:Masaoka Shiki

Shiki, or rather Tsunenori (常規) as he was originally named,Frédéric, Louis. Japan encyclopedia. Harvard University Press, 2005. {{ISBN|978-0-674-01753-5}}. p. 613 was born in Matsuyama City in Iyo Province (present day Ehime Prefecture) to a samurai class family of modest means. As a child, he was called Tokoronosuke (處之助); in adolescence, his name was changed to Noboru (升).{{citation needed|date=October 2017}}

His father, Tsunenao (正岡常尚),[http://www.shikian.or.jp/sikian2-2.htm Official website of the Shiki-an] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130624021929/http://www.shikian.or.jp/sikian2-2.htm |date=June 24, 2013 }}, Shiki's Tokyo residence, page {{nihongo|"Shiki's Family"|子規の家族|Shiki no Kazoku}} (in Japanese){{cite web | url = http://p-www.iwate-pu.ac.jp/~acro-ito/Japan_pics/Japan_EMY/imageidx.html | title = Image Index: Matsuyama City, Ehime | work = Atelier Aterui | access-date = January 5, 2014 }} was an alcoholic who died when Shiki was five years of age. His mother, Yae,Beichman, p. 27 was a daughter of Ōhara Kanzan, a Confucian scholar. Kanzan was the first of Shiki's extra-school tutors; at the age of 7 the boy began reading Mencius under his tutelage. Shiki later confessed to being a less-than-diligent student.Beichman, p. 4

At age 15 Shiki became something of a political radical, attaching himself to the then-waning Freedom and People's Rights Movement and getting himself banned from public speaking by the principal of Matsuyama Middle School, which he was attending.Beichman, pp. 7–8 Around this time he developed an interest in moving to Tokyo and did so in 1883.Beichman, pp. 8–9

The young Shiki first attended his hometown Matsuyama Middle School, where Kusama Tokiyoshi, a leader of the discredited Freedom and People's Rights Movement, had recently served as principal. In 1883, a maternal uncle arranged for him to come to Tokyo. Shiki was first enrolled in Kyōritsu Middle School and later matriculated into University Preparatory School. (Daigaku Yobimon) affiliated with Imperial University (Teikoku Daigaku).Beichman, p. 9 While studying here, the teenage Shiki enjoyed playing baseball and befriended fellow student Natsume Sōseki, who would go on to become a famous novelist.{{Cite book | editor-first = Donald H. | editor-last = Shively | title = Tradition and Modernization in Japanese Culture | publisher = Princeton University Press | year = 1971 | location = Princeton, NJ | page = [https://archive.org/details/traditionmoderni0000unse/page/384 384] | isbn = 0-691-03072-3 | url = https://archive.org/details/traditionmoderni0000unse/page/384 }}

He entered Tokyo Imperial University in 1890. But by 1892 Shiki, by his own account too engrossed in haiku writing, failed his final examinations, left the Hongō dormitory that had been provided to him by a scholarship, and dropped out of college. Others say tuberculosis, an illness that dogged his later life, was the reason he left school.{{Cite book | ref = Skato | last = Kato | first = Shuichi | author-link = Shūichi Katō (critic) | title = A History of Japanese Literature: The Modern Years | publisher = Kodansha International | volume = 3 | year = 1983 | location = Tokyo, New York, and San Francisco | page = 133 | isbn = 0-87011-569-3}}

While Shiki is best known as a haiku poet, he wrote other genres of poetry,Burton, Watson. Introduction. Masaoka Shiki: selected poems, [https://books.google.com/books?id=zfk5EkyOaRMC&dq=burton%20watson%20shiki&pg=PA11 p. 11] prose criticism of poetry, autobiographical prose,Beichman, p. 22 and was a short prose essayist. (His earliest surviving work is a school essay, Yōken Setsu ("On Western Dogs"), where he praises the varied utility of western dogs as opposed to Japanese ones, which "only help in hunting and scare away burglars."Beichman, p. 5)

Contemporary to Shiki was the idea that traditional Japanese poetic short forms, such as the haiku and tanka, were waning due to their incongruity in the modern Meiji period.Beichman, p. 14 Shiki, at times, expressed similar sentiments.{{Cite book | last = Keene | first = Donald | ref = DK1 | author-link = Donald Keene | title = Some Japanese Portraits | publisher = Kodansha International | year = 1978 | location = Tokyo, New York, and San Francisco | page = [https://archive.org/details/somejapaneseport00keen/page/200 200] | isbn = 0870112988 | url = https://archive.org/details/somejapaneseport00keen/page/200 }} There were no great living practitioners although these forms of poetry retained some popularity.Keene, pp. 195–198

