- Reginald Horace Blyth
Reginald Horace Blyth (
3 December 1898 -28 October 1964 ), was an English author and devotee ofJapan ese culture.Early life
Born in
Essex ,England , the son of a railway clerk, Reginald Horace Blyth grew up to be an idealistic young man. In 1916, at the height ofWorld War I , he was imprisoned atWormwood Scrubs as aconscientious objector and a pacifist. After the war, he attended theUniversity of London , from which he graduated in 1923, with honours.Blyth played the
flute , made musical instruments, and taught himself several European languages. In 1924, he received a teaching certificate fromLondon Day Training College . The same year, he married Annie Bercovitch, a university friend. Some accounts say they moved toIndia , where he taught for a while until he became unhappy with British colonial rule. Other scholars dismiss this episode, claiming it to have been invented by Blyth's mentor Suzuki Daisetsu. (Pinnington, 1997).Korea (1925-1935)
In 1925, the Blyths moved to
Korea (then under Japanese rule), where Blyth becameAssistant Professor of English atKeijo University inSeoul . While in Korea, Blyth began to learn Japanese and Chinese, and studiedZen underKayama Taizi Roshi ofMyoshinji Betsuin . In 1933, he informally adopted a Korean student, paying for his studies in Korea and London. (Pinnington, 1997). His wife returned to England alone in 1934. He later followed her and they were divorced shortly thereafter, in 1935.Japan (1936-1964)
Having returned to Seoul in 1936, Blyth remarried in 1937, to Japanese Kishima Tomiko (Pinnington, 1997), with whom he later had two daughters, Nana Blyth and Harumi Blyth. He moved to Kanazawa in
Japan , and took a job as English teacher at a localhigh school .When
World War II broke out, Blyth was interned as a Britishenemy alien . Although he expressed his sympathy for Japan and sought Japanesecitizenship , this was denied. During his internment his extensivelibrary was destroyed in a bombing raid.After the war, Blyth worked diligently with the authorities, both Japanese and American, to ease the transition to peace. Blyth functioned as to the Japanese Imperial Household, and his close friend,
Harold G. Henderson , was on GeneralDouglas MacArthur 's staff. Together, they helped draft the declarationFact|date=October 2008 "Ningen Sengen ", by which EmperorHirohito declared himself to be a human being, and not divine.By 1946, Blyth had become
Professor of English atGakushuin University , and tutoredCrown Prince (later emperor)Akihito in English. He did much to populariseZen philosophy andJapanese poetry (particularly "haiku ") in the West. In 1956, he was awarded adoctorate inliterature fromTokyo University , and, in 1957, he received the "Zuihosho " (Order of Merit) Fourth Grade.Reginald Horace Blyth died in 1964, of a brain tumour and complications from
pneumonia , in the Seiroka Hospital inTokyo . He was buried in the cemetery of the Shokozan Tokeiji Soji temple in Kamakura, next to his old friend,D. T. Suzuki .Blyth and haiku
After early imagist interest in haiku the genre drew less attention in English, until after World War II with the appearance of a number of influential volumes about Japanese haiku.
