: Kadokawashoten, 1962.
146. Ooka Makoto. Nihon no shika. Umi to seseragi. Tokyo: Iwana-
mishoten, 1985.
344 THE SILVER AGE OF JAPANESE POETRY
147. Saeki Junko. “Iro” to “ai” no hikaku bunka shi. Tokyo:
Iwanamishoten, 1998.
148. Saito Kiyoe. Nihon bungei shicho zenshi. Tokyo: Nanun-
doofusha, 1963.
149. Saito Shinji (hen). Meiji bungaku no sekai—kyozo toshite no
shin seiki. Tokyo: Kashiwashobo, 2001.
150. Sakakibara Yoshibumi. Kindai nihon bungaku no kenkyu.
Tokyo: Ochanomizushobo, 1956.
151. Sakamoto Hiroshi. Kitamura Tokoku. Tokyo: Shibundo, 1957.
152. Sasada Kazuo. Kinoshita Mokutaro. Hinatsu Konosuke.
Noguchi Yonejiro. Nishiwaki Junzaburo . Shijin no shozo.—
“Nihon no shika”. V. 12. Tokyo: Chuokoronsha, 1969.
153. Sasafuchi Tomoichi. Bungakukai to sono jidai. V. 1–2. Tokyo:
Meijishoin, 1963.
154. Sasafuchi Tomoichi. Toson to tairiku bungaku.—“Nihon kindai
bungaku to gaikoku bungaku”. Tokyo: Yomiurishinbunsha,
1969.
155. Sasaki Hachiro (hen). Heike Monogatari. V. 1. Tokyo:
Meijishoin, 1963.
156. Sato Haruo.—“Nihon no shika”. Tokyo: Chuokoronsha, 1968.
157. Sato Haruo. Jiden. Tokyo: Nihontosho center, 1994.
158. Sato Haruo. Kindai nihon bungaku no tembo. Tokyo:
Kawadeshobo, 1956.
159. Sawa Hamajiro. Shi ni okeru inritsu.—“Gendaishi nyumon:”
Tokyo: Shinkoshuppansha, 1957.
160. Seki Ryoichi. Dento shika to kindaishi.—“Nihon gendaishi shi.
Koza.” Tokyo: Yubunshoin, 1973.
161. Seki Ryoichi. Kindaishi no keitai to seiritsu. Tokyo: Kyoiku-
shuppan center, 1976.
162. Shibuzawa Kosuke. Kambara Ariake—“Kindaishi no shukumei
to isan”. Tokyo: Chuokoronsha, 1980.
163. Shimazaki Toson. Imbun ni tsuite.—“Gendai bungakuron
taikei”. Tokyo: Kawadeshobo, 1955.
164. Shimazaki Toson. Kenyusha.—“Gendai bungakuron taikei”.
Tokyo: Kawadeshobo, 1954.
165. Shimazaki Toson. Soshun. Tokyo: Shinchosha, 1942.
166. Shimazaki Toson. Zenshu. Tokyo: Chikumashobo, 1956.
167. Shioda Ryohei. Koten to Meiji igo no bungaku.—“Nihon
bungaku shi”. Tokyo: Iwanamishoten, 1959.
BIBLIOGRAPHY 345
168. Shioda Ryohei. Meiji bungangaku shi. Tokyo: Keiotsushin,
1957.
169. Shioda Ryohei. Meiji no bungaku. Tokyo: Kawadeshobo, 1957.
170. Shiron. Karon. Hairon.—“Kindai bungaku hyoron taikei”.
V. 8. Tokyo: Kadokawashoten, 1978.
171. Showa hihyo taikei. V. 1–4. Tokyo: Banchoshobo, 1968.
172. Showa shi shi e no kokoromi. Tokyo: Chobunsha, 1993.
173. Sugaya Kikuo. Shiteki rizumu. Onsuritsu ni kansuru noto.
Tokyo: Yamatoshobo, 1981.
174. Sugimoto Kuniko. Kitahara Hakushu kenkyu. Tokyo: Meiji-
shoin, 1954.
175. Sugimoto Kuniko. Meji no bungei zasshi—sono kiseki wo
tadoru. Tokyo: Meijishoin, 1999.
176. Susukida Kyukin. Kambara Ariake. Irako Seihaku. Kitahara
Hakushu.—“Gendai nihon shijin zenshu”. V. 1. Tokyo:
Tokyosogensha, 1954.
177. Takada Mizuo. Nihon Kindaishi shi. Tokyo: Waseda daigaku
shuppanbu, 1980.
178. Takamura Kotaro.—“Nihon no shika”. V. 10. Tokyo: Chuoko-
ronsha, 1967.
179. Takamura Kotaro. Kitahara Hakushu no “Omoide’.—“Gendai
bungakuron taikei”. Tokyo: Kawadeshobo, 1955.
180. Takamura Kotaro. Senshu. V. 1–6. Tokyo: Shunjusha, 1966.
181. Takayama Chogyu. Moro ha no shijin ni atau. “Gendai
bungakuron taikei”. Tokyo: Kawadeshobo, 1955.
182. Terada Tooru. Kindai nihon bungaku to nihongo.—“Nihon
bungaku shi”. V. 13, part 3. Tokyo: Iwanamishoten, 1959.
183. Teruoka Yasutaka. Kinsei bungaku no tembo. Tokyo: Meijishoin,
1953.
184. Togawa Shukotsu. Jinkei. Wakanashu hisho.—“Gendai
bungakuron taikei”. V. 7. Tokyo: Kawadeshobo, 1955.
185. Togawa Shukotsu. Kinnen no bunkai ni okeru ancho.—“Gendai
bungakuron taikei”. Tokyo: Kawadeshobo, 1954.
186. Tsuboi Shigeji. Gendaishi annai. Tokyo: Wakosha, 1966.
187. Tsuchikata Sadaichi. Seio bungaku no eikyo.—“Kindai no
bungaku zenki”. Tokyo: Gendaikyoyobunko, 1959.
