Yosano Akiko - Knowledge (XXG)

385: 355:(Dancer). Her husband Tekkan was also a poet, but his reputation was eclipsed by hers. He continued to publish his wife's work and to encourage her in her literary career. Yosano Akiko was an extraordinarily prolific writer. She could produce as many as 50 poems in one sitting. During the course of her lifetime, Yosano Akiko is thought to have written between 20,000 and 50,000 poems. She also wrote 11 books of prose, many of which neglected by literary critics and audiences. 59: 374: 335:, the idea of nudity changed the way Japanese people viewed eroticism and female sexuality. Up until this point women's breasts were a symbol for child feeding and motherhood. From then on they began to take on a different representation; that of natural beauty, and especially that of young women. A door was opened for Japanese women to imagine new representations of sexuality and the female body. 523:"Akiko had, in effect, redefined the meaning of the term and seized it as a tool of liberation. "Chastity" no longer meant safeguarding the womb; it meant the totality of a woman's sexuality, the totality of the female self, the chastity of the self. Akiko saw that the emphasis on woman as sexual object and her acceptance of that definition had had a stultifying effect on her sense of self" 362:(Institute of Culture), together with Nishimura Isaku, Kawasaki Natsu and others, and became its first dean and chief lecturer. She assisted many aspiring writers to gain a foothold in the literary world. She was a lifelong advocate of women's education. She also translated the Japanese classics into modern Japanese, including the 408:

became public. In September 1904, Yosano had learned that Japanese soldiers at Port Arthur were being used as "human bullets", being strapped with explosives and sent to blast holes through the Russian barbed wire entanglements in suicide missions. Yosano's younger brother was serving in the Imperial

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as she praised a Japanese soldier for dying for the Emperor at the First Battle of Shanghai as she described how the soldier "scatters" his body when he is blown apart as a "human bomb". Yosano called the "scattered" body of the soldier "purer than a flower, giving life to a samurai's honor". Unlike

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In her youth, Yosano had not been allowed opportunities to interact with the opposite sex, which she cited as the cause for her latent sexuality. She was not allowed to leave her home unaccompanied and could count the number of times she had crossed the threshold of someone else's home. After being

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Even if the male has this kind of economic guarantee, if the woman still lacks it, then she should avoid marriage and childbirth. If a woman depends on her man's finances for marriage and childbirth, even if there is a romantic relationship between them, then the woman is economically dependent on

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posed a challenge to the patriarchal values of Japanese society, as well as to the accepted literary and cultural conventions of her time. Although Akiko Yosano's work was denounced and severely criticized, it served as a great source of inspiration to women of her day. The American scholar Hiromi

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The majority are love poems through which Akiko expresses her feelings toward Tekkan Yosano. It was through this particular collection that she set an image for herself as well as the stage for female voices in modern Japan. The poems tended to express femininity in a manner unconventional for her

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Despite giving birth to thirteen children in her lifetime, Yosano stated that she did not consider the act of giving birth to be the main part of her identity. She also expressed worry that fully equating the identity of womanhood with motherhood prioritizes motherhood over the other aspects of a

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Yosano believed that motherhood is something that shouldn't be controlled by the government, as even in a feminist light, there is no real difference from living for a man. She believed that marriage and life should be done cooperatively, and that living with one gender over the other would have

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Tekkan was married when he met Akiko, and left his wife for her a year after they met one another. The two poets started a new life together in the suburb of Tokyo. They married in 1901, when Yosano was 23, and went on to have 13 children, 11 of whom lived to adulthood. Tekkan had extramarital

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in September 1911 featured her poem "The Day the Mountains Move" asking for woman to be given equal rights. In a 1918 article, Yosano attacked "the ruling and military class which deliberately block the adoption of a truly moral system in an effort to protect the wealth and influence of their

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not only expressed concepts and/or issues that pertain to women and were not normally voiced in such a public manner, but also created a new, revolutionary image of womanhood, as lively, free, sexual, and assertive, nothing at all like the conventional picture of the modest, demure young lady

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I believe that making motherhood absolute and giving supremacy to motherhood, as Ellen Key does, among all the innumerable hopes and desires that arise as women undulate on the surface of life, serves to keep women entrapped in the old unrealistic way of thinking that gives a ranking to the

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families...They hurry to invoke the power and precepts of the old totalitarian moral codes to direct the lives of Japanese citizens". Yosano ended her article by calling militarism a form of "barbarian thinking which is the responsibility of us women to eradicate from our midst".

