Basil Hall Chamberlain

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Basil Hall Chamberlain

Basil Hall Chamberlain (born October 18, 1850 , † February 15, 1935 in Southsea near Portsmouth ) was a professor at the Imperial University of Tokyo and one of the leading British Japanologists who worked in Japan in the late 19th century. Other representatives were Ernest Mason Satow and William George Aston . Among other things, he wrote some of the first translations of haiku into the English language. He is perhaps best known for his informative and popular one-volume encyclopedia Things Japanese , which first appeared in 1890 and was later revised several times by him. His interests were diverse, including a. he published a volume of poetry in French.

Early life

Chamberlain was born in Southsea to Admiral William Charles Chamberlain and his wife, Eliza Hall, the daughter of the travel writer Basil Hall . His youngest brother was Houston Stewart Chamberlain . He was raised bilingually in English and French. After he was sent to his maternal grandmother in Versailles after his mother's death in 1856 , he also learned German in France. Chamberlain, who had hoped to study at the University of Oxford , instead began working for the Barings Bank in London . However, he was unsuitable for this work and soon suffered a nervous breakdown . He left Great Britain hoping for a full recovery without a clear destination.

Japan

Chamberlain arrived in Japan on May 29, 1873. He taught at the Imperial Naval School in Tokyo from 1874 to 1882 . His most important job, however, was that of a professor of Japanese language at the Imperial University of Tokyo from 1886. Here he gained a reputation as a scholar of Japanese language and literature. He was also a pioneer in the study of the Ainu and Ryūkyū languages . His work includes the first translation of Kojiki into English (1883), A Handbook of Colloquial Japanese (1888), Things Japanese (1890) and A Practical Guide to the Study of Japanese Writing (1905). Despite his chronic poor health, he was also an avid traveler and together with WB Mason published A Handbook for Travelers in Japan (1891), which was later reprinted several times.

Chamberlain was a friend of Lafcadio Hearn , but they later became estranged.

See also

Works

  • The Classical Poetry of the Japanese. 1880.
  • A Translation of the “Ko-Ji-Ki” . 1883.
  • The Language, Mythology, and Geographical Nomenclature of Japan Viewed in the Light of Aino Studies. 1887.
  • Aino Folk Tales . 1888.
  • A Handbook of Colloquial Japanese. 1887.
  • Things Japanese . Six editions, 1890-1936. (A later paperback reprint of the fifth, 1905 edition, in which the short bibliographies for many of the articles were replaced by references to other books, was published by a new editor under the same name.) Digitized, 1905 edition, Fifth Edition Revised
    • (Transl.) All sorts of Japanese (Things Japanese). Bondy, Berlin 1912.
  • A Handbook for Travelers in Japan . 3rd ed. 1891. Associate editor: WB Mason. (Earlier editions were not by Chamberlain. Digitized version of the 6th edition in the Berlin State Library )
  • Essay in aid of a grammar and dictionary of the Luchuan language. 1895.
  • "Bashō and the Japanese Poetical Epigram." Asiatic Society of Japan , vol. 2, no. 30, 1902 (some of his translations are contained in Faubion Bowers' " The Classic Tradition of Haiku: An Anthology ", Dover Publications, 1996, 78pp. ISBN 0-486-29274-6 )
  • Japanese poetry. 1910.
  • The Invention of a New Religion. 1912. in Things Japanese of 1927.
  • Huit Siècles de poetry française. 1927.
  • ... encore est vive la Souris. 1933.
  • A practical introduction to the study of Japanese writing (Moji no Shirube), London 1905

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Web links

personal data
SURNAME Chamberlain, Basil Hall
BRIEF DESCRIPTION British Japanologist
DATE OF BIRTH October 18, 1850
DATE OF DEATH February 15, 1935
Place of death Southsea near Portsmouth