Paper short abstract:

Mitsuhashi Takajo (1899-1972) was a most original haiku poet, active in pre- and postwar Japan. In this paper, the development of her unique voice will be analyzed in relation to some of the main stylistic movements that make up the history of 20th century haiku, from traditionalism to avant-garde.

Paper long abstract:

Mitsuhashi Takajo (1899-1972) is regarded as one of the most original of the haiku poets active in pre- and postwar Japan. She started studying haiku for Hara Sekitei, a poet of traditionalist lineage, but she soon turned away from the simple realism and focus on natural scenery, typical for early 20th century haiku, and started to explore more subjective and challenging subjects. The aggressiveness of some of her poems have become well known, interpreted as expressing a feminist perspective and the frustration over being a woman in a patriarchal society. As in most modern haiku, her work is strongly autobiographical, and many of the turbulent shifts, both in her private life and in Japanese society, before, during, and after the war, is reflected in her poems. In the postwar period, Takajo started to collaborate with avant-garde poets in Tomizawa Kakio’s circle, and her work became even more experimental.

In this paper, I will discuss Takajo’s development as a poet and show how her oeuvre offers examples of several of the stylistic movements that make up the history of 20th century haiku. Her poems usually include a seasonal reference and adhere to the 5-7-5 rhythm of traditional haiku. However, she uses these conventions in ways different from the objective visuality of the traditionalists. Already in early works, an interest in human society and psychology links her to the Shinkô (New style) poets and the Ningen tankyûha (The explorers of the human condition). Like many other female poets in her generation, she sometimes uses homely themes, but seldom in the simplistic style of the so-called Daidokorohaiku (Kitchen haiku); rather she uses these for enigmatic juxtapositions typical for the avant-garde style, pushing the boundaries of language expression. She also shows a flexibility in register, sometimes using classical poetic language, but sometimes writing in colloquial Japanese, at times even using childish expressions, thus becoming a forerunner for later poets such as Tsubouchi Nenten and Ikeda Sumiko.

This paper is part of a larger research project, which investigates modern Japanese haiku by female poets.

Paper short abstract:

This paper examines translations of Victor and Paul Margueritte by Yoshiya Nobuko (Zette: Histoire d'une petite fille 1903; Shōjo Zette 1930) and Mochizuki Yuriko (La garçonne 1922; Michizure, 1928) with attention to how the translations explored the performativity of gender and sexual autonomy.

Paper long abstract:

This paper focuses on the translations of French brothers, Victor and Paul Margueritte by Yoshiya Nobuko (Zette: Histoire d'une petite fille 1903 translated as Shōjo Zette 1930) and Mochizuki Yuriko (La garçonne, The Bachelor Girl, 1922 translated as Michizure, 1928). Amidst more well-known translations of canonical works as key to narratives of modern Japanese literary history, this paper considers instead these less well-known translations of works of literature that explored the performativity of gender and sexual autonomy.

La garçonne's frank exploration of the bisexual relationships of a single mother lost Victor Margueritte the Légion d'honneur. Mochizuki found surprising that "even in supposedly advanced countries, a woman loses her power and inheritance if she marries" and translated the work to convey story of this young woman who refuses to marry in order maintain her sexual autonomy and legal status as mother of her child. Yoshiya Nobuko writes that she chose Zette: Histoire d'une petite fille to translate when asking people in Paris for recommendations for fiction depicting girlhood in France. However, it is also likely that she read Mochizuki's translation depicting bisexuality, and as a woman in a same-sex relationship herself, she may have been looking for additional works by the same writer.

As discussed by Michiko Suzuki and Sarah Frederick, translations and references to Edward Carpenter by Yoshiya Nobuko, Yamada Waka, and Yamakawa Kikue reappropriated his work focused on relationships among men to consider girls' same-sex relationships and feminist possibilities of his thought. Ikuta Shungetsu (assistant to Ikuta Chōkō and spouse of Seitō member Ikuta Hanayo), co-translated George Sand with teenager Nakamura Chiyoko in 1919. These figures all overlapped in the feminist and leftist magazines of the 1910s and 1920s.

This paper considers the translations of the Margueritte brothers in the context of this milieu of queer cosmopolitanism in the Japanese feminist community. It will also consider stylistic elements, including the role these translations may have played in developing new language for girls' fiction and political fiction.

Paper short abstract:

This paper explores the translation of musical metaphors and musicalized language in pre-war Japan through a parallel close reading of Arthur Rimbaud’s poem 'Roman' (1870) and its Japanese translation 'Monogatari' by Nakahara Chūya.

Paper long abstract:

This paper explores the translation of musical metaphors and musicalized language in 1930s Japan through the lens of 'Monogatari', Nakahara Chūya’s rendition of Arthur Rimbaud’s poem 'Roman' (1870). Chūya is known as one of the pioneers of Dadaist poetry in Japan, but also as a translator of 19th century symbolist poets such as Verlaine and Rimbaud. An important recurring theme in both Chūya’s work and that of his French predecessors is the relation between language and music. In Roman/Monogatari, this theme finds expression in the image of the ‘death of cavatinas’ (“sur vos lèvres alors meurent les cavatines”), which marks a hinge point in the narrative and the rhythmical structure of the poem. Through a parallel close reading of Chūya’s translation and the source poem, I show how Chūya’s treatment of this passage attempts to render the musicality of Rimbaud’s French verse into Japanese on two distinct yet intertwined levels. The language of 'Monogatari' can be read as (1) an attempt at a formal imitation of musical structures and rhythms that are implicitly present in the French original, but it is also (2) strongly informed by extra-musical factors such as the cultural prestige associated with Western music in pre-war Japan. I contextualize my analysis of the cultural situatedness of 'Monogatari' with an exploration of Chūya’s poetological writings on the relations between poetry and music, such as the essay 'Sei to uta' (1928).