188. Tsutsui Kiyotada. Saijo Yaso. Tokyo: Chuokoronshinsha, 2005.
189. Ueda Bin. “Kaichoon”. Jo.—“Gendai bungakuron taikei.” V. 7.
Tokyo: Kawadeshobo, 1955.
346 THE SILVER AGE OF JAPANESE POETRY
190. Ueda Hiroshi (hen).—Taisho bungaku shi. Tokyo: Koyoshobo,
2001.
191. Ueda Hiroshi. Meiji bungaku shi. Tokyo: Koyoshobo, 1998.
192. Ueda Hiroshi. Meiji bungeikan. V. 1–5. Tokyo: Soganoshoin,
2005.
193. Wada Noriko. Miki Rofu. Akatombo no jyokei. Tokyo: Kobe
shinbun sogo shuppan center, 1999
194. Yaku shi shu.—“Nihon no shika”. V. 28. Tokyo: Chuo-
koronsha, 1969.
195. Yamamura Bocho, Hagiwara Sakutaro, Hinatsu konosuke,
Fukushi Kojiro.—„Gendai nihon shijin zenshu“. Tokyo:
Tokyosogensha, 1953.
196. Yanagida Izumi (hen). Zadankai Meiji-Taisho bungaku shi.
V. 1–6, Tokyo: Iwanamishoten, 2000.
197. Yanagida Izumi, Katsumoto Seiichiro, Ino Kenji. Zadankai Meiji
bungaku shi. Tokyo: Iwanamishoten, 1961.
198. Yanagida Izumi. Meiji no shomotsu. Meiji no hito. Tokyo:
Togensha, 1963.
199. Yano Minebito. Kambara Ariake kenkyu. Tokyo: Kokuritsu-
shoin, 1948.
200. Yasuda Yasuo. Ueda Bin kenkyu. Tokyo: Yashimashoin, 1958.
201. Yasuoka Shotaro. Sato Haruo. Shijin no shozo.—“Nihon no
shika”. V. 16. Tokyo: Chuokoronsha, 1968.
202. Yokogi Tokuhisa. Kitahara Hakushu. Kindaishi no toporoji.
Tokyo: Shichosha, 1989.
203. Yokoyama Seiga. Nihon shika no keitaigakuteki kenkyu. Tokyo:
Musashino Shoin, 1959.
204. Yoshida Issui. Kitahara Hakushu. Shijin no shozo.—“Nihon
no shika”. V. 9. Tokyo: Chuokoronsha, 1968.
205. Yoshida Seiichi (ed.) Nihon kindai bungaku no hikaku
bungakuteki kenkyu. Tokyo: Shimizukobun Syobo, 1971.
206. Yoshida Seiichi. Bungakukai jidai no Toson.—“Shimazaki
Toson kenkyu”. Tokyo: Tokyodo, 1961.
207. Yoshida Seiichi. Gendai bungaku to koten. Tokyo: Shibundo,
1961.
208. Yoshida Seiichi. Kansho Gendaishi. Tokyo: Chikumashobo, 1966.
209. Yoshida Seiichi. Kindai nihon bungaku shi. Meiji-Taisho hen.
Tokyo: Yamada Shoten, 1957.
210. Yoshida Seiichi. Kindaishi. Tokyo: Shibundo, 1951.
BIBLIOGRAPHY 347
211. Yoshida Seiichi. Nihon kindaishi kansho. V. 1–3. Tokyo:
Sotakusya, 1990.
212. Yoshida Seiichi. Shintaishi kara shoki romanshugi.—“Nihon
no kindaishi”. Tokyo: Yomiurishinbunsha, 1967.
213. Yoshida Seiichi. Toson meishi no kansho. Tokyo: Kawadesyobo,
1955.
214. Yoshida Seiichi. Toson to koten.—“Shimazaki Toson hikkei”.
Tokyo: Gakutosya, 1967.
215. Yoshimoto Takaaki. Kindai seishin no shiteki tenkai. Tokyo:
Gendaishichosha, 1962.
IN EUROPEAN LANGUAGES
216. Ackroyd J. An Attempt at a Reassessment of the Poetry of
Shimazaki Toson with Special Reference to Problems of
Translation.—“Studies on Japanese Culture”. Vol. 1. Tokyo:
Japan PEN Club, 1973.
217. Acquisto J. French Symbolist Poetry And the Idea of Music.
Aldershot: Ashgate Pub. Co., 2006.
218. Adam A. Verlaine. L’homme et l’oeuvre. Paris: Hatier-Boivin,
1953.
219. Allais G. Quelques vues générales sur le romantisme Français.
Paris: Société française d’imprimerie et de librairie, 1897.
220. Allen J. S. Popular French Romanticism: Authors, Readers,
and Books in the 19th Century. Syracuse: Syracuse University
Press, 1981.
221. Arthur Rimbaud. Complete works, selected letters. Chicago:
Chicago University Press, 2005.
222. Austin L. J. L’univers poétique de Baudelaire. Paris: Mercure
de France, 1956.
223. Barre A. Symbolisme: Essai Historique sur le Movement Sym-
boliste en France de 1885 à 1900. New York: Franklin, 1967.
224. Bate W. J. John Keats. London: The Hogarth Press Ltd., 1992.
225. Baudelaire Ch. Les Fleurs du mal. Paris: Gallimard, 1964.
226. Beach J. B. The Concept of Nature in Nineteenth Century
English Poetry. New York: Russell and Russell, 1966.
227. Beers A. H. A History of English Romanticism in the Nine-
teenth Century. New York: Dover, 1968.
348 THE SILVER AGE OF JAPANESE POETRY
228. Bellah R. H. Beyond Belief. Essays on Religion in a Post-
Traditional World. New York: Harper and Row, 1970.
229. Bellah R. H. Protestant Ethic in Japan. New York, 1972.
230. Birkhead E. Christina Rossetti & Her Poetry. New York: Ams
Pr. Inc., 1974.
231. Blanchot M. L’ éspace littéraire. Paris: Gallimard, 1955.
232. Blyth R. H. Zen and Zen Classics. Vol. 1–5. Tokyo: The
Hokuseido Press, 1960–1970.
233. Bonneau G. Histoire de la littérature Japonaise contemporaine
(1868–1938). Paris, 1948.
