was a
Japanese poet
Japanese poetry is poetry typical of Japan, or written, spoken, or chanted in the Japanese language, which includes Old Japanese, Early Middle Japanese, Late Middle Japanese, and Modern Japanese, as well as poetry in Japan which was written in th ...
active in the late
Taishō period and for the first few years of the
Shōwa period, who focused on modern religious themes.
Biography
Born in what is now part of the city of
Machida near
Tokyo, Yagi attended the Kanagawa Prefectural Normal School, then located in
Kamakura
is a city in Kanagawa Prefecture, Japan.
Kamakura has an estimated population of 172,929 (1 September 2020) and a population density of 4,359 persons per km² over the total area of . Kamakura was designated as a city on 3 November 1939.
Kamak ...
,
Kanagawa prefecture. There he converted to
Methodism and became attracted to the poetry of
Rabindranath Tagore. In 1919, Yagi was baptized at the Komagome Christian Church in Tokyo. He remained a devout
Protestant all his short life, but later moved to the Non-Church Christianity (''
Mukyōkai The is an indigenous Japanese Christian movement which was founded by Uchimura Kanzō in 1901. Many of his disciples have likewise been well-known intellectual figures. Today it is believed that 35,000 people belong to the movement in Japan, Taiwan ...
'') as advocated by
Uchimura Kanzō.
After graduation, Yagi taught at the Mikage Normal School in
Hyōgo Prefecture
is a prefecture of Japan located in the Kansai region of Honshu. Hyōgo Prefecture has a population of 5,469,762 () and has a geographic area of . Hyōgo Prefecture borders Kyoto Prefecture to the east, Osaka Prefecture to the southeast, an ...
, and began to write verse as an expression of his faith. He was very much inspired by the poems of
John Keats
John Keats (31 October 1795 – 23 February 1821) was an English poet of the second generation of Romantic poets, with Lord Byron and Percy Bysshe Shelley. His poems had been in publication for less than four years when he died of tuberculo ...
, to whom he dedicated a number of his poems. Yagi published his first collection, ''Aki no Hitome'' (Autumn Eye) in 1925. Although he contributed several pieces to poetry magazines, he remained shy of literary circles.
Hospitalized with
tuberculosis in
Chigasaki, Kanagawa in 1926, he died on 26 October 1927. Only after his death and the publication of ''Mazushiki Shinto'' (Humble Believer), ''Yagi Jukichi Shishu'' (Yagi Jukichi Anthology), and ''Kami O Yobu'' (Talk to God) did he gain widespread recognition.
See also
*
Japanese literature
Japanese literature throughout most of its history has been influenced by cultural contact with neighboring Asian literatures, most notably China and its literature. Early texts were often written in pure Classical Chinese or , a Chinese-Japanes ...
*
List of Japanese authors
This is an alphabetical list of writers who are Japanese, or are famous for having written in the Japanese language.
Writers are listed by the native order of Japanese names, family name followed by given name to ensure consistency although some ...
References
*Keene, Donald. ''Dawn to the West''. Columbia University Press (1998).
*Okada, Akiko. ''Keats And English Romanticism in Japan''. Peter Lang (2006).
External links
Yagi Jukichi Memorial Museum in Machida
{{DEFAULTSORT:Yagi, Jukichi
1898 births
1927 deaths
People from Western Tokyo
Japanese Protestants
20th-century deaths from tuberculosis
Tuberculosis deaths in Japan
20th-century Japanese poets