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THE UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO BEYOND SHASEI, BEYOND NATURE: IDEALISM AND ALLUSION IN THE POETRY OF SHIMAZAKI TŌSON, DOI BANSUI, AND YOSANO AKIKO A DISSERTATION SUBMITTED TO THE FACULTY OF THE DIVISION OF THE HUMANITIES IN CANDIDACY FOR THE DEGREE OF DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY DEPARTMENT OF EAST ASIAN LANGUAGES AND CIVILIZATIONS BY NICHOLAS EUGENE ALBERTSON CHICAGO, ILLINOIS AUGUST 2013 UMI Number: 3595876 All rights reserved INFORMATION TO ALL USERS The quality of this reproduction is dependent upon the quality of the copy submitted. In the unlikely event that the author did not send a complete manuscript and there are missing pages, these will be noted. Also, if material had to be removed, a note will indicate the deletion. UMI 3595876 Published by ProQuest LLC (2013). Copyright in the Dissertation held by the Author. Microform Edition © ProQuest LLC. All rights reserved. This work is protected against unauthorized copying under Title 17, United States Code ProQuest LLC. 789 East Eisenhower Parkway P.O. Box 1346 Ann Arbor, MI 48106 - 1346 © 2013 by Nicholas Eugene Albertson All rights reserved. TABLE OF CONTENTS ABSTRACT v ACKNOWLEDGMENTS vii INTRODUCTION 1 Nature and Romanticism in Meiji Literature 7 Tōson and Bansui with Akiko 13 Citation in Traditional Japanese Poetics 15 Poems in a New Style for a New Age 18 Shimazaki Tōson’s Seedlings 26 Doi Bansui’s Nature Has Feelings 3 5 Yosano Akiko’s Tangled Hair 43 Outline of Chapters 46 CHAPTER ONE: MELTING INTO SHIMAZAKI TŌSON’S POETIC LANDSCAPES 50 Nature and the Poet: Two Essays on Poetry Before Seedlings 53 The 1904 Preface to Tōson’s Collected Poems 64 Tōson’s Poems Enter the Landscape 66 Tōson: Naive or Sentimental? 70 “Song of the Autumn Wind”: An Ode to Entropy 74 “Pillow of Grass”: Metonymic Metabolism of Figure and Landscape 77 “Rambling Through the Deep Woods”: Melting into Landscape 83 Postlude: Towards Chikuma River 93 CHAPTER TWO: DOI BANSUI’S REFLECTION OF AN ABSENT IDEAL 97 Doi Bansui’s Background 102 Bansui’s Ideal Poet 106 Through the Immeasurable All 119 Kage: The Reflection of Nature 131 Echo as Kage 1 3 8 Conclusion: Idealized Nature, Not Naturalism 149 CHAPTER THREE: TANGLED KAMI: YOSANO AKIKO’S SUPERNATURAL SYMBOLISM 153 Supernatural Obstacles and Outlets 156 Ren’ai 159 The Trouble with Biographical Explanations for Akiko’s Poems 173 Entangled Tanka in Tangled Hair 1 8 6 Ideals 191 Kami 196 Tsumi: I’ve Got You Under My Sin 203 iii Conclusion: Beyond Feminine Poetic Heritage and True Feelings 212 CONCLUSION 215 APPENDIX: ENGLISH TRANSLATIONS OF SELECTED POEMS A. From Shimazaki Tōson’s Seedlings (若菜集: Wakanashū, 1897) 1. Song of the Autumn Wind (秋風の歌: Aki kaze no uta) 224 2. Rambling Through the Deep Woods (深林の逍遥: Shinrin no shōyō) 226 3. Pillow of Grass (草枕: Kusamakura) 232 4. Springtime of Easy Sleep (眠れる春よ: Nemureru haru yo) 237 5. Parting (別離: Betsuri) 238 6. Under an Umbrella (傘のうち: Kasa no uchi) 240 7. Two Voices (二つの声: Futatsu no koe) 241 8. Nostalgia (望郷: Bōkyō) 242 9. Fierce Rivals (強敵: Kyōteki) 243 10. Autumn (秋: Aki) 243 B. From Doi Bansui’s Nature Has Feelings (天地有情: Tenchi ujō, 1899) 1. Moon on the Castle Ruins (荒城の月: Kōjō no tsuki) 245 2. Poet (詩人: Shijin) 246 3. The Universe and the Poet (萬有と詩人: Ban’yū to shijin) 247 4. Evening Thoughts (夕の思ひ: Yūbe no omoi) 252 5. Evening Bell (暮鐘: Boshō) 258 6. Cherry Tree By the Riverbank (岸邊の櫻: Kishibe no sakura) 263 7. The Moon and Love (月と戀: Tsuki to koi) 264 8. The Eagle (鷲: Washi) 265 9. Hirose River (廣瀬川: Hirosegawa) 266 10. A Hope (希望: Kibō) 267 11. Night and Sleep (「暗」と「眠」: ‘Yami’ to ‘nemuri’) 268 12. Untitled (無題: Mudai) 269 13. Lament (哀歌: Aika) 269 BIBLIOGRAPHY 272 iv ABSTRACT This dissertation examines the early poetry of Shimazaki Tōson (1872-1943), Doi Bansui (1871-1952), and Yosano Akiko (1878-1942), three writers who took Japanese Romantic poetry to its height in the late 1890s and early 1900s. Instead of following the realistic trend of shasei (sketching from life), each of these poets pursued a lyricism that sought ideals of nature and mined poetic allusions from classical Japanese, classical Chinese, and European Romantic predecessors. Their conceptual and intertextual commitments thus go beyond shasei and beyond nature. The introduction analyzes the discursive context surrounding concepts of nature and Romanticism, the traditional use of citation and allusion in Japanese poetics, and the development of shintaishi (new-style poetry) alongside tanka in the Meiji period (1868-1912). Chapter one investigates