234. Bonneau G. Le problème de la poésie Japоnaise. Paris: Ed.
Librairie Paul Geuthner, 1938.
235. Bonneau G. Le symbolisme dans la poésie française contem-
poraine. Paris: Boivin & Cie, 1930.
236. Bonneau G. Lyrisme du temps present. Paris: Ed. Librairie Paul
Geuthner, 1935.
237. Brookner A. Romanticism and Its Discontents. New York:
Farrar Straus & Giroux, 2000.
238. Brower R., Miner E. Formative Elements in the Japanese Poetic
Tradition.—“Japan” (Enduring scholarship selected from
“The Far Eastern Quarterly — The Journal of Asian Studies”,
1941–1971). Thirtieth anniversary commemorative series.
Vol. 2. Tucson: University of Arisona Press, 1972.
239. Brower R., Miner E. Japanese Court Poetry. Stanford: Stanford
University Press, 1961.
240. Bryan J. I. The Literature of Japan. London: Thornton
Butterworth, 1929.
241. Byron G. G. Selected Poetry of Lord Byron. New York: Modern
Library, 2001.
242. Cellier L. Mallarmé et la mort qui parle. Paris: Presses univer-
sitaires de France, 1959.
243. Chadwick Ch. Études sur Rimboud. Paris: Nizet, 1960.
244. Chadwick Ch. Symbolism (Critical Idiom). London: Methuen,
1973.
245. Clark U. M. Cult of Enthusiasm in French Romanticism
(Catholic University of America. Studies in Romance Langua-
ges and Literatures, No 37). New York: Ams Pr Inc; Reprint
ed., 1950.
BIBLIOGRAPHY 349
246. Clubbe J., Lovell E. J. English Romanticism. Chicago: The Uni-
versity of Chicago Press, 1983.
247. Curran S. (ed.) The Cambridge Companion to British Roman-
ticism. New York: Cambridge University Press, 1993.
248. Daiches D. Poetry and the Modern World. Chicago: University
of Chicago Press, 1940.
249. Doak K. M. Dreams of Difference: The Japan Romantic School
and the Crisis of Modernity. Berkeley: University of California
Press, 1994.
250. Dolin A. A. Man and Society in Modern Japanese poetry //
Asiatische Studien. Bern; Frankfurt am Main, XXXVI, 1, 1982.
251. Dolin A. Japanese Alternative—Emergence of the Symbolist
Concept. Tokyo: Tokyo University of Foreign Studies Research
Publications, 1999. № 58.
252. Dolin A. On the Individual and Conventional in Modern
Japanese Poetry. Tokio: Tokyo University of Foreign Studies
Research Publications. 1997. № 55.
253. Dolin A. The Image of Russia in Japanese Poetry—Sogo bunka
kenkyu (World Culture Studies). Tokyo: Tokyo University of
Foreign Studies 2002. № 4.
254. Dolin A. Translations of Classical Japanese Poetry in the West:
the Russian Experience. Tokyo: Tokyo University of Foreign
Studies Research Publications. 1996. № 52.
255. Draper J. W. The Funeral Elegy and the Rise of English
Romanticism. New York: Octagon Books, 1967.
256. Eagleton T. Literary Theory: An Introduction. Oxford:
Blackwell Publishers, 1985.
257. F. W. J. Schelling. Texte zur Philosophie der Kunst. Stuttgart:
Reclam Philipp Jun., 1982.
258. Fitzsimmons T. Japanese Poetry Now. London: Rapp &
Whiting, 1972.
259. Florenz K. Dichtengrüsse aus dem Osten. Japanische Dich-
tungen. Leipzig, 1896.
260. Florenz K. Geschichte der Japanischen Literatur. Leipzig:
Amelang, 1906.
261. Fowlie W. Poem and Symbol: A Brief History of French
Symbolism. Pittsburgh: Pennsylvania State University Press.,
1990.
350 THE SILVER AGE OF JAPANESE POETRY
262. Friedman D. F. An Anthology of Belgian Symbolist Poets
(Belgian Francophone Library, V. 15) New York: Peter Lang
Pub. Inc. 2003.
263. Frodsham J. D. Landscape Poetry in China and Europe—
“Comparative Literature”. Eugene, University of Oregon. Vol.
19, 1967. № 3.
264. Fukasawa M. B. Kitahara Hakushu: His Life and Poetry. Ithaca:
East Asia Program Cornell University, 1993.
265. Gaull M. English Romanticism: The Human Context. New
York: W. W. Norton & Co Inc., 1988.
266. Gleckner R. F. Critical Essays on Lord Byron. Boston, Mass.:
G. K. Hall, 1991.
267. Gourmont R. de The Book of Masks: An Anthology of French
Symbolist & Decadent Writing. London: Atlas Press, 1995.
268. Gundert W. Die Japanische Literatur. Wildpark-Potsdam:
Athenaion, 1929.
269. Harding D. W. Shelley’s Poetry—“From Blake to Byron”.
London: Pelican Books, 1957.
270. Hauser O. Die Japanische Lyrik von 1880–1900. Eine Studie
und Übersetzungen. Buchbeschreibung: Grossenhain, verlegt
bei Baumert & Ronge, 1904.
271. Hefferman J. A. W. Wordsworth’s Theory of Poetry. Ithaca,
N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 1969.
272. Heidegger M. Poetry, Language, Thought. New York: Harper
and Row, 1971.
273. Heine H. Lesebuch, Weimar: Volksverlag, 1956.
274. Hisamatsu Senichi. Biographical Dictionary of Japanese
Literature. Tokyo: Kodansha, 1976.
275. Hueffer F. M. Rossetti. A Critical Essay on his Art. London:
Duckworth & Co. [1902 ]
276. Hugo V. Les rayons et les ombres—Oeuvres completes. V. 6.
Paris: Club français du livre, 1967.
277. Hugo V. Selected Poems of Victor Hugo: A Bilingual Edition.
Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2001.
278. Hull A. English Romanticism. London: Minerva, 2000.
279. Janeira A. M. Japanese and Western Literature: a Comparative
Study. Rutland (Vermont): C. E. Tuttle Co., 1970.