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in "this sacred war". Yosano died of a stroke in 1942 at the age of 63. Her death, occurring in the middle of the Pacific War, went almost unnoticed in the press, and after the end of the war, her works were largely forgotten by critics and the public. In the 1950s, the

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Yosano Akiko disagreed with the concept of mothers seeking financial independence through the help of the government, claiming that dependence on the state and dependence on men are one and the same. In her essay titled "Woman's Complete Independence," or

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magazine column, "One Woman's Notebook," in January 1915. Her main assertion is that women could accept roles as mothers, but exemplified more than that role: as friends, as wives, as Japanese citizens, and as members of the world.

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In traditional Japanese values, women are perceived as (and are expected to be) gentle and modest. The domestic and societal roles of Japanese women were and are focused on procreation and raising children, especially boys.

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Addressed to her brother, Yosano wrote: "Did our parents make you grasp the sword and teach you to kill? For you what does it matter whether the fortress of Lüshun falls or not?" Yosano attacked the central concept of

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became something of an anthem for the students. Her romantic, sensual style has come back into popularity in recent years, and she has an ever-increasing following. Her grave is at Tama Cemetery in Fuchu, Tokyo.

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is cliche-ridden as Yosano used well-known phrases like "a samurai's honor" taken straight from the ultra-nationalist press without developing a vocabulary of her own. Yosano ended her poem by praising

425:, noting that it was the greatest honor for a man to die for the Emperor, who she sarcastically noted never put himself in harm's way, expecting others to die for him. For calling the war with 238:

Yosano was born into a prosperous merchant family in Sakai, near Osaka. From the age of 11, she was the family member most responsible for running the family business, which produced and sold

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This viewpoint was diametrically opposed to many Japanese feminists' shared opinion at the time that the government should financially support mothers, including one of the five founders of

246:. From early childhood, she was fond of reading literary works, and read widely in her father's extensive library. As a high school student, she began to subscribe to the poetry magazine 475:(Bluestocking), as well as other publications. Her opinions were rooted in the concept of equally partaking in child rearing, financial independence, and social responsibility. 595:. In "Rosy-Cheeked Death", the Chinese are "foolish" to resist Japan because Japan is a "good neighbor" whom they could never hope to defeat, making their resistance futile. 1567:

Rowley, GG, Review of Janine Beichman,'Embracing the Firebird: Yosano Akiko and the Birth of the Female Voice in Modern Japanese Poetry', Harvard Journal of Asiatic Studies.

1629: 607:, Yosano called for Japanese women to "unify in loyalty" for the "cause of the Emperor's forces". The American scholar Steven Robson noted that unlike the 1704: 1699: 384: 264:

married she reflected negatively upon her childhood, saying, "I realized for the first time how jaundiced, unfair, and dark my childhood had been."

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was made mandatory reading in Japanese high schools, and during the protests led by idealistic university students against the government of

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Engraved on the back of the Ichiyo Higuchi monument. The names of sponsors Yosano Akiko and Mori Ogai can be confirmed. (Taken 8 April 2011)

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to attack her in a magazine article for "corrupting public morals" and "mouthing obscenities fit for a whore". From the examples in the

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was so unpopular that Yosano's house was stoned by angry people while she became involved in a rancorous debate with the journalist

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senseless and stupid, Yosano made herself into Japan's most controversial poet, and the government attempted to ban her poem. The

1595: 1684: 1564:"Yosano Akiko in the Late 1930s". The Journal of the Association of Teachers of Japanese, vol. 25, no. 1, 1991, pp. 3–3. 1679: 571:(To the Light). In 1931, Yosano, Japan's most famous pacifist succumbed to the "war fever" that gripped Japan when the 1659: 1654: 1649: 1644: 1639: 396:(君死にたもうこと勿れ, Thou Shalt Not Die), addressed to her younger brother, was published in Myōjō during the height of the 592: 694: 654:(New Man'yōshū, 1937–39) was a compilation of 26,783 poems by 6,675 contributors, written over a 60-year period. 1486: 1221: 712: 624: 576: 320:

Tsuchiya Dollase noted, "The visual representations of flesh, lips and breasts symbolize women’s sexuality".

