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was the pen-name of Haruki Shimazaki, a Japanese writer active in the Meiji, Taishō and early
Shōwa period Shōwa most commonly refers to: * Hirohito (1901–1989), the 124th Emperor of Japan, known posthumously as Emperor Shōwa ** Shōwa era (昭和), the era of Hirohito from 1926 to 1989 * Showa Corporation, a Japanese suspension and shock manufactu ...
s of Japan. He began his career as a Romantic poet, but went on to establish himself as a major proponent of Japanese Naturalism. The historical novel '' Before the Dawn'' (1929-1935), about the fall of the
Tokugawa shogunate The Tokugawa shogunate, also known as the was the military government of Japan during the Edo period from 1603 to 1868. The Tokugawa shogunate was established by Tokugawa Ieyasu after victory at the Battle of Sekigahara, ending the civil wars ...
, is his most popular work.


Early life

Shimazaki was born in the old post town of Magome-juku,
Nagano Prefecture is a Landlocked country, landlocked Prefectures of Japan, prefecture of Japan located in the Chūbu region of Honshu. Nagano Prefecture has a population of 2,007,682 () and has a geographic area of . Nagano Prefecture borders Niigata Prefecture ...
(now part of Nakatsugawa,
Gifu Prefecture is a Prefectures of Japan, prefecture of Japan located in the Chūbu region of Honshu. Gifu Prefecture has a population of 1,910,511 () and has a geographic area of . Gifu Prefecture borders Toyama Prefecture to the north; Ishikawa Prefecture ...
), as son of Masaki Shimazaki and his wife Nui. In 1881, he was sent to Tokyo by his father to acquire an education. Masaki, who showed an increasingly eccentric behaviour and suffered from hallucinations, was interned by his family in a self-built cell and died when Shimazaki was only fourteen. Shimazaki's oldest sister Sono Takase also suffered from mental disorders in her late years. Shimazaki was baptised in 1888 while studying at the Christian Meiji Gakuin University, where he befriended essayists and translators Baba Kochō and Shūkotsu Togawa. He took first steps in writing and contributed to a literary magazine titled ''Sumire-gusa'', until its publication was prohibited by the university's headmaster Yoshiharu Iwamoto. After graduating from Meiji Gakuin in 1891, Shimazaki earned a small salary by contributing translations to Iwamoto's '' Jogaku zasshi'' magazine. He began teaching English at the Christian Meiji Women's School (Meiji Jogakkō) the following year, but already left after a few months, partially due to his lack of teaching experience, partially due to his affection for one of his pupils. Around this time, he had his name removed from the register of the Ichibanchō church. He joined a group of writers who founded the literary magazine '' Bungakukai'', to which he contributed his manuscripts. One of Bungakukai's editors, writer Tōkoku Kitamura, whom Shimazaki regarded as his mentor, committed suicide in 1894. Shimazaki, who never completely got over this loss, edited two posthumous collections of Kitamura's works. In 1896, Shimazaki moved to
Sendai is the capital Cities of Japan, city of Miyagi Prefecture and the largest city in the Tōhoku region. , the city had a population of 1,098,335 in 539,698 households, making it the List of cities in Japan, twelfth most populated city in Japan. ...
in northern Japan to accept a teaching position at
Tohoku Gakuin University is a private university in Sendai, Miyagi, Sendai, Miyagi Prefecture, Japan. It was founded in 1886 under the influence of the Reformed Church in the United States, German Reformed Church missionaries. Miyagi Gakuin Women's University is its sist ...
. His first verse collection, ' (lit. "Collection of young herbs", 1897) was published while he was in Sendai. Its success launched him on his future career, and he was regarded as one of the creators of the Meiji Romanticism literary movement. He published more poetry collections, but after the turn of the century he turned his talents to prose fiction. In 1899, he married merchant daughter Fuyuko Hata.