280. Jarvis F. The Rainbow Shell: English Poetry from Rossetti to
Kipling. Sussex, England: Book Guild Ltd., 1996.
BIBLIOGRAPHY 351
281. Jimenez N. Bible and the Poetry of Christina Rossetti: A
Concordance. Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Pub Group, 1979.
282. Johnston K. R. The Age of William Wordsworth: Critical
Essays on the Romantic Tradition. New Brunswick: Rutgers
University Press, 1987.
283. Kato Shuichi. A History of Japanese Literature. V. 1–3, Tokyo;
New York: Kodasha International, 1983.
284. Keats J. Complete Poems and Selected Letters of John Keats
(Modern Library Classics). New York: Modern Library; 2001.
285. Keats J. Complete Poems. Cambridge: Belknap Pr., 1982.
286. Keene D. Dawn to the West (Japanese Literature of the
Modern Era. Poetry, Drama, Criticism). New York: Columbia
University Press, 1984.
287. Keene D. Landscapes and Portraits: Appreciation of Japanese
Culture. Palo Alto; Tokyo: Kodansha, 1971.
288. Kimura K. Japanese Literature; Manners and Customs in the
Meiji–Taisho Era. Tokyo: Obunsha, 1957.
289. Kosaka M. Japanese Thought in the Meiji Era // Japanese
Culture in the Meiji Era. Tokyo: Pan-Pacific Press, 1958.
290. Kuni M. Histoire de la Litterature Japonaise. Paris: Société
d’Edition Les Belles Lettres, 1935.
291. Kuni M., Steinliber-Oberlin. Anthologie des poètes japonaises
contemporains. Paris: Mercure de France, 1939.
292. Kunitomo T. Japanese Literature since 1868. Tokyo: The
Hokuseido Press, 1938.
293. Lowler J. R. Language of French Symbolism. Princeton, New
Jersey: Princeton University Press, 1969.
294. Mainer E. The Japanese Tradition in British and American
Literature. Princeton, New Jersey: Princeton University Press,
1958.
295. Mallarmé St. Oeuvres complètes. Paris: Gallimard, 1945.
296. McGuinness P. Symbolism, Decadence and the Fin De Siècle:
French and European Perspectives. Exeter, U. K.: University
of Exeter Press, 2000.
297. Meeus A. de. Le romantisme. Paris: Occasion, 1948.
298. Michaud G. Mallarmé : l’homme et l’oeuvre. Paris: Hatier-
Boivin, 1953.
299. Michaud G. Message poétique du symbolisme. V. 1–3. Paris:
Librairie Nizet, 1961.
352 THE SILVER AGE OF JAPANESE POETRY
300. Miller J. W. English Romanticism and Chinese Nature
Poetry—Comparative Literature. Eugene: University of
Oregon. Vo. 24. 1972. № 3.
301. Miner E. An Introduction to Japanese Court Poetry. Stanford,
Stanford University Press, 1968.
302. Miyamori A. Han Anthology of Japanese Poems. Tokyo,
Maruzen, 1938.
303. Morton L. Modernism in Practice. An Introduction to Post-war
Japanese Poetry. Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 2004.
304. Muccioli M. La letteratura giapponese. La letteratura coreana.
Milano: Accademia, 1969.
305. Nadal P. Verlaine. Paris: Mercure de France, 1961.
306. Nakamura M. Japanese Fiction in the Meiji Era.—Series on
Japanese Life and culture. V. 13. Tokyo: Kokusai Bunka
Shinkokai, 1968.
307. Noguchi Y. The Spirit of Japanese Poetry. London: J. Murray,
1914.
308. Okazaki Y. Japanese Literature in the Meiji Era. Tokyo:
Obunsha, 1955.
309. Okazaki Y. The Namban Art of Japan. Tokyo, New York:
Kodansha International, 1972.
310. Peer L. H. Recent Perspectives on European Romanticism.
Mellen Studies in Literature. Romantic Reassessment. V. 158.
Lewiston, New York: Edwin Mellen Press, 2002.
311. Plowert J. Petit Glossaire Pour Servir a L’Intelligence Des
Auteurs Decadents et Symbolistes. Exeter, U. K.: University of
Exeter Press, 1998.
312. Porter L. M. The Renaissance of the Lyric in French
Romanticism: Elegy, “Poéme” and Ode. Lexington: French
Forum, 1978.
313. Porter L. The Crisis of French Symbolism. Ithaca, N. Y.: Cornell
University Press, 1990.
314. Quincey T. de. Reminiscences of the English Lake Poets.
London: J. M. Dent & Sons Ltd; New York: E. P. Dutton & Co.
Inc, 1929. Reprint edition.
315. Raymond J., Watson J. R. (ed.) A Handbook to English
Romanticism. London: Patgrave Macmillan, 1992.
316. Reishauer Ed. O. Japan. The History of a Nation. Tokyo: Charles
E. Tuttle Co, 1981.
BIBLIOGRAPHY 353
317. Remak H. H. West-European Romanticism. Definition and
Scope // Comparative Literature: Method and Perspective.
Illinois: Southern Illinois University Press, 1961.
318. Riede D. G. Critical Essays on Dante Gabriel Rossetti. New
York: G. K. Hall, 1992.
319. Riede D. G. Dante Gabriel Rossetti Revisited. Farmington Hills,
Michigan: Twayne Pub., 1992.
320. Rimbaud A. Poésies. Paris: Garnier, 1963.
321. Rodrigues A. Book of the Heart: The Poetics, Letters, and Life
of John Keats (Studies in Imagination). Lindisfarne Pr., 1993.
322. Rossetti C. G. The Complete Poems. New York: Penguin, USA,
2001.
323. Rossetti C. Goblin Market and Other Poems. London:
Everyman, 1994.
324. Rossetti D. G. Poems and Translations. London: Macmillan &
Co, 1914.
325. Saarinen V.-M. The Daybreak and Nightfall of Literature:
Friedrich Schlegel’s Idea of Romantic Literature: Between
Productive Fantasy and Reflection. Frankfurt am Main; New
York: Peter Lang Pub Inc., 2007.