poems from Shimazaki Tōson’s Seedlings (Wakanashū, 1897) that concern the poetic speaker’s absorption in and alienation from wild nature. The nature of Tōson’s poems, however, is always an idealized landscape viewed through a traditional cultural prism, mediated by poetic allusion, and described in refined diction; indeed, that is why nature can be a source of happiness and completeness. Chapter two takes up poetic meditations on the ideal role of the poet in relation to nature in Doi Bansui’s Nature Has Feelings (Tenchi ujō, 1899). In the ironic stance of non-poets, Bansui’s poetic speakers curate the insights of a global gallery of poetic predecessors. These poets’ mystifications of nature in the end are hopeless, but the remaining palimpsest of lost ideals is itself an inspiring mix of shadows and echoes. The v poems thus suggest that the ideal aim of the poet is neither realism nor idealism, but a course that charts and preserves the fissures between the two. Chapter three examines how the tanka in Yosano Akiko’s Tangled Hair (Midaregami, 1901) use supernatural symbolism to entangle the modern discourse of love (ren’ai) as a spiritual ideal with classical poetic tropes. Deities, sin, and other supernatural and religious elements are prominent in Akiko’s poetry, but they have largely been overlooked by scholars who seek biographical explanations for her verses. By invoking multiple, often contradictory ideals of the natural and the supernatural, Akiko made the wavering possibility of liberation from traditional sexual mores seem dangerous and exciting, while her allusive yet passionate diction brought about a revolution within the tanka form. A brief concluding chapter ties together the poetic strategies of Tōson, Bansui, and Akiko through the meditations on nature and art by the narrator of Natsume Sōseki’s (1867-1916) novel Pillow of Grass (Kusamakura, 1906), then considers how Romantic lyric poetry gave way to Symbolism and Naturalism. An appendix presents English translations of shintaishi from Tōson’s Seedlings and Bansui’s Nature Has Feelings, most of which have never been published in translation. vi ACKNOWLEDGMENTS I am pleased to take this opportunity to thank the many individuals who have supported me intellectually, practically, and compassionately, who in the end have made this dissertation possible. I am grateful to my dissertation committee members for their patient guidance as this project has developed. The chair of my committee, Michael Bourdaghs, has tirelessly given of his expertise, practical insights, and encouragement, and it has been a great privilege to work with him. Norma Field continues to inspire me as a writer, scholar, and human being, and to remind me not to separate those aspects in myself. Hoyt Long has generously found the potential in my work and helped me steer towards it. Along the way, many other faculty members at the University of Chicago have been a tremendous resource, as well. I am especially grateful to Kyeong-Hee Choi, Gregory Golley, Reginald Jackson, Hiroyoshi Noto, and Yōko Katagiri. I am very grateful to the Department of Japanese Literature at Tōhoku University in Sendai for welcoming me to conduct research there from 2009 to 2010. I especially thank Prof. Satō Nobuhiro for his expert guidance when I was getting my project off the ground. The graduate students in the department, especially my mentors Kishimoto Yōsuke and Terakubo Kenshi, helped me with many practical research matters and in studying the poetry. Thanks go to Prof. Esther Klein, the Asian Studies and History departments, and the wonderful students at the University of Illinois at Chicago, for helping me grow as a teacher of Japanese history and culture. I also thank the Graham School of Continuing vii Liberal and Professional Studies, especially Marissa Love, Jan Watson, and the dedicated and curious students, for sharing journeys through the Japanese literary canon that included many of the poems and Natsume Sōseki’s Kusamakura. I am grateful to the staff at the Center for East Asian Studies, especially Sarah Arehart; to Dawn Brennan in the Department of East Asian Languages and Civilizations; and to Brooke Noonan, Director of Graduate Student Affairs. This dissertation was completed with the assistance of a Fulbright-Hays Doctoral Dissertation Research Abroad Fellowship and a series of Foreign Language and Area Studies (Title VI) Fellowships, both from the United States Department of Education, as well as a Toyota Dissertation Writing Fellowship and other funding from the Center for East Asian Studies at the University of Chicago.