Masaoka Shiki

, pen-name of Masaoka Noboru (正岡升), was a Japanese poet, author, and literary critic in Meiji period Japan. Shiki is regarded as a major figure in the development of modern haiku poetry, credited with writing nearly 20,000 stanzas during his short life. He also wrote on reform of tanka poetry.

Early life

Shiki, or rather Tsunenori (常規) as he was originally named, was born in Matsuyama City in Iyo Province (present day Ehime Prefecture) to a samurai class family of modest means. was an alcoholic who died when Shiki was five years of age. was a daughter of Ōhara Kanzan, a Confucian scholar.

At age 15 Shiki became something of a political radical, attaching himself to the then-waning Freedom and People's Rights Movement and getting himself banned from public speaking by the principal of Matsuyama Middle School, which he was attending. Around this time he developed an interest in moving to Tokyo and did so in 1883.

Education

The young Shiki first attended his hometown Matsuyama Middle School, where Kusama Tokiyoshi, a leader of the discredited Freedom and People's Rights Movement, had recently served as principal. While studying here, the teenage Shiki enjoyed playing baseball

He entered Tokyo Imperial University in 1890.

Literary career

While Shiki is best known as a haiku poet, prose criticism of poetry, and was a short prose essayist.)

Contemporary to Shiki was the idea that traditional Japanese poetic short forms, such as the haiku and tanka, were waning due to their incongruity in the modern Meiji period. Shiki, at times, expressed similar sentiments. There were no great living practitioners although these forms of poetry retained some popularity.

Despite an atmosphere of decline, only a year or so after his 1883 arrival in Tokyo, Shiki began writing haiku. In 1892, the same year he dropped out of university, Shiki published a serialized work advocating haiku reform, Dassai Shooku Haiwa or "Talks on Haiku from the Otter's Den". These were followed by other serials: Meiji Nijūkunen no Haikukai or "The Haiku World of 1896" where he praised works by disciples Takahama Kyoshi and Kawahigashi Hekigotō, Haijin Buson or "The Haiku Poet Buson" (1896–1897 and Utayomi ni Atauru Sho or "Letters to a Tanka Poet" (1898) where he urged reform of the tanka poetry form. Bedsore and morphine-addled, little more than a year before his death Shiki began writing sickbed diaries. These three are Bokujū Itteki or "A Drop of Ink" (1901), Gyōga Manroku or "Stray Notes While Lying on My Back" (1901–1902), and Byōshō Rokushaku or "A Sixfoot Sickbed" (1902). or 1889 The Japanese word hototogisu can be written with various combinations of Chinese characters, including 子規, which can alternatively be read as either "hototogisu" or "shiki". It is a Japanese conceit that this bird coughs blood as it sings, Instead of reporting on the war, he spent an unpleasant time harassed by Japanese soldiers in Dalian, Luangtao, and the Lüshunkou District. He also met the famous novelist Mori Ōgai on May 10, 1895, who was at the time an army doctor. and his group of disciples there were known as the "Nippon school" after the paper where he had been haiku editor and that now published the group's work. During this time Shiki wrote three autobiographical works. While he advocated reform of haiku, this reform was based on the idea that haiku was a legitimate literary genre. He argued that haiku should be judged by the same yardstick that is used when measuring the value of other forms of literature — something that was contrary to views held by prior poets. Shiki firmly placed haiku in the category of literature, and this was unique.

Some modern haiku deviate from the traditional 5–7–5 sound pattern and dispensing with the kigo ("season word"); Shiki's haiku reform advocated neither break with tradition. Shiki, like other Meiji period writers, borrowed a dedication to realism from Western literature. This is evident in his approach to both haiku

Baseball

Shiki played baseball as a teenager and was inducted into the Japanese Baseball Hall of Fame in 2002. A group of 1898 tanka by him mention the sport.

References

External links

e-texts of Shiki's works (Japanese only) at Aozora bunko
Selected Poems (haiku and tanka) of Masaoka Shiki, Translated by Janine Beichman at University of Virginia Library Japanese Text Initiative poem translations from 'Masaoka Shiki' by Janine Beichman
Ehime University site on Masaoka Shiki with photos, poetry
fan site with bio and poems
National Diet Library bio and photos