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Rodd, Laurel Rasplica (1 January 1991). "Yosano Akiko and the Bunkagakuin: "Educating Free Individuals"".

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him and becomes the man's slave, or otherwise she is a thief who preys on the fruits of the man's labor.

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expected in Japan. Yosano's women were not passive, but active agents of their love lives. In a typical

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A flowering word : the modernist expression in Stephane Mallarme, T.S. Eliot, and Yosano Akiko

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In 1942, in one of her last poems, Yosano praised her son who was serving as a lieutenant in the

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Yosano gave birth to 13 children, of whom 11 survived to adulthood. The late Japanese politician

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Embracing the Firebird: Yosano Akiko and the Birth of the Female Voice in Modern Japanese Poetry

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poetry, having met her on visits to Osaka and Sakai to deliver lectures and teach in workshops.

58: 1525: 1519: 1383: 1297: 1165: 1141: 1135: 1109: 988: 978: 915: 868: 827: 800: 773: 746: 556: 230:. She is one of the most noted, and most controversial, post-classical female poets of Japan. 1375: 1076: 1041: 860: 552: 401: 328: 1547:"Yosano Akiko on War: To Give One's Life or Not: A Question of Which War" pages 45-74 from 1504:"Yosano Akiko on War: To Give One's Life or Not: A Question of Which War" pages 45-74 from 1473:"Yosano Akiko on War: To Give One's Life or Not: A Question of Which War" pages 45-74 from 1457:"Yosano Akiko on War: To Give One's Life or Not: A Question of Which War" pages 45-74 from 1441:"Yosano Akiko on War: To Give One's Life or Not: A Question of Which War" pages 45-74 from 1276:"Yosano Akiko on War: To Give One's Life or Not: A Question of Which War" pages 45-74 from 1255:"Yosano Akiko on War: To Give One's Life or Not: A Question of Which War" pages 45-74 from 1239:"Yosano Akiko on War: To Give One's Life or Not: A Question of Which War" pages 45-74 from 1199:"Yosano Akiko on War: To Give One's Life or Not: A Question of Which War" pages 45-74 from 1183:"Yosano Akiko on War: To Give One's Life or Not: A Question of Which War" pages 45-74 from 1011:"Yosano Akiko on War: To Give One's Life or Not: A Question of Which War" pages 45-74 from 584: 291: 178: 1605:

YOSANO Akiko Portraits of Modern Japanese Historical Figures｜National Diet Library,Japan

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In her poem "Citizens of Japan, A Morning Song" published in June 1932, Yosano embraced

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and was extremely controversial. Made into a song, it was used as a mild form of

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innumerable desires and roles which should have equal value for the individual.

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seized Manchuria. In a poem from 1932, "Rosy-Cheeked Death" concerning the

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over the question of whether poets had the duty to support the war or not.

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A Modern History of Japan: From Tokugawa Times to the Present, 3rd edition

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Japanese Feminist Debates: A Century of Contention on Sex, Love, and Labor

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Japan's Total Empire: Manchuria and the Culture of Wartime Imperialism

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Japan's Total Empire: Manchuria and the Culture of Wartime Imperialism

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The Tale of Genji: Translation, Canonization, and World Literature

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Yosano Akiko frequently wrote for the all-women literary magazine

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The Facts on File Companion to World Poetry: 1900 to the Present

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The Facts on File companion to world poetry: 1900 to the present

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Yosano helped to found what was originally a girls' school, the

1413:. Berkeley, U.S.: University of California Press. p. 190. 1351:. Berkeley, U.S.: University of California Press. p. 195. 1336:. Berkeley, U.S.: University of California Press. p. 191. 1492:, Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1998 page 84. 1227:, Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1998 page 84. 252:(Bright Star), of which she became a prominent contributor. 268:

affairs during their marriage, including with his ex-wife.

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Army and attached to the forces besieging Port Arthur. In

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editor, Tekkan Yosano, whom she later married, taught her

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poetry, unlike any other work of the late Meiji period.

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