Literary career

Shimazaki's first novel, '' The Broken Commandment'', appeared self-financed in 1906 and is widely regarded as the first Japanese Naturalist novel. The story follows a ''
burakumin The are a social grouping of Japanese people descended from members of the feudal class associated with , mainly those with occupations related to death such as executioners, gravediggers, slaughterhouse workers, butchers, and tanners. Bura ...
'' schoolteacher torn between the promise given to his father to keep his outcaste status a secret and his wish to confess his origin to people close to him. While Shimazaki was writing it, his three children died of illness. The deaths have later been ascribed to possible malnutrition as a result of the family's financial constraints at the time of the writing, for which Shimazaki faced harsh criticism, among others from writer Naoya Shiga. His second novel, ''Haru'' ("Spring", 1908), taking its title from the Botticelli painting of the same name, was the first in a series of novels which fictionalised his biography, here the years 1893–1896, reminiscing his life among the young poets of the Romantic movement. ''Haru'' was also the first of his works to initially appear in serialised form. Like the preceding and the next novel, ''Haru'' was later published in book form in Shimazaki's own ''Ryokuin sōsho'' ("Greenshade series"), which he supervised through all production steps, including the books' cover designs. '' The Family'' (1910–1911) depicts the slow decline of two provincial families, the Koizumis and the Hashimotos, between the years 1898 and 1910. Sankichi, the youngest son of the Koizumi family, is the author's alter ego. The novel established Shimazaki's position in Japan's contemporary literary world and has been widely (though not unanimously) regarded by scholars to be his masterpiece. In August 1910, Shimazaki's first wife Fuyuko died shortly after the birth of daughter Ryūko, the fourth surviving child of seven. In 1913, Shimazaki's niece Komako (daughter of Shimazaki's elder brother Hirosuke, whom he had long supported) became pregnant as a result of the affair between the two. Shimazaki fled to France to avoid the confrontation with his relatives, abandoning the girl, but eventually returned to Japan in 1916. His novel ''Shinsei'' ("New life", 1918–1919), an account of his affair with Komako, his stay in France and his eventual return, created a major scandal. Shimazaki was disowned by his brothers Hirosuke (who had tried to keep the affair a secret) and Hideo, and confronted with severe criticism from readers and fellow writers like Ryūnosuke Akutagawa. ''Shinsei'' was and is read by scholars in a variety of ways: as art for art's sake, as a confession, as a way to provoke a rupture which he couldn't bring about himself, as a means to get out in the open to preempt circulating rumours. Upon reading the novel, Komako tried to get the family's agreement to marry Shimazaki, but instead the two were ultimately forbidden any further contact. The alienation between the family members following the publication of ''Shinsei'' led to Shimazaki not even being informed of the death of his sister (and closest relative) Sono. He dramatised her last years, which she had spent mostly in medical institutions, in the 1921 novella '' The Life of a Certain Woman''. ''Arashi'' ("The tempest", 1926) chronicled his and his four children's lives after the ''Shinsei'' scandal. In 1928, Shimazaki married the more than twenty years younger Shizuko Katō, who had been assisting him on the short-lived feminist journal ''Shojochi''. He published '' Before the Dawn'' (1929–1935), a historical novel about the
Meiji Restoration The , referred to at the time as the , and also known as the Meiji Renovation, Revolution, Regeneration, Reform, or Renewal, was a political event that restored Imperial House of Japan, imperial rule to Japan in 1868 under Emperor Meiji. Althoug ...
from the point of view of a provincial activist in the Kokugaku (Nativism or National Learning) school of Atsutane Hirata. The hero, Aoyama Hanzō, is a thinly veiled representation of Shimazaki's father Masaki. Similarly to the novel ''The Family'', ''Before the Dawn'' is regarded as an outstanding effort by Shimazaki by literary scholars and has become his most popular novel. Like the Aoyama family who fell in "Before Dawn", there is a certificate for buying and selling land in Nakatsugawa City that he was in need of poverty in his later years and that he was selling the land and was planning money. In 1935, Shimazaki became the first president of the newly established Japanese branch of International PEN. In 1936 he traveled to Buenos Aires to represent Japan at the International PEN Club meeting there, also visiting the United States and Europe on this voyage which lasted six months. In his notes, Shimazaki commented both on the West and its feeling of supremacy over the rest of the world, and the danger which lay in his own country's aggressive nationalism: "There is nothing more dangerous than underestimating the developing power of our nation, but at the same time, there is also nothing more dangerous than overestimating that power." The following year, he turned down the invitation to join the recently reorganised Imperial Academy of the Arts (Teikoku Geijutsuin) on the grounds of personal reasons. In 1943, he began serialising a sequel to ''Before the Dawn'', ''Tōhō no mon'' ("The gate to the east"), taking its title from a painting by
Pierre Puvis de Chavannes Pierre Puvis de Chavannes (; 14 December 1824 – 24 October 1898) was a French painter known for his mural painting, who came to be known as "the painter for France". He became the co-founder and president of the Société Nationale des Beaux-Ar ...
. Only two chapters were finished (with the second one published posthumously), as Shimazaki died of a
stroke Stroke is a medical condition in which poor cerebral circulation, blood flow to a part of the brain causes cell death. There are two main types of stroke: brain ischemia, ischemic, due to lack of blood flow, and intracranial hemorrhage, hemor ...
on the night of 21 to 22 August 1943 at the age of 71. His grave is at the Buddhist temple Jifuku-ji (地福寺) in
Ōiso file:OISO.jpg, 260px, Ōiso Long Beach resort is a List of towns in Japan, town located in Kanagawa Prefecture, Japan. , the town had an estimated population of 31,262 and a population density of 1820 persons per km². The total area of the town ...
,
Kanagawa Prefecture is a Prefectures of Japan, prefecture of Japan located in the Kantō region of Honshu. Kanagawa Prefecture is the List of Japanese prefectures by population, second-most populous prefecture of Japan at 9,221,129 (1 April 2022) and third-dens ...
. In 1949, the Toson Memorial Museum was erected in his memory in his hometown Magome-juku.


