Ekkehard May

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Ekkehard May (born September 20, 1937 in Wredenhagen , Mecklenburg ) is a German Japanologist .

Life

After a chemical engineer -Teaching at the TU Braunschweig and two years of professional experience in the industry May acquired the Abitur at the Braunschweig College (Institute of second chance education) and studied from 1961 to 1965 at the University of Hamburg Japanese Studies with minors in Sinology and Ethnology . His academic teachers in the main subject were Günther Wenck (Japanese linguistics) and Oskar Benl (Japanese literature and intellectual history). From 1965 he continued his studies at the University of Marburg with the same combination of subjects and graduated in 1970 with a doctorate. phil. from (Japanese Studies with Wolf Haenisch ). From 1970 to 1981 he was a research assistant at the History and Intellectual History of Japan section of the Faculty for East Asian Studies at the Ruhr University in Bochum (headed by Horst Hammitzsch ). After his habilitation, he was appointed to the Chair of Japanese Studies at the University of Frankfurt am Main in 1981 , which for the first time was advertised specifically for the language and literature of Japan (Faculty of Eastern and Non-European Languages ​​and Cultures).

In the following almost 20 years, May's teaching activities extended to topics from all epochs of Japanese literary history (focus on the Edo period) as well as Japanese grammar. After his retirement in 2000, he was visiting professor at the International Research Institute for Japanese Studies ( Kokusai Nihon Bunka Kenkyū Center ) in Kyôto for one year .

In 2001 May received the Japan Foundation's Translation Prize for “ Shômon. The gate of the hermitage to the banana tree ”(Mainz 2000). Between 2000 and 2008 May held various teaching positions in Japanese Studies at the Humboldt University in Berlin . From December 2009 to May 2010 he was staying as a Foreign Research Scholar (Gaikokujin kenkyû-in) again on Nichibunken of Kyôto.

In 2012, May was honored by the Japanese for his work with the " Order of the Rising Sun with Golden Rays" (Kyokujitsu-shô).

Work areas

May's main area of ​​work is the literature of the Edo period (1600–1868). Topics were initially Erzählprosa general (Kanazōshi, Saikaku ), then aspects of the literary business, the printing and publishing, historical forms of writing as well as the role and development of the figures in the (popular) printed literature.

Inspired by the original block prints ( hampon ) found in Frankfurt , May developed guidelines for the processing and publication ( honkoku ) of texts that were still unedited in Japan. The edition from making the print texts legible in handwritten style ( gyôsho or sôsho ) to the implementation in modern print became the central research area at the Frankfurt Institute. Several final theses developed in practice subsequently led to a series of monographs (Bunken) specially dedicated to these topics.

The second important field of work for May was the translation, commentary and interpretation of classical haiku (17 silver), especially from the school of Matsuo Bashō (1644-1694). Challenged by the existence of the misleading, but (especially among enthusiasts) widespread and accepted "amateur" translations of the shortest poetry, he undertook detailed, linguistic-philological interpretations of examples of this world-literary singular and significant art form in several publications. May devoted a larger selection study to the prose offshoot of the haiku, the Haibun ( Bashô. Haibun , Mainz 2015).

May demonstrated his connection with modern literature with translations by Furui Yoshikichi (* 1937) and Tokutomi Roka (1868–1927), with a text by the latter (Shizen to jinsei, 1900), still on the threshold of modernity, for clarification a continuous, interpretive comment was added.

Fonts (selection)

Monographs (studies + translations)

  • The Tôkaidô meishoki from Asai Ryôi. A contribution to a new literary genre of the early Edo period. (= Publications of the East Asia Institute of the Ruhr University Bochum. Volume 9). Dissertation. Otto Harrassowitz, Wiesbaden 1973, ISBN 3-447-01532-2 .
  • The commercialization of Japanese literature in the late Edo period (1750–1868). Framework conditions and development tendencies of narrative prose in the age of its first marketing. Habilitation thesis. Otto Harrassowitz, Wiesbaden 1983, ISBN 3-447-02242-6 .
  • Shômon. The gate of the hermitage to the banana tree. Haiku from Bashô's master students Kikaku, Kyorai, Ransetsu. Dieterich'sche Verlagsbuchhandlung, Mainz 2000, ISBN 3-87162-050-5 .
  • Shômon II. Haiku by Bashô's master students. Jôsô, Izen, Bonchô, Kyoriku, Sampû, Shikô, Yaba. Dieterich'sche Verlagsbuchhandlung, Mainz 2002, ISBN 3-87162-057-2 .
  • Chûkô. The New Bloom (Shômon III). Dieterich'sche Verlagbuchhandlung, Mainz 2006, ISBN 3-87162-063-7 .
  • Tokutomi Roka: Nature and Human Life (Shizen to jinsei). Sketches from southern Sagami (Shônan zappitsu, Ausw.). Exercise with a continuous commentary. Dieterich'sche Verlagbuchhandlung, Mainz 2008, ISBN 978-3-87162-067-6 .
  • Matsuo Bashô. Haibun. With commentary and annotations by the editor. Dieterich'sche Verlagbuchhandlung, Mainz 2015, ISBN 978-3-87162-082-9 .
  • Saigyô. Poems from the Bergklause (Sankashû). Translation with comments and annotations. Dieterich'sche Verlagbuchhandlung, Mainz 2018, ISBN 978-3-87162-098-0 .