326. Sabin M. English Romanticism and the French Tradition.
Massachusetts: Harvard University Press, 1976.
327. Saito T. English Literature in Japan: a Sketch—“Western
Influences in Modern Japan”. Chicago: University of Chicago
Press, 1931.
328. Sansom G. B. Japan. A Short Cultural History. New York:
Appleton-Century-Crofts, Inc., 1943.
329. Sansom G. B. The Western World and Japan., New York:
Knopf, 1950.
330. Sartre J. P. Baudelaire. Paris: Gallimard, 1947.
331. Schelling F. W. J. F. W. J. Schelling Ueber Das Wesen Der
Menschlichen Freiheit. Stuttgart: Reclam, 1995.
332. Schenk H. G. The Mind of the European Romantics. London:
Constable, 1966.
333. Schlegel F. von. Athenaums-Fragmente und andere Schriften.
Stuttgart: Philipp Reclam, 1998.
334. Schwantes R. S. Christianity versus Science, A Conflict of Ideas
in Meiji Japan—“Japan” (Enduring scholarship selected from
“The Far Eastern Quarterly — The Journal of Asian Studies”,
354 THE SILVER AGE OF JAPANESE POETRY BIBLIOGRAPHY 355

1941–1971). Thirtjeth anniversary commemorative series. IN RUSSIAN

Vol. 2. Tucson: University of Arisona Press, 1972.
335. Shelley P. B. Shelley: Selected Poetry and Prose. London: 353. Anthology of the World Philosophy. V. 1–5. Moscow: Mysl,
Routledge (Routledge English Texts), 1991. 1971.
336. Shelley P. B. The Complete Poetical Works. Oxford: Oxford 354. Artists on the Art. Selected Excerpts from the Letters, Speeches
University Press, 1979. and Treatises (translations in 5 volumes). Moscow: Iskusstvo,
337. Smith R. C. Mallarme’s Children: Symbolism and the Renewal 1967.
of Experience. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2000. 355. Bakhtin M. M. The Problems of Literature and Aesthetics.
338. Sources of Japanese Tradition. V. 1–2, New York: Columbia Moscow: Khudozhestvennaya literatura, 1975.
University Press, 1958. 356. Bakhtin M. M. To the Aesthetics of the Word.—“Context 1973.
339. Stanford D. Movements in English Poetry: 1900–1958. London: Studies in Literary Theory”. Moscow: Nauka, 1974.
Centaur Press, 1959. 357. Balashova T. V. French Poetry of the XX c. Moscow: Nauka,
340. Suzuki D. T. Essays in Zen Buddhism. London: Luzac, 1934. 1982.
341. The Lake Poets. Clapham, Lancaster: Dalesman Publishing Co 358. Balmont K. Selected Poems. Moscow: Khudozhestvennaya
Ltd., 1983. literatura, 1980.
342. The Odes of Keats and Shelley. Mount Vernon: Peter Pauper 359. Barabash Y. Ya. The Problems of Aesthetics and Poetics.
Press, 1937. Moscow: Sovremennik, 1983.
343. The Oxford Book of English Verse of the Romantic Period. 360. Basin E. Semantic Philosophy of Art. Moscow: Mysl, 1973.
Oxford: Clarendon Pr., 1974. 361. Bible. Moscow: Izdanie Moskovskoy Patriarkhii, 1979.
344. Ueda Makoto. Literary and Art Theories in Japan. Cleveland: 362. Boronina I. A. Poetics of the Classical Japanese Verse. Moscow:
Press of Western Reserve University, 1967. Nauka, 1978.
345. Ueda Makoto. Modern Japanese Poets and the Nature of 363. Brandes M. P. Stylistic Analyses. Moscow: Vysshaya Shkola,
Literature. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1983. 1971.
346. Verlaine P. Poésies. M.: Прогресс, 1977. 364. Bryusov V. Ya. Selected Works in 2 volumes. Moscow: Go-
347. Waldman S. The Demon & the Damozel: Dynamics of Desire sudarstvennoe izdatel’stvo khudozhestvennoy literatury,
in the Works of Christina Rossetti and Dante Gabriel Rossetti. 1955.
Athenes: Ohio University Press, 2008. 365. Bugaeva D. P. Japanese Publicists of the Late XIX c. Moscow:
348. Walsh W. John Keats—“From Blake to Byron”. London: Nauka, 1978.
Chatto and Windus, 1957. 366. Bugaeva D. P. The Emergence of the Literary Group
349. Walzer P. O. Essai sur Stéphane Mallarmé. Paris: Seghers, “Bungakukai”.—“Problems of Philology of Asian and
1966. African Countries, Leningrad: Izdatel’stvo Leningradskogo
350. Whitman W. the Complete Poetry and Prose. V. 1–2. New York: universiteta, 1966.
The Modern Library, 1948. 367. Cherkassky L. E. New Chinese Poetry (20-30th of the XX c.).
351. Winkler R. O. C. Wordsworth’s Poetry—“From Blake to Moscow: Glavnaya redaktsiya vostochnoy literatury izda-
Byron”. London: Chatto and Windus, 1957. tel’stva «Nauka», 1972.
352. Wordsorth J., Jave M. C. William Wordsworth and the Age of 368. Davidov Yu. N. Art as a Phenomenon of Socilogy. Moscow:
English Romanticism. New Brunswick: Rutgers University Nauka, 1968.
Press, 1987. 369. Dolin A. A. A Prophet in his own Land. Moscow: Nasledie,
2002.
356 THE SILVER AGE OF JAPANESE POETRY
370. Dolin A. A. Essays on Modern Japanese Poetry. Moscow:
Glavnaya redaktsiya vostochnoy literatury izdatel’stva
«Nauka», 1984.
371. Dolin A. A. History of New Japanese Poetry (in 4 volumes).
St.Petersburg: Hiperion, 2007.
372. Dolin A. A. Japanese Poetry in the West: Translation—
Adaptation—Stylization.—“Interaction of Cultures: East-
West”, Moscow: Nauka, 1974
373. Dolin A. A. Japanese Romanticism and the Formation of New
Poetry. Moscow: Nauka, 1978.