Selected works

* 1897: ''Wakana-shū'' (若菜集, "Collection of young herbs") * 1906: '' The Broken Commandment'' (破戒, ''Hakai'') * 1908: ''Haru'' (春, "Spring") * 1910–1911: '' The Family'' (家, ''Ie'') * 1918–1919: ''Shinsei'' (新生, "New life") * 1919: ''Sakura no mi no juku suru toki'' (桜の実の熟する時, "When the cherries ripen") * 1921: '' The Life of a Certain Woman'' (ある女の生涯, ''Aru onna no shōgai'') * 1926: ''Arashi'' (嵐, "The tempest") * 1929–1935: '' Before the Dawn'' (夜明け前, ''Yoake mae'') * 1943: ''Tōhō no Mon'' (東方の門, "The gate to the east")


Adaptations

A number of Shimazaki's works have been adapted into films, including: * 1946: ''Hakai'', dir. Yutaka Abe (based on ''The Broken Commandment'') * 1948: ''
Apostasy Apostasy (; ) is the formal religious disaffiliation, disaffiliation from, abandonment of, or renunciation of a religion by a person. It can also be defined within the broader context of embracing an opinion that is contrary to one's previous re ...
'', dir.
Keisuke Kinoshita was a Japanese film director and screenwriter. Ronald Berganbr>"A satirical eye on Japan: Keisuke Kinoshita" ''The Guardian'', 5 January 1999. While lesser-known internationally than contemporaries such as Akira Kurosawa, Kenji Mizoguchi and ...
(based on ''The Broken Commandment'') * 1953: ''Before Dawn'', dir.
Kōzaburō Yoshimura was a Japanese film director. Biography Born in Shiga Prefecture, he joined the Shōchiku studio in 1929. He debuted as director with a short film in 1934, but, after being denied a promotion by head of the studio Shirō Kido, continued working ...
(based on ''Before the Dawn'') * 1956: ''Arashi'', dir. Hiroshi Inagaki (based on ''Arashi'') * 1962: ''The Outcast'', dir.
Kon Ichikawa was a Japanese film director and screenwriter. His work displays a vast range in genre and style, from the anti-war films '' The Burmese Harp'' (1956) and '' Fires on the Plain'' (1959), to the documentary '' Tokyo Olympiad'' (1965), which won t ...
(based on ''The Broken Commandment'') * 2013: ''Ie'', dir. Masatoshi Akihara (based on ''The Family'')


Legacy

The Tōson Memorial Museum opened in 1952 at his birthplace. Another memorial museum opened in the Komoro Castle site in Komoro, Nagano, in 1958. The house where he spent his last days in Ōiso, Kanagawa, is open to public.Oiso: Shimazaki Toson Old House (Kanagawa Prefecture)
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References

* Bourdaghs, Michael. (2003). ''The Dawn That Never Comes: Shimazaki Tōson and Japanese Nationalism''. New York:
Columbia University Press Columbia University Press is a university press based in New York City New York, often called New York City (NYC), is the most populous city in the United States, located at the southern tip of New York State on one of the world's la ...
. * McClellan, Edwin. (1969). ''Two Japanese Novelists: Sōseki & Tōson.'' Chicago:
University of Chicago Press The University of Chicago Press is the university press of the University of Chicago, a Private university, private research university in Chicago, Illinois. It is the largest and one of the oldest university presses in the United States. It pu ...
. (cloth) eprinted by Tuttle Publishing, Tokyo, 1971–2004. (paper)* Shimazaki Tōson. rans. Cecilia Sagawa Seigle(1976). ''The Family''. Tokyo: University of Tokyo Press. * Shimazaki Tōson. rans. William E. Naff">William_E._Naff.html" ;"title="rans. William E. Naff">rans. William E. Naff(1987). ''Before the Dawn''. Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press. * Shimazaki Tōson. [Trans. Kenneth Strong (translator), Kenneth Strong] (1995). ''The Broken Commandment''. Tokyo: University of Tokyo Press.


Further reading

*


External links

*
e-texts of works
at Aozora Bunko site
Literary Figures of Kamakura


* * {{DEFAULTSORT:Shimazaki, Toson 1872 births 1943 deaths People from Nakatsugawa, Gifu Writers from Gifu Prefecture 20th-century Japanese novelists 19th-century Japanese poets Meiji Gakuin University alumni 20th-century Japanese poets Japanese male poets 20th-century Japanese male writers