Co-author

  • with Martina Schönbein and Claudia Waltermann: The Ehon “Muro no Yashima” (1808). (= Bunken. Studies and materials on Japanese literature. Volume 9). Edition and analysis of a Kamigata-yomihon. Harrassowitz-Verlag, Wiesbaden 2003, ISBN 3-447-04777-1 .
  • with Martina Schönbein and John Schmitt-Weigand: Edo bunko. The Edo Library. (= Bunken. Studies and materials on Japanese literature. Volume 8). Harrassowitz-Verlag, Wiesbaden 2003, ISBN 3-447-04776-3 .
  • Haiku & Haiga. Moment in words and pictures. Moments in Word and Image. Japanese scroll paintings from four centuries from the Jon de Jong collection. Ed .: Stiftung Schloss Moyland in collaboration with Hotei Publishing. Amsterdam 2006, ISBN 3-935166-31-1 .

editor

  • Bunken 文 研. Studies and materials on Japanese literature. Volume 1-11. Harrassowitz-Verlag, Wiesbaden 1987-2006, ISSN  0932-268X .

Translation of modern literature

  • Furui Yoshikichi: The Saint (Hijiri 1975). Novel. Insel-Verlag, Frankfurt am Main / Leipzig 1993, ISBN 3-458-16552-5 .
  • Furui Yoshikichi: Refuge (Sumika, 1979). edition q, Berlin 1997, ISBN 3-86124-280-X .

Articles (in compilations, journals)

  • The literature in the printed mass media. In: Klaus Kracht (Ed.): Japan after 1945. Contributions to culture and society. Otto Harrassowitz, Wiesbaden 1979, ISBN 3-447-02059-8 , pp. 114-132.
  • Constants of modern Japanese narrative prose and their relationship to literary tradition. In: Bochum Yearbook on East Asia Research (BJOAF). Volume 4, 1981, ISBN 3-88339-190-5 , pp. 130-143.
  • Linguistic function and stylistic possibilities of the double furigana spelling in Japanese literature. In: Bochum yearbook for East Asia research. Volume 5, 1982, ISBN 3-88339-279-0 , pp. 147-176.
  • Saiken. The guides to the Yoshiwara district in Edo - history and shape. In: K. Müller, W. Naumann (Ed.): Nenrin - Jahresringe. Ceremony for Hans A. Dettmer. Otto Harrassowitz, Wiesbaden 1992, ISBN 3-447-03214-6 , pp. 106-126.
  • Bestsellers and longsellers in the Edo period. (Symposium “Literature and Society”, Hamburg 1990). In: News of the Society for Nature and Ethnology of East Asia (NOAG). Volume 151, 1992, pp. 17-26.
  • On some problems with the edition of Japanese texts from the Edo period. In: Papers of the 9th German-speaking Japanologentag in Zurich. (= Asian Studies / Études Asiatique. Volume XLVIII. 1). Bern 1994, pp. 75-82.
  • Book and book illustration in pre-industrial Japan. In: Susanne Formanek, Sepp Linhart (Hrsg.): Book and image as social communication media in Japan then and now. Literas, Vienna 1995, ISBN 3-85429-135-3 , pp. 45-72. (English version in: Written Texts - Visual Texts. Hotei Publishing, Amsterdam 2005, ISBN 90-74822-58-4 , pp. 25-46).
  • Kikaku illustrated and time-shifted. Notes on some of his verses in the meisho zue. In: Stanca Scholz-Cionka (Ed.): Traces of water. Festschrift for Wolfram Naumann on his 65th birthday. Harrassowitz-Verlag, Wiesbaden 1997, ISBN 3-447-04016-5 , pp. 254-278.
  • Meisho zue - encyclopedia of a country. In: J. Laube (ed.): Information system and cultural life in the Japanese cities of the Edo period. (= Okamatsu bunko. Volume 3). Harrassowitz, Wiesbaden 1999, ISBN 3-447-04138-2 , pp. 39-54 + 265-268.
  • Deeper sense - not moved. About two haiku ribbons in the Reclam Universal Library. (Haiku. Japanese three-liner. Selected and translated by Jan Ulenbrook, Stuttgart 1995 and 1998, new series). In: Booklets for East Asian Literature. No. 26, 1999, ISBN 3-89129-349-6 , pp. 110-120.
  • Premodern [Japanese] literature. In: Klaus Kracht, Markus Rüttermann (Hrsg.): Grundriß der Japanologie. (= Izumi. Volume 7). Harrassowitz-Verlag, Wiesbaden 2001, ISBN 3-447-04371-7 , pp. 63-81.
  • "Put in the picture". Bashô's verses in Edo meisho zue (1834/36). In: Judit Árokay, Klaus Vollmer (ed.): Sins of the word. Festschrift for Roland Schneider on his 65th birthday. (= MOAG. Volume 141). Hamburg 2004, ISBN 3-928463-76-4 , pp. 197-229.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ hayeschr: Ekkehard May - Institute for Asian and African Studies. Retrieved February 7, 2019 .
  2. ↑ ARCult Media GmbH: Kulturpreise.de: The Japan Foundation Translation Prize. Retrieved February 7, 2019 .
  3. ↑ Japanese Consulate General Frankfurt am Main: List of medals and distinctions awarded since 1984 in the official area of ​​the Consulate General of Japan in Frankfurt am Main. (PDF) Retrieved February 7, 2019 .
personal data
SURNAME May, Ekkehard
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German Japanologist
DATE OF BIRTH September 20, 1937
PLACE OF BIRTH Wredenhagen , Mecklenburg