Despite an atmosphere of decline, only a year or so after his 1883 arrival in Tokyo, Shiki began writing haiku.Beichman, pp. 15–16 In 1892, the same year he dropped out of university, Shiki published a serialized work advocating haiku reform, Dassai Shooku Haiwa or "Talks on Haiku from the Otter's Den". A month after completion of this work, in November 1892, he was offered a position as haiku editor in the paper that had published it, Nippon, and maintained a close relationship with this journal throughout his life. In 1895 another serial was published in the same paper, "A Text on Haikai for Beginners", Haikai Taiyō.Beichman, [https://archive.org/details/masaokashikihisl0000beic/page/23 pp. 18–19] These were followed by other serials: Meiji Nijūkunen no Haikukai or "The Haiku World of 1896" where he praised works by disciplesBeichman, pp. 27–28 Takahama Kyoshi and Kawahigashi Hekigotō,Beichman, p. 25 Haijin Buson or "The Haiku Poet Buson" (1896–1897) expressing Shiki's idea of this 18th-century poet whom he identifies with his school of haiku,Beichman, p. 26 and Utayomi ni Atauru Sho or "Letters to a Tanka Poet" (1898) where he urged reform of the tanka poetry form.

The above work, on tanka, is an example of Shiki's expanded focus during the last few years of his life. He died four years after taking up tanka as a topic.Keene, p. 202 Bedsore and morphine-addled, little more than a year before his death Shiki began writing sickbed diaries.Beichman, pp. 26–29 These three are Bokujū Itteki or "A Drop of Ink" (1901), Gyōga Manroku or "Stray Notes While Lying on My Back" (1901–1902), and Byōshō Rokushaku or "A Sixfoot Sickbed" (1902).

Shiki suffered from tuberculosis (TB) much of his life. In 1888Keene, p. 198 or 1889 he began coughing up blood and soon adopted the pen-name "Shiki" from the Japanese hototogisu—the Japanese name for lesser cuckoos.Beichman, p. 20 The Japanese word hototogisu can be written with various combinations of Chinese characters, including 子規, which can alternatively be read as either "hototogisu" or "shiki". It is a Japanese conceit that this bird coughs blood as it sings, which explains why the name "Shiki" was adopted.

Suffering from the early symptoms of TB, Shiki sought work as a war correspondent in the First Sino-Japanese War and, while eventually obtaining his goal, he arrived in China after the April 17, 1895 signing of the Treaty of Shimonoseki.Beichman, p. 21 Instead of reporting on the war, he spent an unpleasant time harassed by Japanese soldiers{{Cite book | last = Rabson | first = Steve | title = Righteous cause or tragic folly: changing views of war in modern Japanese poetry | publisher = the Center for Japanese Studies, the University of Michigan | year = 1998 | location = Ann Arbor, MI | pages = 23–26 | isbn = 0-939512-77-7}} in Dalian, Luangtao, and the Lüshunkou District, meeting on May 10, 1895{{Cite book | last = Bowring | first = Richard John | title = Mori Ōgai and the modernization of Japanese culture | publisher = Cambridge University Press | series = University of Cambridge oriental publications | volume = 28 | year = 1979 | location = London, New York, Melbourne | pages = 175 | isbn =0-521-21319-3 }} the famous novelist Mori Ōgai, who was at the time an army doctor.

Living in filthy conditions in China apparently worsened his TB. Shiki continued to cough blood throughout his return voyage to Japan and was hospitalized in Kobe. After being discharged, he returned to his home town of Matsuyama city and convalesced in the home of the famed novelist Natsume Sōseki. During this time he took on disciples and promulgated a style of haiku that emphasized gaining inspiration from personal experiences of nature. Still in Matsuyama in 1897, a member of this group, Yanigihara Kyokudō, established a haiku magazine, Hototogisu, an allusion to Shiki's pen name. Operation of this magazine was quickly moved to Tokyo. Takahama Kyoshi, another disciple, assumed control and the magazine's scope was extended to include prose work.

Shiki came to Tokyo,Beichman, p. 23 and his group of disciples there were known as the "Nippon school" after the paper where he had been haiku editor and that now published the group's work.

Although bedridden by 1897, Shiki's disease worsened further around 1901. He developed Pott's disease and began using morphine as a painkiller. By 1902 he may have been relying heavily on the drug.Beichman, p. 28 During this time Shiki wrote three autobiographical works. He died of tuberculosis in 1902 at age 34.

