Kitamura Tokoku

Infobox Writer
name = Kitamura Tokoku


caption = Kitamura Tokoku
birthdate = birth date|1868|12|29|df=y
birthplace = Odawara, Kanagawa Japan
deathdate = death date and age|1894|5|16|1868|12|29|df=y
deathplace = Tokyo Japan
occupation = Writer, Philosopher
genre = Poetry, essays
movement = romanticism
notableworks =
influences =
influenced = nihongo|Kitamura Tokoku|北村透谷| Kitamura Tokoku; (29 December 1868 – 16 May 1894) was the pen-name of a poet, essayist and one of the founders of the modern Japanese romantic literary movement in late Meiji period Japan. His real name was Kitamura Montaro.

Early life

A native of Odawara city, Kanagawa prefecture he was interested in liberal politics at an early age, and played a minor role in the Freedom and People's Rights Movement. He attended the "Tokyo Semmon Gakko" (which later became Waseda University), but was expelled due to his radical political views. After almost a year of vigorous political activities, he started questioning the purpose of the movement and left to become a writer.

Literary career

Kitamura married Ishizaka Mina at the age of 19 in 1888, and in the same year he published the long verse "Soshu no shi" ("The Poem of the Prisoner"), which was the longest poem written in free verse up until that time. He followed this with the poetic drama "Horai kyoku" ("The Drama of Mount Horai"). He claimed to be influenced by the works of Byron, Emerson and Carlyle; however, his wife's Christianity also greatly influenced his outlook.

Kitamura turned from poetry to essays, and wrote works extolling the “life-espousing views” of the West, over the “life-denying view” of Buddhism and traditional Japanese Shinto thought. His attempts to explore the nature of the self and the potentials for the individual, particularly in his seminal work "Naibu seimei ron" ("Theory of Inner Life") are regarded as the starting point of modern Japanese literature.

He was a close associate of Shimazaki Toson, whom he strongly influenced towards the romantic literary movement.

Kitamura was hired as an English teacher at the Friends Girl's School in 1890. He frequented the Azabu Christian Church. In 1893, he took over the post held by Shimazaki Toson at Meiji Girl's School (now Meiji Gakuin University). He also submitted literary criticism to the literary magazine "Bungakukai", which he helped launch with Shimazaki Fujimura in 1893. However, around this time he began to show signed of mental instability and depression.

Before dawn on 16 May 1894, he hung himself in his garden at his home near Shiba Park in Tokyo. His grave is at the temple of Zuisho-ji in Shirogane, Tokyo.

References

* Irokawa Daikichi. "Kitamura Tokoku". Tokyo Daigaku Shuppankai; (1994). ISBN 413013017X

External links

* [http://www.aozora.gr.jp/index_pages/person157.html e-texts of works] at Aozora Bunko