Kambara Ariake

Infobox Writer
name = Ariake Kambara


caption = Kambara Ariake
birthdate = birth date|1876|3|15|df=y
birthplace = Tokyo, Japan
deathdate = death date and age|1952|2|3|1876|3|15|df=y
deathplace = Kamakura, Japan
occupation = Novelist, poet , translator
genre = 　sonnets
movement = symbolist poetry.
notableworks =
influences = Byron, Heine, John Keats, Rossetti.
influenced =
footnotes =

nihongo|Kambara Ariake|蒲原有明| (15 March 1876 – 3 February 1952) was the pen-name of a Japanese poet and novelist active in Taishō and Showa period Japan.

Early life

Ariake was born in Tokyo. His father, an ex"-samurai" from Higo province, was a close associate of Eto Shimpei and active in the Meiji Restoration. He moved to Tokyo together with Oki Takato and his mistress, leaving his wife back in Higo. Ariake's real name was Kambara Hayao. He was so sickly as an infant that his parents waited for a full year to officially register his name with the local government.

Literary career

While still at middle school, he developed an interest in the works of Byron and Heine, and began writing poetry in a similar style. In 1894, he started a literary journal called "Ochibo Zoshi" ("Gleaners’Notes") together with Hayashida Shuncho and Yamagishi Kayo, in which he serialized his first novel, nihongo|"Autumn Mountain Village"|秋の山ざと|Aki no Yamazato. He escaped military conscription during the First Sino-Japanese War as he failed the physical examination.

In 1898, he won first prize in a Yomiuri Shimbun contest with his second novel nihongo|"Great Mercy"|大慈悲|Daijihi, which was highly praised by one of the judges, Ozaki Koyo. However, Ariake gave up prose and decided to concentrate only on poetry for the rest of his literary career.

His first collection, "nihongo|"Young Leaves"|草わかば|Kusawakaba, was published in 1902, and borrowed themes from the ancient Japanese chronicles "Kojiki" and "Fudoki." However, the style of his works exhibited influence from western poets, such as John Keats and Dante Gabriel Rossetti. He followed with a second collection of lyrical poetry called "Dokugen Aika" in 1903.

Ariake served as the manager of a popular writer's salon called "Ryudokai", which was started in November 1904, by art critic Iwamura Toru at a French restaurant called Ryudoken in Azabu, Tokyo. Ariake and Iwamura were friends, and Ariake made contact with numerous people in the contemporary literary work, including Doppo Kunikida, Katai Tayama, Shimazaki Toson, Masamune Hakucho, through his job as manager of the Ryudoken.

In his fourth anthology, nihongo|"Ariake's Collection"|有明詩集|Ariaki Shu, in 1922, he introduced the 14-line sonnet, which was previously seldom used in conventional Japanese modern poetry. Its publication gained him a reputation as a leading figure in Japanese symbolist poetry. However, this came at a time when the literary world was gravitating rapidly towards free verse, and as Ariake refused to adapt to the new trends, he gradually withdrew from literary circles.

In 1947 he published of his autobiographical novel, nihongo|"Dreams Call On"|夢は呼び交わす|Yume wa yobi kawasu, which was the final poetic work of his career, although he continued to work on translations of European poets as well as literary criticism.

In 1948, he was inducted into the Japan Art Academy.

Ariake moved from Tokyo to Kamakura, Kanagawa prefecture in 1919, but was forced to relocate to Shizuoka city Shizuoka prefecture after his house collapsed during the Great Kantō earthquake of 1923. He returned to Kamakura in 1945, after his house was burned down by the firebombing of Shizuoka during the Pacific War. He continued to live in Kamakura until his death in 1952 of acute pneumonia at the age of 76.

From 1945-1946, the Nobel Prize-winning Kawabata Yasunari was a house-guest at Ariake's house in Kamakura.

Ariake's grave is located at the temple of Kenso-ji in Moto-Azabu, Tokyo.

ee also

*Japanese literature
*List of Japanese authors

External links

* [http://www.aozora.gr.jp/index_pages/person1055.html e-text of Ariake's works] at Aozora Bunko (Japanese site)
* [http://www.city.kamakura.kanagawa.jp/english/bunjin/kambara_e.htm Literary Figures of Kamakura]

References

* Kambara, Ariake. "Ariake: Poems of Love and Longing by the Women Courtiers of Ancient Japan". Chronicle Books (2000). ISBN 0811828131
* Tu Kuo-ch'ing. "Li Chin-fa and Kambara Ariake: The First Symbolist Poets in China and Japan". Fung Ping Shan Library (1982). ISBN: B000H5PAZ8