Masaoka Shiki

Template:Short description Template:Use mdy dates Template:Infobox person Template:Family name hatnote Template:Nihongo, pen-name of Masaoka Noboru (正岡升),<ref>Template:Cite book</ref> 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,<ref>Beichman, Preface, p. i</ref> credited with writing nearly 20,000 stanzas during his short life.<ref name=shiki-kushuu>Template:Cite book</ref> He also wrote on reform of tanka poetry.<ref name=tankaref/>

Some consider Shiki to be one of the four great haiku masters, the others being Matsuo Bashō, Yosa Buson, and Kobayashi Issa.<ref name=5greats>Template:Cite book</ref><ref>Template:Cite book</ref>

Early lifeEdit

Shiki, or rather Tsunenori (常規) as he was originally named,<ref>Frédéric, Louis. Japan encyclopedia. Harvard University Press, 2005. Template:ISBN. p. 613</ref> was born in Matsuyama City in Iyo Province (present day Ehime Prefecture) to a samurai class family of modest means.<ref name=birth/> As a child, he was called Tokoronosuke (處之助); in adolescence, his name was changed to Noboru (升).Template:Citation needed

His father, Tsunenao (正岡常尚),<ref>Official website of the Shiki-an Template:Webarchive, Shiki's Tokyo residence, page Template:Nihongo (in Japanese)</ref><ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> was an alcoholic who died when Shiki was five years of age.<ref name=birth/> His mother, Yae,<ref name=page27>Beichman, p. 27</ref> was a daughter of Ōhara Kanzan, a Confucian scholar.<ref name=birth/> Kanzan was the first of Shiki's extra-school tutors; at the age of 7 the boy began reading Mencius under his tutelage.<ref name=mencius/> Shiki later confessed to being a less-than-diligent student.<ref name=mencius>Beichman, p. 4</ref>

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.<ref name=matsuyamamiddle>Beichman, pp. 7–8</ref> Around this time he developed an interest in moving to Tokyo and did so in 1883.<ref name=scholarship1>Beichman, pp. 8–9</ref>

EducationEdit

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.<ref name=matsuyamamiddle/> In 1883, a maternal uncle arranged for him to come to Tokyo.<ref name=scholarship1/> Shiki was first enrolled in Kyōritsu Middle School and later matriculated into University Preparatory School.<ref name=bloodc/> (Daigaku Yobimon) affiliated with Imperial University (Teikoku Daigaku).<ref>Beichman, p. 9</ref> While studying here, the teenage Shiki enjoyed playing baseball<ref name=bball/> and befriended fellow student Natsume Sōseki, who would go on to become a famous novelist.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref>

He entered Tokyo Imperial University in 1890.<ref name=dropout/> But by 1892 Shiki, by his own account too engrossed in haiku writing, failed his final examinations, left the Hongō dormitory that had been provided to him by a scholarship, and dropped out of college.<ref name=dropout/> Others say tuberculosis, an illness that dogged his later life, was the reason he left school.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref>

Literary careerEdit

While Shiki is best known as a haiku poet,<ref name=claimtofame/> he wrote other genres of poetry,<ref>Burton, Watson. Introduction. Masaoka Shiki: selected poems, p. 11</ref> prose criticism of poetry,<ref name=critic/> autobiographical prose,<ref name=critic>Beichman, p. 22</ref> and was a short prose essayist.<ref name=page27/> (His earliest surviving work is a school essay, Yōken Setsu ("On Western Dogs"), where he praises the varied utility of western dogs as opposed to Japanese ones, which "only help in hunting and scare away burglars."<ref>Beichman, p. 5</ref>)

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.<ref name=bloodc>Beichman, p. 14</ref> Shiki, at times, expressed similar sentiments.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref> There were no great living practitioners although these forms of poetry retained some popularity.<ref>Keene, pp. 195–198</ref>

Despite an atmosphere of decline, only a year or so after his 1883 arrival in Tokyo, Shiki began writing haiku.<ref name=dropout>Beichman, pp. 15–16</ref> 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".<ref name=claimtofame/> A month after completion of this work, in November 1892, he was offered a position as haiku editor in the paper that had published it, Nippon, and maintained a close relationship with this journal throughout his life.<ref name=claimtofame/> In 1895 another serial was published in the same paper, "A Text on Haikai for Beginners", Haikai Taiyō.<ref name=claimtofame>Beichman, pp. 18–19</ref> These were followed by other serials: Meiji Nijūkunen no Haikukai or "The Haiku World of 1896" where he praised works by disciples<ref name=ito>Beichman, pp. 27–28</ref> Takahama Kyoshi and Kawahigashi Hekigotō,<ref name=buson>Beichman, p. 25</ref> Haijin Buson or "The Haiku Poet Buson" (1896–1897<ref name=buson/>) expressing Shiki's idea of this 18th-century poet whom he identifies with his school of haiku,<ref name=tankaref>Beichman, p. 26</ref> and Utayomi ni Atauru Sho or "Letters to a Tanka Poet" (1898) where he urged reform of the tanka poetry form.<ref name=tankaref/>

