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Yone Noguchi (1875–1947)

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Yone Noguchi (1875–1947) 32 Yone Noguchi (1875–1947) NORIMASA MORITA INTRODUCTION In Matsui Hisako’s film, Leonie (2010), there is a dramatic scene in which a young poet, Yone Noguchi, is sitting in a humble Manhat- tan apartment, hiding his bruised face with a newspaper. Asked by his common-law wife, Leonie Gilmour, what on earth happened to his face, he reluctantly admits that he has been attacked by a mob of racists who were incensed by the news of the Japanese attack on the Russian fleet at Port Arthur. Noguchi announces to Leonie,‘Now, I must go home.This is not my country. There is nothing here for me now.’ Leonie quietly replies,‘No, you can’t go home. I’m pregnant.’ Visibly irritated by this otherwise happy news, Noguchi knocks a large vase of lilies from the table, and shouts at the stunned Leo- nie, ‘You are lying.You have made up some lies to keep me here.’ It is no lie, as Leonie really is carrying the baby who will become Isamu Noguchi.The film describes Noguchi’s unhappy last several months in NewYork through Leonie’s confession to her best friend, Catherine. ‘He went to his friends in Washington D.C. for days at 403 BRITAIN & JAPAN: BIOGRAPHICAL PORTRAITSVOLUMEVIII a time. Sometimes he wondered off at night and I didn’t know where he was. He couldn’t bear the sight of me. It was as if he erased our history, my existence and this child [looking at her belly].’The screenplay was written by Matsui Hisako and David Wiener and based on the biography of Isamu Noguchi by Masayo Duus. The film faithfully follows the chronology of the major events in the lives ofYone Noguchi and Leonie Gilmour, but its actions and dia- logues are mainly imaginary. Yone Noguchi was the first Japanese-born writer to publish poetry in English, a professor of Keio¯ University, the first Japanese who introduced Haiku and Noh plays to an overseas audience, and was even tipped to be a Nobel Prize candidate. He was also greatly respected and admired as the first cosmopolitan Japanese, who could not only speak ‘perfect’ English, but also became friendly with great writers such as W.B. Yeats, George Bernard Shaw, Paul Claudel, and Rabindranath Tagore; and as a man who not only understood Western manners and values completely, but was also comfortable with them. However, recent biographical research on his problematic relationship with Leonie Gilmour and his treatment of his son, Isamu, as well as his feverish support for Japanese nationalism and militarism, has thrown doubt on his stature as one of Japan’s most cultured and civilized men. Matsui’s film relies on such recent research. His poetic achievement has also been questioned by more informed analysts. It is now argued that the unusual style that Noguchi developed in his English poems may have been the result of his poor grasp of the English language and unfamiliarity with the traditional conventions and prosody in English poetry. YONE NOGUCHI IN THE USA Yonejirõ Noguchi was born in 1875 as a son of a merchant in Tsushima, Aichi Prefecture. From very early on, he was keen on learning the English language and after finishing his secondary school in Nagoya, he enrolled himself in a preparatory course for Keio¯ University with the hope of reading English and English lit- erature. Disappointed with its liberal arts curriculum, he quickly abandoned formal study and instead spent most of his time read- ing English and American literature. His adventurous and ambitious spirit or recklessness was clear from a young age.When he entered Keio¯’s preparatory course, he left Tsushima without even telling his parents, vaguely hoping that his engineer brother would support him financially. His brother had not known of his plan till he sud- denly turned up in front of him.After quitting Keio¯ and deciding to emigrate to USA, he went around to borrow from his friends just enough money to buy a one-way ticket to San Francisco. Expecting 404.
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