In 1949, with the publication in Japan of the first volume of "Haiku", the four-volume work by R.H. Blyth, haiku was introduced to the post-war western world. He produced a series of works on
Zen , haiku,senryū , and on other forms of Japanese and Asian literature, the most significant being his "Zen in English Literature and Oriental Classics" (1942); his four-volume "Haiku" series (1949-52) dealing mostly with pre-modern haiku, though including Shiki; and his two-volume "History of Haiku" (1964). Today he is best known as a major interpreter of haiku to English speakers.Present-day attitudes to Blyth's work vary: on the one hand, he is appreciated as a populariser of Japanese culture; on the other, his portrayals of haiku and Zen are sometimes criticised as one-dimensional. Many contemporary writers of haiku were introduced to the genre through his works. These include the San Francisco and
Beat Generation writers, such asJack Kerouac ,Gary Snyder , andAllen Ginsberg . [Suiter 2002, pg. 47] Many members of the international "haiku community" also got their first views of haiku from Blyth's books, includingJames W. Hackett , Eric Amann, William J. Higginson, Anita Virgil, Jane Reichhold, and Lee Gurga. In the late twentieth century, members of that community with direct knowledge of modern Japanese haikuFact|date=October 2008 often noted Blyth's distaste for haiku on more modern themes and his strong bias regarding a direct connection between haiku and Zen, a "connection" largely ignored by Japanese poets. (Bashō, in fact, felt that his devotion to haiku prevented him from realizing enlightenment [As documented in Makoto Ueda's "Literary and Art Theories in Japan" (Press of Western Reserve U., 1967).] ) Blyth also did not view haiku by Japanese women favourably, downplaying their substantial contributions to the genre, especially during the Bashō era and the twentieth century.Fact|date=October 2008Although Blyth did not foresee the appearance of original haiku in languages other than Japanese when he began writing on the topic, and although he founded no school of verse, his works stimulated the writing of
haiku in English . At the end of the second volume of his "History of Haiku" (1964), he remarked that "The latest development in the history of haiku is one which nobody foresaw, ... the writing of haiku outside Japan, not in the Japanese language." He followed that comment with several original verses in English by the American James W. Hackett (b. 1929), with whom Blyth corresponded.References
Selected works by R.H. Blyth:
*"Zen in English Literature and Oriental Classics", The Hokuseido Press, 1942. ISBN 0-9647040-1-3 ( [http://www.questia.com/PM.qst?a=o&d=30475595 Online copy(with paid subscription)] )
*"Haiku", 1949-1952, in four volumes, Volume 1: Eastern Culture. Volume 2: Spring. Volume 3:Summer-Autumn. Volume 4: Autumn-Winter. The Hokuseido Press, ISBN 0-89346-184-9
* "Senryu: Japanese Satirical Verses", The Hokuseido Press, 1949 ISBN 0-8371-2958-3
*"Japanese Life and Character in Senryu", 1959.
*"Oriental Humor", 1959.
*"Zen and Zen Classics", in five volumes, Volume 1: General Introduction,from the Upanishads to Huineng.1960.ISBN 0-89346-204-7. Volume 2: History of Zen,1964. ISBN 0-89346-205-5. Volume 3: History of Zen. 1970. Volume 4: Mumonkan.1966. Volume 5: Twenty-Five Zen Essays.1962. ISBN 0-89346-052-4. The Hokuseido Press.
*"Edo Satirical Verse Anthologies", 1961. The Hokuseido Press.
*"A History of Haiku" in two volumes. Volume 1: From the Beginnings up to Issa.ISBN 0-9647040-2-1. Volume 2: From Issa up to the Present.ISBN 0-9647040-3-X.1963.The Hokuseido Press.In the USA Hokuseido Press publications are/were sold through Heian International, South San Francisco. They are also distributed by Book East,P.O.Box 11387,Portland, OR 97211.
*"Games Zen Masters Play : writings of R. H. Blyth", 1976.
*"Other writings by R.H.Blyth: Unfortunately the following books are now out of print.
*"A Survey of English Literature".
*"Humour in English Literature: A Chronological Anthology".
*"Easy Poems. Vol 1 and 2".
*"How to Read English Poetry".
*"Dorothy Wordsworth 's Journals (With Introduction and Footnotes).
*"A Week on the Concord and Merrimack River (Shortened,with Introduction and Notes).About R.H. Blyth:
*Ikuyo Yoshimura , "The Life of R. H. Blyth", 1996
*Robert Aitken, "Original Dwelling Place", 1996
* Pinnington, A. "Ch. 19, R.H. Blyth" in "Britain & Japan: Biographical Portraits"; Japan Society; 1994; ISBN 1-873410-27-1External links
* [http://www.gardendigest.com/zen/blyth.htm Chronology, bibliography, links, quotes] by Michael P. Garofalo. Accessed 2008-10-10.
* [http://www.fureai-ch.ne.jp/~haiku/enintro.htm Self-introduction by Yasuhiko Shigemoto,] making brief mention of Blyth. Accessed 2008-10-10.
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