The above work, on tanka, is an example of Shiki's expanded focus during the last few years of his life. He died four years after taking up tanka as a topic.<ref>Keene, p. 202</ref> Bedsore and morphine-addled, little more than a year before his death Shiki began writing sickbed diaries.<ref>Beichman, pp. 26–29</ref> 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).<ref name=tankaref/>

Later lifeEdit

Shiki suffered from tuberculosis (TB) much of his life. In 1888<ref>Keene, p. 198</ref> or 1889<ref name=penname/> he began coughing up blood<ref name=bloodc/> and soon adopted the pen-name "Shiki" from the Japanese hototogisu—the Japanese name for lesser cuckoos.<ref name=penname>Beichman, p. 20</ref> 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,<ref name=penname/> hence the pen-name "Shiki" (as a symptom of TB is coughing blood).

Suffering from the early symptoms of TB, Shiki sought work as a war correspondent in the First Sino-Japanese War<ref name=penname/> and, while eventually obtaining his goal, he arrived in China after the April 17, 1895 signing of the Treaty of Shimonoseki.<ref name=sinojpn>Beichman, p. 21</ref> Instead of reporting on the war, he spent an unpleasant time harassed by Japanese soldiers<ref>Template:Cite book</ref> in Dalian, Luangtao, and the Lüshunkou District, meeting on May 10, 1895<ref>Template:Cite book</ref> the famous novelist Mori Ōgai, who was at the time an army doctor.<ref name=sinojpn/>

Living in filthy conditions in China apparently worsened his TB.<ref name=sinojpn/> Shiki continued to cough blood throughout his return voyage to Japan and was hospitalized in Kobe.<ref name=sinojpn/> After being discharged, he returned to his home town of Matsuyama city and convalesced in the home of the famed novelist Natsume Sōseki.<ref name=sinojpn/> During this time he took on disciples and promulgated a style of haiku that emphasized gaining inspiration from personal experiences of nature.<ref name=sinojpn/> Still in Matsuyama in 1897, a member of this group, Yanigihara Kyokudō, established a haiku magazine, Hototogisu,<ref name=tankaref/> an allusion to Shiki's pen name.<ref name=penname/> Operation of this magazine was quickly moved to Tokyo. Takahama Kyoshi, another disciple,<ref name=ito/> assumed control and the magazine's scope was extended to include prose work.<ref name=page27/>

Shiki came to Tokyo,<ref>Beichman, p. 23</ref> 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.<ref name=buson/>

Although bedridden by 1897,<ref name=tankaref/> Shiki's disease worsened further around 1901.<ref name=page27/> He developed Pott's disease and began using morphine as a painkiller.<ref name=page27/> By 1902 he may have been relying heavily on the drug.<ref>Beichman, p. 28</ref> During this time Shiki wrote three autobiographical works.<ref name=tankaref/> He died of tuberculosis in 1902 at age 34.<ref name=penname/>

LegacyEdit

File:Shiki Masaoka stone monument is recognized as one of the symbols of Matsuyama-City.JPG

A monument containing a haiku by Shiki, in front of Matsuyama Station

Shiki may be credited with salvaging traditional short-form Japanese poetry and carving out a niche for it in the modern Meiji period.<ref>Keene, p. 203</ref> While he advocated reform of haiku, this reform was based on the idea that haiku was a legitimate literary genre.<ref name=page32>Beichman, p. 32</ref> 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.<ref>Kato, p. 134</ref> Shiki firmly placed haiku in the category of literature, and this was unique.Template:Citation needed

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.<ref name=5greats/>

His particular style rejected "the puns or fantasies often relied on by the old school" in favor of "realistic observation of nature".<ref>Beichman, p. 45</ref> Shiki, like other Meiji period writers,Template:Citation needed borrowed a dedication to realism from Western literature. This is evident in his approach to both haiku<ref name=page32/> and tanka.<ref>Burton, Watson. Introduction. Masaoka Shiki: selected poems, p. 9</ref>

BaseballEdit

Shiki played baseball as a teenager and was inducted into the Japanese Baseball Hall of Fame in 2002.<ref name=bball>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> A group of 1898 tanka by him mention the sport.<ref>Beichman, pp. 89, 91</ref>