The First Modern Japanese: The Life of Ishikawa Takuboku

Donald Keene

Published by Columbia University Press 2016

The First Modern Japanese

The Life of Ishikawa Takuboku

Donald Keene

In the series Asia Perspectives: History, Society, and Culture

https://doi.org/10.7312/keen17972

Overview
Contents

About this book

A biography of Japanese tanka master Ishikawa Takuboku, who pioneered an unmistakably modern poetic style.

Author / Editor information

Donald Keene is Shincho Professor of Japanese Literature and University Professor Emeritus at Columbia University. He is the author and translator of more than thirty books on Japanese literature and culture. His Columbia University Press books include The Winter Sun Shines In: A Life of Masaoka Shiki (2013), So Lovely a Country Will Never Perish: Wartime Diaries of Japanese Writers (2010), Chronicles of My Life: An American in the Heart of Japan (2009), Frog in the Well: Portraits of Japan by Watanabe Kazan, 1793–1841 (2006), and Emperor of Japan: Meiji and His World, 1852–1912 (2002), as well as a definitive multivolume history of Japanese literature.

Reviews

Highly recommended.

Well-researched, well-written, informative and interesting.... A sympathetic portrait of an important figure in Japanese literary history.

Well-researched.... Keene's finely wrought translations of Ishikawa's poems glimmer ever more brightly, sandwiched between the dark episodes of the young poet's short life.

Recommended for Japanese literature collections and any reader searching for a new poet to discover.

Jeffrey Angles, translator of Forest of Eyes: Selected Poems of Tada Chimako:
The poetry of Ishikawa Takuboku holds a landmark position in Japanese poetic history. With his worldly yet highly introspective, self-reflexive, and frequently melancholy tone, Takuboku developed one of the most distinctive, singular voices in the Japanese poetry of the Meiji era. Donald Keene has done the English-speaking world a major service by presenting this survey of the life of a critically important tanka master.

Charles Shiro Inouye, professor of Japanese literature and visual culture, Tufts University:
The First Modern Japanese is a poignant though familiar tale of the genius and premature death of a promising artist. As Donald Keene notes, Ishikawa Takuboku was a pivotal figure and someone to consider when thinking about larger topics such as the meaning of modernity. Keene's insightful and compelling study of Takuboku lets us finally see the dark side of Japan's tearful, beloved poet.

Topics

Frontmatter Publicly Available Download PDF	i
Contents Publicly Available Download PDF	vii
1. Takuboku, Modern Poet Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	1
2. Takuboku in Tokyo Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	19
3. Takuboku the Schoolteacher Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	35
4. Exile to Hokkaidō Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	45
5. Hakodate and Sapporo Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	58
6. Takuboku in Otaru Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	71
7. A Winter in Kushiro Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	84
8. Poetry or Prose? Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	102
9. Takuboku Joins the Asahi Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	121
10. The Romaji Diary Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	136
11. The Sorrows of Takuboku and Setsuko Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	153
12. Failure and Success Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	163
13. Takuboku on Poetry Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	175
14. The High Treason Trial Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	187
15. The Last Days Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	201
16. Takuboku’s Life After Death Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	214
Notes Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	223
Bibliography Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	261
Index Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	267

Language: English
Publisher: Columbia University Press
Audience: Professional and scholarly;
Pages
- Main content: 288

eBook

Published: September 27, 2016
ISBN: 9780231542234