is a scholar of

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-Japa ...

, particularly of the ''

Man'yōshū The is the oldest extant collection of Japanese (poetry in Classical Japanese), compiled sometime after AD 759 during the Nara period. The anthology is one of the most revered of Japan's poetic compilations. The compiler, or the last in ...

''. He earned his Doctor of Literature degree from the

University of Tokyo The University of Tokyo (, abbreviated as in Japanese and UTokyo in English) is a public research university in Bunkyō, Tokyo, Japan. Founded in 1877 as the nation's first modern university by the merger of several pre-westernisation era ins ...

(UTokyo) in 1962. He is widely believed to have conceived the name of the current era of the official calendar of Japan, ''

Reiwa is the current and 232nd era of the official calendar of Japan. It began on 1 May 2019, the day on which Emperor Akihito's eldest son, Naruhito, ascended the throne as the 126th Emperor of Japan. The day before, Emperor Akihito abdicated ...

'' (令和, 2019-). However, it is a custom not to reveal the conceiver of the name of an era, and he has said, 'Era names are not for secular individuals like Susumu Nakanishi to decide, but are determined by divine inspiration. There is no such person as the inventor of the name "Reiwa"'.

Overview

Tasuku Honjo Susumu Nakanishi Ikuta Takagi Shinzo Abe Shunichi Iwasaki and Goichi Oda 20131103

Nakanishi studied at the Department of Japanese Literature at the University of Tokyo (UTokyo), where he was supervised by the Japanese literary scholar Senichi Hisamatsu (久松潜一). He graduated from the university in 1953 with a Bachelor of Arts in Literature. He continued his studies at UTokyo. His master's thesis was titled 'A Study on the Prosaic Nature in Early Japanese Literature (上代文藝における散文性の研究)'. Nakanishi continued to study under Hisamatsu during his postgraduate studies. In 1954, he lectured part-time at Yukigaya High School. Nakanishi earned a Master of Arts in Literature from UTokyo in 1955. He wrote his doctoral thesis titled 'A Comparative Literary Study of the Man'yōshū (萬葉集の比較文学的研究)', and he earned a Doctor of Literature degree from UTokyo in 1962. Subsequently, he began comparative studies between ancient Japanese literature and Chinese literature. He is the honorary president of the Nara Prefecture Complex of Manyo Culture, president of the Koshinokuni Museum of Literature, and has been a guest lecturer at

Princeton University Princeton University is a private university, private Ivy League research university in Princeton, New Jersey, United States. Founded in 1746 in Elizabeth, New Jersey, Elizabeth as the College of New Jersey, Princeton is the List of Colonial ...

. In 1970 he was awarded the Japan Academy Prize for his research in

comparative literature Comparative literature studies is an academic field dealing with the study of literature and cultural expression across language, linguistic, national, geographic, and discipline, disciplinary boundaries. Comparative literature "performs a role ...

and the ''Man'yōshū'', and in 2013 he received the

Order of Culture The is a Japanese Order (decoration), order, established on February 11, 1937. The order has one class only, and may be awarded to men and women for contributions to Japanese Art, Japan's art, Japanese Literature, literature, science, technolog ...

. He has been called "probably the greatest living scholar of the ''Man'yōshū'' in Japan".

Honours

* 2005: The Order of the Sacred Treasure, Gold and Silver Star * 2013: The Order of Culture

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Nakanishi, Susumu 1929 births Scholars of Japanese literature Living people Man'yōshū Persons of Cultural Merit Recipients of the Order of Culture University of Tokyo alumni