Are you an EPFL student looking for a semester project?
Work with us on data science and visualisation projects, and deploy your project as an app on top of GraphSearch.
Concept
Yosano Akiko
Summary
Yosano Akiko (Shinjitai: 与謝野 晶子, seiji: 與謝野 晶子; 7 December 1878 – 29 May 1942) was the pen-name of a Japanese author, poet, pioneering feminist, pacifist, and social reformer, active in the late Meiji era as well as the Taishō and early Shōwa eras of Japan. Her name at birth was Shō Hō. She is one of the most noted, and most controversial, post-classical female poets of Japan.
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 yōkan, a type of confection. 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 Myōjō (Bright Star), of which she became a prominent contributor. Myōjō's editor, Tekkan Yosano, whom she later married, taught her tanka poetry, having met her on visits to Osaka and Sakai to deliver lectures and teach in workshops.
Yosano was not 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 crossed the threshold of someone else's home. After being married she reflects poorly upon her childhood, "I realized for the first time how jaundiced, unfair, and dark my childhood had been."
Yosano was married when she was 24, and went on to have 13 children, 11 of which lived to adulthood. The two poets started a new life together in the suburb of Tokyo and were married in 1901. Tekkan was married when he met Akiko, and left his wife for her a year after they met one another. Tekkan had extramarital affairs during their marriage, including with his ex-wife.
In 1901, Yosano brought out her first volume of tanka, Midaregami (Tangled Hair), which contained 400 poems and was mostly denounced by literary critics. Despite this critical reaction, it was widely read and became a sort of lighthouse for free-thinkers of her time.
Official source
About this result
This page is automatically generated and may contain information that is not correct, complete, up-to-date, or relevant to your search query. The same applies to every other page on this website. Please make sure to verify the information with EPFL's official sources.