Tﾅ行on Shimazaki
| Tﾅ行on Shimazaki |
|---|
 |
| Born |
| March 25, 1872 Nakatsugawa, Gifu, Japan |
| Died |
| August 22, 1943 |
Tﾅ行on Shimazaki (蟲ｶ蟠 阯､譚; Shimazaki Tﾅ行on) (March 25, 1872 窶 August 22, 1943) is the pen-name of Shimazaki Haruki, a Japanese author, active in Meiji, Taisho and early Showa period Japan. Tﾅ行on窶冱 family had, for generations, maintained an inn where the daimyo (lords) stayed during their mandatory journeys back and forth from the capital. As a youth he observed the decline of his family as Japan underwent rapid modernization.
Tﾅ行on began his career as a poet, but went on to establish himself as the major proponent of naturalism in Japanese literature. He was lauded by literary critics for the establishment of a new Japanese verse form, and as one of the creators of the Meiji Romanticism (譏取ｲｻ豬ｪ貍ｫ荳ｻ鄒ｩ, Meiji Rﾅ肯an Shugi) literary movement. Tﾅ行on窶冱 first novel, Hakai (The Broken Commandment, 1906) is regarded as the first Japanese naturalist novel. His later novels, Haru (譏･ Spring, 1908), Ie (螳ｶ, Family, 1910-1911), Shinsei (譁ｰ逕 New Life, 1918-1919), Yoakemae (1935; 窶廝efore the Dawn窶), and Toho no Mon (窶廨ate to the East窶), were all autobiographical in character. His fiction highlighted the conflict between old and new values as Japan entered a period of aggressive modernization after the Meiji Restoration. While many Japanese writers superficially adopted Western literary styles without connecting them to a genuine message, Toson succeeded in using naturalism and everyday, modern language to convey the contradictions and nuances of Japanese experience.
Early life
Shimazaki Haruki was born March 25, 1872, in Magome Juku, a bustling post town on the Nakasendo Highway which is now part of the city of Nakatsugawa, Gifu Prefecture, Japan. He was the youngest of four sons and three daughters. His father, Masaki Shimazaki, was the last of a well-established family that had run an officially appointed inn for daimyo (Japanese lords) for generations. Members of the family were also prosperous wholesale merchants and village headmen.[1]
Tﾅ行on spent his childhood in Magome-juku, and often wrote about the area later in his novels. His most famous novel Before the Dawn, was modeled on the life of his father, Shimazaki Masaki, who went insane and died before Tﾅ行on was fourteen, leaving him to be raised by friends of the family. Later, his oldest sister also died after suffering from mental disorders. Tﾅ行on once described his nature as "melancholy inherited from my parents."
Education and first novel
Tﾅ行on studied in Tokyo at Meiji Gakuin University, graduating in 1891. While there, he was baptized as a Christian, though Christianity did not have an influence on his life or his thought. Through his friendship with essayist and translator Kochﾅ Baba (鬥ｬ蝣ｴ蟄､陜ｶ Baba Kochﾅ) and Shﾅｫkotsu Togawa (謌ｸ蟾晉ｧ矩ｪｨ Togawa Shﾅｫkotsu), Tﾅ行on became interested in literature. He joined a literary group and was a founder of the literary magazine Bungakukai (譁蟄ｸ逡) in 1893, along with Toukoku Kitamura and others.[1] He also began to contribute translations to Jogaku Zasshi (螂ｳ蟄ｦ髮題ｪ, Magazine of Women's Learning).
In 1892, Tﾅ行on began teaching at Meiji Jogakko (Meiji Girls School). He moved from Tokyo to Sendai, in northern Japan, to accept a teaching position at the Komoro Private School, but continued to write as a hobby. His first verse collection, Wakanashﾅｫ (闍･闖憺寔 Collection of Young Herbs, 1897), published while he was in Sendai, was regarded at the time as the beginning of modern Japanese poetry. While working as a teacher in Sendai he also wrote Chikuma River Sketches. Around this time, Tﾅ行on was discovered to be having an affair with one of his female students, and forced to resign from the school. The suicide of his close friend, the romantic writer Kitamura Tokoku, came as a great shock and Tﾅ行on moved back to Tokyo. His first novel, Hakai (The Broken Commandment), published in 1906, established his reputation as a novelist. It was the story of a burakumin (Japanese 窶忖ntouchable窶 caste) schoolteacher, who kept his status as a social outcast secret until near the end of the story. While Tﾅ行on was writing the novel, each of his three children died of illness related to starvation. After the Meiji Restoration, many Japanese writers superficially adopted Western literary styles without connecting them to a genuine message. Toson succeeded in using naturalism and everyday, modern language to convey the contradictions and nuances of Japanese experience.
Literary career
His second novel, Haru (譏･ Spring, 1908) was a sentimental autobiographical account of his youthful days with the Bungakukai. His third novel, Ie (螳ｶ, Family, 1910-1911), considered by many to be his masterpiece, depicted the gradual decline of two provincial families to whom the protagonist was related. Tﾅ行on portrayed the pressures placed by modernization on his own family.