374. Dolin A. A. Late Romanticism in Japanese Poetry.—“Literature
and Time”. Moscow: Nauka, 1973.
375. Dolin A. A. Lyrical Poetry of Doi Bansui.—“Problems of
Japanese Philology”. Moscow: Izdatel’stvo Moskovskogo
universiteta, 1975.
376. Dolin A. A. New Japanese Poetry. Moscow: Nauka, 1990.
377. Dolin A. A. The Formation of the Aesthetic Views of the
Writers in Japanese Romanticism.—“ Theoretical Problems
of Studying the Literatures of the Far East”. Moscow: Nauka,
1974.
378. Dolin A. A. The Historical Background of the Shintaishi Metrics
in Japanese Poetry.—“Literature and Time”. Moscow: Nauka,
1973.
379. Dolin A. A. West and East in the Aesthetics of Japanese
Romanticism (based on the works of the members of the
Bungakukai group)—“Narody Azii i Afriki”. 1974. № 2.
380. Dyakonova E. M., Azadovsky K. M. Balmont and Japan. Moscow:
Glavnaya redaktsiya vostochnoy literatury izdatel’stva
«Nauka», 1991.
381. Dyakonova N. Ya. Keats and his Contemporaries. Moscow:
Nauka, 1973.
382. Dyakonova N. Ya. The London Romanticists and some
Problems of English Romanticism. Leningrad: Iizdatel’stvo
Leningradskogo universiteta, 1970.
383. Egorov B. F. The Category of Time in the Russian Poetry of the
XIX c.—“ Rhythm, Space and Time in Literature and Art”.
Leningrad: Nauka, 1974.
384. Egorov B. F. The Category of Time in the Russian Poetry of the
XIX c.—“ Rhythm, Space and Time in Literature and Art.”
BIBLIOGRAPHY 357
385. Eidlin L. Z. Tao Yuan Ming and his Poems, Moscow, Nauka,
1967.
386. Eihenbaum B. M. On Poetry. Leningrad: Sovetskii pisatel’,
Leningradskoe otdelenie, 1969.
387. Eihenbaum B. M. Through the Literature. Leningrad: Academia,
1924.
388. Elistratova A. A. The Attitude of the Romanticists to the Classic
Heritage.—“European Romanticism”. Moscow: Nauka, 1973.
389. Elistratova A. A. The Heritage of English Romanticism and our
Age. Moscow: Izdatelstvo Academii Nauk SSSR, 1960.
390. Ermilova E. V. Poetry on the Border of Two Centuries.—“ The
Change of the Literary Styles”. Moscow: Nauka, 1974.
391. Eryomina V. I. The Repetition as the Base of the Formation
of a Lyrical Song.—“ Studies on the Poetics and Stylistics”.
Leningrad: Nauka, 1972.
392. European Poetry of the XX c. (an anthology of translated
texts). Moscow: Khudozhestvennaya literatura, 1977.
393. Fedorenko N. T. The Colors of Time. Moscow: Iskusstvo, 1972.
394. Frizman L. G. The Life of a Lyrical Genre. Russian Elegy from
Sumarokov to Nekrasov. Moscow: Nauka, 1973.
395. Gasparov M. L. Lermontov and Lamartine.—“Studies in
Historical Philology”. Moscow: Nauka, 1974.
396. Ginzburg L. On Lyrical Poetry. Leningrad: Sovetskii pisatel’,
1974.
397. Girshman M. M. Poetic Diction.—“Literary Theory” in 3
volumes, v. 3. Moscow: Nauka, 1965.
398. Gluskina A. E. Essays on Japanese Literature and Theatre.
Moscow: Nauka, 1979.
399. Gluskina A. E. Foreword and Commentary.—The Manyoshu
(tansl. By A. E. Gluskina). V. 1–3. Moscow: Nauka, 1971.
400. Gluskina A. E., Logunova V. V. Essays on the History of
Modern Japanese democratic Literature. Moscow; Leningrad:
Izdatel’stvo Academii Nauk SSSR, 1955.
401. Goligina K. I. Literary Theory in China of the XIX—early XX c.
Moscow: Nauka, 1971.
402. Gorky A. M. Paul Verlaine and the Decadents.—Gorky
A.M. Complete Works in 30 volumes. V. 23. Moscow:
Gosudarstvennoe izdatel’stvo khudozhestvennoy literatury,
1953.
358 THE SILVER AGE OF JAPANESE POETRY
403. Grigoryeva T. P. A Lonely Wanderer. Moscow: Nauka, 1967.
404. Grigoryeva T. P. Japanese Aesthetic Tradition. Moscow: Nauka,
1979.
405. Grigoryeva T. P. Japanese Literature of the XX century.
Moscow: Khudozhestvennaya literatura, 1983.
406. Grigoryeva T. P. Sages, Rulers and Masters.—“Man and the
World in Japanese Culture”. Moscow, Nauka, 1985.
407. Grigoryeva T. P., Logunova V. V. Japanese Literature. A Brief
Outline. Moscow: Nauka, 1964.
408. Grisheleva L. D. The Formation of Japanese National Culture
(late XVI—early XX c.). Moscow: Nauka, 1986.
409. Grisheleva L. D., Chegodar N. I. Japanese Culture of the New
Time. Moscow: Izdatel’skaya firma “Vostochnaya literature”
RAN, 1998.
410. Gromkovskaya L. L. Tokutomi Roka. Moscow: Nauka, 1983.
411. Gurevich A. Ya. The Categories of Medieval Culture. Moscow:
Iskusstvo, 1972.
412. Hegel G. Aesthetics. V. 1–4. Moscow: Iskusstvo, 1969.
413. History of Aestheytics. The Monuments of the World Aes-
thetic Thoght (translations in 6 volumes). V. 3. “Aesthetic
Doctrines of Western Europe and the USA (1789–1871).
Moscow: Iskusstvo, 1967.
414. History of French Literature. V. 3–4. Moscow: Izdatelstvo
Akademii Nauk SSSR, IMLI, 1963.
