著者

佐藤 勇夫

出版者

日本英学史学会

雑誌

英学史研究 (ISSN:03869490)

巻号頁・発行日

vol.1992, no.24, pp.55-71, 1991-10-01 (Released:2010-02-22)

参考文献数

63

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My object in writing this paper is to disclose the process of the literary intercourse between Shoyo and Yakumo chiefly by Shoyo's diary, the letters which had passed between Shoyo and Yakumo and some pieces of writing in the then Yomiuri newspaper and discuss what meaning their literary intercourse may have today in the era of the international cultural exchange.Yakumo was given the professorship in English literature at Tokyo Imperial University in September, 1896. He, however, was forced to resign his post against his will and left the university in the end of March, 1903, because of the new policy adopted by the university.In 1904 Yakumo accepted a call to the professorial chair of English literture at Waseda University. According to Shoyo's diary, Shoyo first met Yakumo on 9th of March, 1904. After that Shoyo and Yakumo cultivated a close acquaintance with each other rapidly. Shoyo earnestly wished Yakumo to translate some pieces of the Japan's Kabuki dramas into English and introduce them into the Western countries.When Yakumo sent his letter to Shoyo asking him what of the Japan's plays he should translate into English, Shoyo advised Yakumo to translate Chikamatsu's Shinju Ten no Amijima, or The Loue Suicide at Amijima into English by writing Yakumo a long letter in English and by visiting him with Prof. Shiozawa of Waseda University as interpreter for Shoyo in the early evening of July 6th besides. On the other hand, Shoyo learned Yakumo's own view of translating Shakespeare from someone who, I should say, was one of the students whom Yakumo taught at Tokyo Imperial University that the works of Shakespeare should be translated into ordinary speech of Japanese language. After Yakumo's death, Shoyo succeeded in translating Hamlet into colloquial style.Yakumo died feeling in his mind the problem of translating Shinju Ten no Arnijima into English on 26th of September, 1904. Shoyo and his wife are said to have been the first callers for condolences on the day of Yakumo's death. Shoyo deeply grieved over Yakumo's sudden and early death to know that his plan was left unfinished by his death. Probably Shoyo thought, it seems to me, that we, the Japanese, lost our best interpreter of the classical Kabuki dramas to the West in the death of Koizumi Yakumo.

著者

佐藤 勇夫

出版者

日本英学史学会

雑誌

英学史研究 (ISSN:03869490)

巻号頁・発行日

vol.1991, no.23, pp.29-39, 1990

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My object in writing this paper is to disclose European and American poets' real names selected and their poems translated into Japanese by Ohwada Takeki for his book <I>Ohbei Meika Shishu</I> (<I>Selected Poems from the works of the Famous European and American Authors</I>, 1894) and discuss his way of translating European and American poetry into Japanese and the characteristics that distinguish the book from other Japanese translation books of Western poetry.<BR>Ohwada Takeki was born on 29th of April, 1857, in the province of Iyo where is now called Ehime Prefecture and died a scholar in Japanese literature at the age of 54, in 1910, in Tokyo. During his life he wrote his 97 books, 154 volumes of his travel diary and many dozens of his songs. Among them, the book is well-known to the Japanese and may deserve to be studied in the field of historical studies of English poetry translated to suit Japanese readers.<BR>Almost twelve years earlier than the book appeared, a book entitled <I>Shin-Taishi Sho</I> (<I>A Selection of Poems in New Style</I>, 1882) was published by Maruya Zenshichi in Tokyo. By publishing this book the three co-authors may be said to have tried a literary experiment in writing their poetry in new style.<BR>Ohwada Takeki chose 65 European and American poets and their 106 poems for the book and translated them into Japanese poems in new style, I should say, to improve the results of the experiment.<BR>Focusing on 99 English and American poems from among 106 poems taken in the book, it might be worth noting that they were familiar to the Japanese of those days; all the images of nature and human life are dealt with in them; they took their share in the making of the literary movement towards romanticism in history of Japanese litrature; they are quite different from English poetry which the Japanese poets of the symbolist school were influenced by; and they are translated in the middle way between paraphrase and imitation according to Dryden's theory of translation, therefore, Ohwada Takeki's aim was, I may add, to translate poetry, not simply the words of poems.