Ishibashi Ningetsu

Ishibashi Ningetsu ( Japanese 石橋 忍 月 ; actually Ishibashi Tomokichi ( 石橋 友 吉 ), born September 1, 1865 in Chikugo Province ; † February 1, 1926 ) was a Japanese literary critic and writer.

Live and act

Ishibashi Ningetsu was born the son of a doctor. In 1891 he graduated from Tōkyō University as a lawyer and received a position in the Interior Ministry. He left the Ministry the following year and worked as a consultant for a newspaper until 1894. From 1894 he began to work as a lawyer. From 1921 he was president of the Japanese Bar Association (帝国 弁 護士 会, Teikoku bengoshi-kai).

Ishibashi is one of the founders of modern literary criticism in Japan. In his methodical approach to literary criticism, he was guided by the aesthetics of Aristotle . He became interested in the German classics from an early age. In 1889 he published the first Japanese article on Lessing : Resshinguron . For some time he was considered a "Japanese Lessing" before he was ousted by Mori Ōgai in the early 1890s . Ishibashi's criticism of Ōgai's “ballet girl” has never been forgotten. His reviews appeared in the magazine Kokumin no tomo (国民 之 友) and collected in the volume Ishibashi Ningetsu hyōron shū (石橋 忍 月 評論 集; 1937). In 1889, Ishibashi published the novels Inga and Tsuyokohime .

His son, Yamamoto Kenkichi (1907–1988) was also a noted critic.

Remarks

1. ↑ Today the southern part of Fukuoka Prefecture .

literature

• S. Noma (Ed.): Ishibashi Ningetsu . In: Japan. An Illustrated Encyclopedia. Kodansha, 1993, ISBN 4-06-205938-X , p. 628.
• Louis Frédéric : Japan Encyclopedia . Harvard University Press, 2002, ISBN 0-674-00770-0 , pp. 396 (English, limited preview in the Google book search - French: Japon, dictionnaire et civilization . Translated by Käthe Roth).
• Nanette Twine: Language and the Modern State. The Reform of Written Japanese , Taylor & Francis, 1991, ISBN 0-415-00990-1 , p. 150.
• Wolfgang Schamoni: The first Japanese Lessing monograph: Akashi Shigetarôs Resshingu (1893) , p. 18.

Japanese name: As is common in Japan, the family name comes before the first name in this article . So Ishibashi is the family name, Ningetsu the first name.