415. Horvat K. The Romantiocist Vision of Nature.—“European
Romanticism”. Moscow: Nauka, 1973.
416. Ienaga Saburo. History of Japanese Culture. Moscow: Progress,
1972.
417. Iezuitov A. N. On the Methods of Studying Literary Process in
the Historical Context.—“Literary Process in the Historical
Context. Problems and Methods of Research. Moscow: Nauka,
1974.
418. Ivanova G. D. Mori Ogai. Moscow: Nauka, 1982.
419. Izu Toshihiko, Kusabe Norikazu, Kono Toshiro et al. History of
Modern Japanese Literature. Moscow: Izdatel’stvo inostran-
noi literatury, 1961.
420. Japanese Poetry of the Silver Age (tanka, haiku kindaishi).
Transl., foreword and notes by A. Dolin. St.-Petersburg:
Azbuka, 2004.
BIBLIOGRAPHY 359
421. Jirmunsky V. M. Comparative Literary Theory. Leningrad:
Nauka, 1979.
422. Jirmunsky V. M. Composition of the Lyrical Poems. Petersburg:
OPOYAZ, 1921.
423. Jirmunsky V. M. Literary Theory. Poetics. Stylistics. Leningrad:
Nauka, 1977.
424. Jirmunsky V. M. On the Problem of the “Formalist Method”.—
Valtsel O. (ed.) ”The Problem of Form in Poetry”. Petrograd:
Academia, 1923.
425. Jirmunsky V. M. The Introduction to Metrics. The Theory of
Poetic Diction. Leningrad: Academia, 1925.
426. Jirmunsky V. M. The Religious Hereticism in the History of
Romanticism. Moscow: S. I. Sakharov, 1919.
427. Jirmunsky V. M. Theory of the Poetic Diction. Leningrad:
Sovetskii pisatel’, 1975.
428. Keene D. Japanese Literature of the XVII–XIX Centuries (transl.
by A. Dolin et al., in original “World Within Walls”). Moscow:
Nauka, 1978.
429. Khrapchenko M. B. Creative Activity. Reality. Human. Moscow:
Sovetskii pisatel’, 1976.
430. Konrad N. I. Essays on Japanese Literature. Moscow:
Khudozhestvennaya literatura, 1973.
431. Konrad N. I. Japanese Literature. Moscow: Nauka, 1974.
432. Konrad N. I. Selected Works. Literature and Theatre. Moscow:
Nauka, 1978.
433. Konrad N. I. The Hundredth Anniversary of Japanese
Revolution.—“ Nations of Asia and Africa”. 1968. № 4.
434. Konrad N. I. West and East. Moscow: Nauka, 1966.
435. Ksimidov G. G. A Survey of Modern Japanese Literature (by
the Japanese Sorces). Khabarovsk. Author’s edition, 1909.
436. Kupreyanova E. N. Literary Process in the Historical Context
as a Scientific Notion.—“ Literary Process in the Historical
Context”. Moscow: Nauka, 1974.
437. La Bart F. de. Research in the Field of Romanticist Poetics and
Style. Kharkov, Silberberg and Sons, 1911.
438. Lafargue P. The Origin of Romanticism.—Lafargue P. Literary
Criticism. Moscow: Gosudarstvennoe izdatel’stvo khudo-
zhestvennoy literatury, 1936.
439. Levin Yu. D. English Poetry and Literature of Russian
360 THE SILVER AGE OF JAPANESE POETRY
Sentimentalism.—“From Clssscism to Romaqnticism”. Lenin-
grad: Nauka, Leningradskoye otdelenie, 1970.
440. Levin Yu. D. The Perception of the Works of Foreign
Writers.—“Literary Process in the Historical Context”.
Leningrad: Nauka, 1974.
441. Literary Manifestoes. From Symbolism to October Revolution.
Moscow: Federatsiya, 1929.
442. Literary Theory of the German Romanticism. Leningrad:
Izdatel’stvo pisateley v Leningrade, 1934.
443. Losev A. F. On the Concept of the Artistic Canon.—“The
Problem of Canon in the Ancient and Medieval Art of Asia
and Africa”. Moscow: Nauka, 1973.
444. Lotman Yu. M. Analysis of the Poetic Text. Leningrad:
Prosveschenie, 1972.
445. Lotman Yu. M. Canonic Art as an Infomational Paradox.—
“The Problem of Canon in the Ancient and Medieval Art of
Asia snd Africa”. Moscow: Nauka, 1973.
446. Lvova I. L., Grishina V. A., Ivanenko N. G. Japanese Literature.—
“Literature of the East in the New Times”. Moscow:
Izdatel’stvo Moskovskogo universiteta, 1975.
447. Mashbits-Verov I. M. Russian Symbolism and the Way of
Alexander Blok. Kuibyshev: Kuibyshev Book Publishers,
1969
448. Maymin E. A. Venevitinov “A Poet and his Friend”.—“Poetic
Structure of Russian Lyrical Poetry”. Leningrad: Nauka,
Leningradskoye otdelenie, 1973.
449. Meshcheryakov A. N. Ancient Japan. Buddhism and Shinto.
Moscow: Nauka, 1987.
450. Moonshade. Classical Japanese Poetry of the Late XIX—early
XX c. (an anthology). Transl., Foreword and Commentary by
A. Dolin. Moscow: Nauka, 1991.
451. Neupokoeva I. G. Common Features in the European Roman-
ticism and Specifications of the National Schools. Moscow:
Nauka, 1973.
452. Neupokoeva I. G. History of the World Literature. Problems of
System Analyses and Comparative Analyses. Moscow: Nauka,
1976.
453. Niryo L. On the Role of the Composition of a Literary Work.—
“Semantics and Creative Activities”. Moscow: Nauka, 1977.
BIBLIOGRAPHY 361
454. Oblomievsky D. D. French Romanticism. Moscow: Gosudar-
stvennoe izdatel’stvo khudozhestvennoy literatury, 1947.
455. Oblomievsky D. D. French Symbolism. Moscow: Nauka, 1973.
456. Podgaetskaya I. Yu. “ The Own” and “The Borrowed” Elements
in the Poetic Style. Jukovsky—Lermontov—Tyutchev.—
“The Change of the Literary Styles”. Moscow: Nauka, 1974.