File:Shiki Masaoka stone monument is recognized as one of the symbols of Matsuyama-City.JPG]]

Shiki may be credited with salvaging traditional short-form Japanese poetry and carving out a niche for it in the modern Meiji period.Keene, p. 203 While he advocated reform of haiku, this reform was based on the idea that haiku was a legitimate literary genre.Beichman, p. 32 He argued that haiku should be judged by the same yardstick that is used when measuring the value of other forms of literature — something that was contrary to views held by prior poets.Kato, p. 134 Shiki firmly placed haiku in the category of literature, and this was unique.{{Citation needed|date=September 2011}}

Some modern haiku deviate from the traditional 5–7–5 sound pattern and dispensing with the kigo ("season word"); Shiki's haiku reform advocated neither break with tradition.

His particular style rejected "the puns or fantasies often relied on by the old school" in favor of "realistic observation of nature".Beichman, p. 45 Shiki, like other Meiji period writers,{{citation needed|date=September 2011}} borrowed a dedication to realism from Western literature. This is evident in his approach to both haiku and tanka.Burton, Watson. Introduction. Masaoka Shiki: selected poems, [https://books.google.com/books?id=zfk5EkyOaRMC&dq=burton%20watson%20shiki&pg=PA9 p. 9]

Shiki played baseball as a teenager and was inducted into the Japanese Baseball Hall of Fame in 2002.{{cite web|url=http://english.baseball-museum.or.jp/baseball_hallo/detail/detail_144.html|title=Masaoka Shiki|publisher=Japanese Baseball Hall of Fame|access-date=July 20, 2008|archive-date=July 17, 2009|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20090717073205/http://english.baseball-museum.or.jp/baseball_hallo/detail/detail_144.html|url-status=dead}} A group of 1898 tanka by him mention the sport.Beichman, pp. 89, 91

• Masaoka Shiki International Haiku Awards
• Shiki Memorial Museum
• Samukawa Sokotsu

{{Reflist|30em}}

• {{Citation | last = Beichman | first = Janine | ref = JB1 | title = Masaoka Shiki: his life and works | publisher = Cheng & Tsui | year = 2002 | edition = revised | isbn = 0-88727-364-5 | url-access = registration | url = https://archive.org/details/masaokashikihisl0000beic }}
• Masaoka, Shiki, Songs from a Bamboo Village: Selected Tanka from Take no Sato Uta, translated by Sanford Goldstein and Seishi Shinoda, Rutland, Vermont: Charles E. Tuttle Co. © 1998 {{ISBN|0-8048-2085-6}} pbk [488 pp. 298 tanka]
• Masako, Hirai, ed. Now, To Be! Shiki’s Haiku Moments for Us Today / Ima, ikiru! Shiki no sekai. U-Time Publishing, 2003, {{ISBN|4-86010-040-9}}
• {{Cite book|first=Masaoka | last = Shiki| ref = Selected |title=Masaoka Shiki: selected poems | publisher = Columbia University Press | year = 1997 | url= https://books.google.com/books?id=zfk5EkyOaRMC | isbn = 0-231-11090-1}}

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• {{in lang|ja}} [http://www.aozora.gr.jp/index_pages/person305.html#sakuhin_list_1 e-texts of Shiki's works (Japanese only)] at Aozora bunko
• [https://web.archive.org/web/20110604021659/http://etext.lib.virginia.edu/japanese/shiki/beichman/BeiShik.utf8.html Selected Poems (haiku and tanka) of Masaoka Shiki, Translated by Janine Beichman] at [http://etext.virginia.edu/japanese/ University of Virginia Library Japanese Text Initiative] poem translations from 'Masaoka Shiki' by Janine Beichman
• [https://web.archive.org/web/20070930230321/http://haiku.cc.ehime-u.ac.jp/~shiki/sm/sm.html Ehime University site on Masaoka Shiki with photos, poetry]
• [http://www.terebess.hu/english/haiku/shiki.html fan site with bio and poems]
• [http://www.ndl.go.jp/portrait/e/datas/329.html National Diet Library bio and photos]
• {{Internet Archive author |sname=Masaoka Shiki}}
• {{Librivox author |id=10072}}

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Category:Japanese literary critics

Category:Japanese baseball players

Category:20th-century deaths from tuberculosis

Category:1867 births

Category:1902 deaths

Category:People from Matsuyama, Ehime

Category:University of Tokyo alumni

Category:People of Meiji-era Japan

Category:Tuberculosis deaths in Japan

Category:19th-century Japanese poets

Category:Japanese haiku poets