Tﾅ行on窶冱 next novel, Shinsei (譁ｰ逕 New Life, 1918-1919), created a public scandal. A more emotional work than Ie, it was an autobiographical account of his own extramarital relations with his niece, Komako, and the way in which her father (his elder brother), knowing of the incestuous affair, concealed it. When Komako became pregnant, Tﾅ行on fled to France to avoid confrontation with his relatives, abandoning the girl. Tﾅ行on attempted to justify his behavior by revealing that his father had committed a similar sin and suggesting that he could not avoid the curse of his lineage. The general public censured Tﾅ行on for his behavior and for his attempt to capitalize on the disgraceful incident by turning it into a novel, which was perceived as a gross vulgarity.
On his return to Japan, Tﾅ行on accepted a teaching post at Waseda University. In 1928, he began his research for Yoakemae (1935; Before the Dawn), his greatest work and one of the masterpieces of modern Japanese literature. It was a semi-historical novel about the Meiji Restoration from the point of view of a provincial loyalist, Aoyama Hanzo, a thinly veiled representation of his father. The protagonist eventually dies in bitterness and disappointment, convinced that the cause of pure patriotism has been betrayed. Yoakemae was serialized in the literary magazine Chﾅｫﾅ耕ﾅ荒on over a six-year period and was later released as a two-part novel.
His final novel, Toho no Mon (Gate to the East), incomplete at his death, seemed to draw on the Buddhist wisdom of medieval Japan as a solution to the cultural confusion and spiritual emptiness of the present.
In 1935, Tﾅ行on became the founding chairman of the Japanese chapter of the International PEN organization. Tﾅ行on died of a stroke at the age of 71, in 1943. His grave is at the temple of Jifuku-ji, in Oiso, Kanagawa Prefecture.
Literary innovation
Tﾅ行on began his career as a poet, but went on to establish himself as the major proponent of naturalism in Japanese literature. The influence of Western poetry, with its varying lengths and meters, and sometimes nonexistent rhymes, led to the creation of new Japanese literary forms. From Western literature, Japanese poets and writers learned to use modern, everyday language, and to write about aspects of human experience that had never been mentioned in traditional Japanese poetry and literature. Tﾅ行on was lauded by literary critics for the establishment of a new Japanese verse form in Wakanashu, and as one of the creators of the Meiji Romanticism (譏取ｲｻ豬ｪ貍ｫ荳ｻ鄒ｩ, Meiji Rﾅ肯an Shugi) literary movement.
Tﾅ行on窶冱 first novel, Hakai (The Broken Commandment, 1906) was considered a landmark in Japanese realism and is regarded as the first Japanese naturalist novel. His later novels were all autobiographical in character. His fiction highlighted the conflict between old and new values as Japan entered a period of aggressive modernization after the Meiji Restoration.
First Love
you had swept back your bangs for the first time
when I saw you under the apple tree
the flower-comb in your hair
I thought you yourself were a flower too.
you stretched out your pale white hand gently
giving me an apple:
like the ripening red of the autumn fruit
my first feeling of love
my sigh, without any awareness
touched your hair
the joys of love's offerings
drinking your love...
under a tree in the apple orchard
nature's narrow road
who left this token here?
your question gave me a piercing pleasure.
by Shimazaki Toson[2]
Published Works
Tﾅ行on's major works include:
- Wakanashﾅｫ (闍･闖憺寔 Collection of Young Herbs)
- The Broken Commandment (遐ｴ謌 Hakai)
- Haru (譏･ Spring)
- Ie (螳ｶ Family)
- Shinsei (譁ｰ逕 New Life)
- Before the Dawn (螟懈弱¢蜑 Yoakemae)
Notes
- 竊 1.0 1.1 ikjeld.com, Biography of Shimazaki, Toson Retrieved June 16, 2008.
- 竊 First Love Retrieved June 16, 2008.
ReferencesISBN links support NWE through referral fees
- Bourdaghs, Michael. The Dawn That Never Comes: Shimazaki Toson and Japanese Nationalism. New York: Columbia University Press, 2003. ISBN 0-2311-2980-7
- McClellan, Edwin. Two Japanese Novelists: Soseki & Toson. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1969. 10-ISBN 0-2265-5652-2 13-ISBN 978-0-2265-5652-9 (cloth) (reprinted by Tuttle Publishing, Tokyo, 1971-2004. 10-ISBN 0-8048-3340-0 13-ISBN 978-0-8048-3340-0 (paper)
- Shimazaki Toson. (Trans. William E. Naff). Before the Dawn. Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 1987. ISBN 0-8248-0914-9
- 窶披披. (Trans. Kenneth Stone). Broken Commandment. Tokyo: University of Tokyo Press, 1995. ISBN 0-8600-8191-5
- Walker, Janet A. The Japanese novel of the Meiji period and the ideal of individualism. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1979. ISBN 0691064008 ISBN 9780691064000
External links
All links retrieved May 2, 2023.
- e-texts of works at Aozora Bunko site (Japanese)
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