Yūgure Maeda
| Yūgure Maeda | |
|---|---|
| Native name | 前田 夕暮 |
| Born |
June 8, 1877 Minamiyana Village, Ōsumi District (modern-day Hadano City), Kanagawa Prefecture, Japan |
| Died | April 12, 1967 (aged 89) |
| Occupation | poet |
| Genre | tanka poetry |
| Literary movement | Naturalism |
Yūgure Maeda (前田 夕暮 Maeda Yūgure; 1883–1951) was a Japanese tanka poet.
Biography
Yūgure Maeda was born on 27 July 1883.[1] He was born in Minamiyana Village, Ōsumi District (modern-day Hadano City), Kanagawa Prefecture.[2] His real name was Yōzō Maeda (前田 洋造 Maeda Yōzō).[2]
He dropped out of middle school without graduating.[3] In 1904 he moved to Tokyo[4] and became a student of the tanka poet Saishū Onoe.[5]
He died in 20 April 1951.[1]
Writings
Most of Maeda's early tanka compositions were submitted to a variety of literary magazines and were rejected without a second word.[6] He was encouraged by Saishū Onoe, writer of a poetry column for the periodical Shinsei (新声), to keep up his efforts, however.[6] Maeda and Bokusui Wakayama were among the first poets to join Onoe's Shazensō-sha (車前草社) when it was founded in 1905.[6]
The poets of the Shazensō-sha were insistent of simplicity and clarity of expression, in opposition to the poets associated with important magazine Myōjō.[6] Maeda was one of the most critical of what he saw as the excessive romanticism of the Myōjō poets.[3]
In 1906, Maeda founded his own poetic society, the Hakujitsu-sha (白日社).[7]
In 1924, he was joined by Hakushū Kitahara, Toshiharu Kinoshita, Chikashi Koizumi, Zenmaro Toki and others in forming a group to publish a new literary magazine, Nikkō, which was to be purely devoted to Modernism.[8] He took his first aeroplane ride in 1929, inspiring him to write in a more colloquial fashion — he felt the experience could not be described in traditional language.[8] He continued to write unconventional tanka for fifteen years after this.[8]
Maeda was an exceptionally prolific poet, and more than 40,000 of his tanka survive,[6] but he published very little of this during his lifetime.[6]
Reception
Literary historian and critic Donald Keene compared Kubota's poetry to that of Akiko Yosano, ironically one of the targets of Maeda's criticism.[3]
References
- 1 2 Keene 1999, p. 35; Ishimoto 1994; Nihon Jinmei Daijiten Plus 2015.
- 1 2 Ishimoto 1994.
- 1 2 3 Keene 1999, p. 35.
- ↑ Keene 1999, p. 36; World Encyclopedia 1998.
- ↑ Keene 1999, p. 35; Ishimoto 1994; World Encyclopedia 1998.
- 1 2 3 4 5 6 Keene 1999, p. 36.
- ↑ Ishimoto 1994; World Encyclopedia 1998.
- 1 2 3 Keene 1999, p. 37.
Works cited
- Ishimoto, Ryūichi (1994). "Maeda Yūgure" 前田夕暮. Encyclopedia Nipponica (in Japanese). Shogakukan. Retrieved 2017-11-26.
- Keene, Donald (1999) [1984]. A History of Japanese Literature, Vol. 4: Dawn to the West – Japanese Literature of the Modern Era (Poetry, Drama, Criticism) (paperback ed.). New York, NY: Columbia University Press. ISBN 978-0-231-11435-6.
- "Maeda Yūgure" 前田夕暮. Nihon Jinmei Daijiten Plus (in Japanese). Kodansha. 2015. Retrieved 2017-11-26.
- "Maeda Yūgure" 前田夕暮. World Encyclopedia (in Japanese). Heibonsha. 1998. Retrieved 2017-11-26.