457. Polikanov A. A., Udonova Z. V., Trofimov I. T. Russian Literature
of the Late XIX—early XX c. Moscow: Vysshaya Shkola,
1965.
458. Pospelov B. V. From the History of the Literary and Aesthetic
Views in Japan (late XIX—early XX c.)—«Problems of Theory
of Literature and Aesthetics in the Countries of the East”.
Moscow: Nauka, 1964.
459. Poznyakov N. I. Japanese Poetry. An Overview. Moscow:
I. D. Sytin’ Co., 1905.
460. Rachinsky G. A. Japanese Poetry (anthology). Moscow:
Musaget, 1914.
461. Reho K. Russian Classics and Japanese Literature. Moscow:
Khudozhestvennaya literatura, 1987.
462. Reiman P. Major Trends in German Literature from 1750 to
1848. Moscow: Izdatel’stvo inostrannoy literatury, 1959.
463. Sainte-Boeve Ch. Literary Portraits. Moscow:
Khudozhestvennaya literatura, 1970.
464. Saparov M. A. On the Organisation of the Space-Time
Continuum of a Literary Work.—“Rhythm, Space and Time
in Literature and Art”. Leningrad: Nauka, 1974.
465. Schiller F. Collection of Works in 6 volumes. Moscow;
Leningrad: Goslitizdat, 1937.
466. Shelley P. B. Letters. Articles. Excerpts. Moscow: Nauka, 1972.
467. Shelling F. W. Philosophy of Art. Moscow: Mysl, 1966.
468. Shengeli G. The Technics of the Verse. Moscow: Goslitizdat,
1960.
469. Skvortsova E. L. “The Christian Age “ in Japan. On the Problem
of Interaction of National Cultures.—“Human and the World
in Japanese Culture”. Moscow: Nauka, 1985.
470. Sternin G. The Artistic Life of Russia in the beginning of the
XX c. Moscow: Prosveschenie, 1976.
471. Sternin G. The Artistic Life of Russia in the Late XIX—early
XX c. Moscow: Iskusstvo, 1970.
362 THE SILVER AGE OF JAPANESE POETRY BIBLIOGRAPHY 363

472. Timofeev L. I. The Theory of Verse. Moscow: Goslitizdat, 1939. Ackcroyd J. Dickens Ch.
473. Tinyanov Yu. I. The Problem of the Poetic Language. М.: Akhmatova A. A. Doi Bansui (real name:
Советский писатель, 1965. Akutagava Ryunosuke Rinkichi)
474. Tolstich V. I. The Art and the Morals. Moscow: Politizdat, Ando Mushoshi Dostoevsky F. M.
1973. Aoki Shigeru Du Fu
475. Tomashevsky B.V. On the Verse. Moscow: Priboi, 1929. Apollinaire G. Ebizawa Shunji
476. Tomashevsky B.V. Poetry and Language. Philological Essays. Arnim L. I. Erdman, E.
М.; Л.: Гослитиздат, 1959. Ayukawa Nobuo Eto Miyoko
477. Tomashevsky B.V. Stylistics and Writing Poetry. Leningrad: Baba Kocho Fenollosa E.
Uchpedgiz, Leningradskoye otdelenie, 1959. Baba Mutsuo Florenz K.
478. Vanslov V. V. The Aesthetics of Romanticism. Moscow: Balmont K. Fontanesi A.
Iskusstvo, 1966. Bart F. de la Fujimura Tsukuru
479. Verzman I. E. Jean-Jaque Rousseau and Romanticism. “The Basho—see Matsuo Basho. Fujino Kashujin
Problems of Romanticism’ # 2. Moscow: Iskusstvo, 1971. Baudelaire Ch. Fujiwara Teika
480. Veselovsky A. N. Historical Poetics. Leningrad: Khudozhest- Blok A. A. Fujo Yuraku
vennaya literatura. Leningradskoye otdelenie, 1940. Bo Juyi Futabatei Shimei
481. Vigotsky L. S. Psychology of Art. Moscow: Iskusstvo, 1968. Boccaccio G. Gauguin P.
482. Vinogradov V. V. Stylistics. Theory of Versification. Poetics. Bonneau G. Gautier T.
Moscow: Izdatel’stvo Academii Nauk SSSR, 1963. Brandes M. P. Goethe J. W. von
483. Volkova E. V. Rhythm as an Object of an Aesthetic Analyzes.— Brentano K. Goncourt E. and J.
“Rhythm. Space and Time in Literature and Art”. Leningrad: Breton A. Gottschall, R. von
Nauka, Leningradskoye otdelenie, 1974. Brower R. Gourmont R. de
484. Wind in the Pines. Classical Tanka Poetry of the Edo Period. Browning R. Gray T.
Transl., foreword and comments by A. Dolin. St.-Petersburg: Bryusov V. Ya. Grigoreva Т. P.
Hiperion, 1998. Bugaeva D. P. Grimm J. and W.
485. Yusufov R. F. Russian Romanticism of the early XIX c. and Burliuk D. Gumilyov N. S.
National Cultures. Moscow: Nauka, 1970. Burns R. Hafiz
486. Zavadskaya E. V. East in the West. Moscow: Nauka, 1970. Byron G. Haga Yaichi
487. Zavadskaya E. V. The Aesthetic Canon in the Life of an Artist— Capelletti G. Hagiwara Kyojiro
feng lyu (wind and a stream).—“The Problem of Canon in Carlyle T. Hagiwara Sakutaro
the Ancient and Medieval Art of Asia and Africa”. Moscow: Carpenter E. Hamada Yoshizumi
Nauka, 1973. Chekhov A. P. Hardy T.
Chikamatsu Monzaemon Hartmann E. von
Chogyu Takayama Hasegawa Futabatei—see
Claudel P. Futabatei Shimei.
Cocteau J. Hasegawa Izumi
Coleridge S. T. Hauff W.
Dante A. Hearn L.
Dehmel R. Hegel G. W. F.