Noguchi Yonejirō

Noguchi Yonejirō

Noguchi Yonejirō ( Japanese 野 口 米 次郎 , also: Noguchi Yone (野 口 ヨ ネ); * 1875 near Tsushima , Aichi Prefecture ; † 1947 ) was an influential Japanese poet and essayist who published in both Japanese and English. He is the father of the sculptor and designer Isamu Noguchi .

Life

Noguchi was born near Nagoya and attended Keiō University , but dropped out in 1893 to travel to San Francisco . He worked as a journalist for a Japanese-language magazine and as a domestic servant until he turned entirely to poetry. Joaquin Miller supported him and introduced him to the literary circles of the city, where he soon assumed a notable role.

In 1900 he moved to New York, where he met Leonie Gilmour ; their child is Isamu Noguchi. In 1904 he went back to Japan, where he worked as a professor of English. With varying degrees of success he developed a lively publication activity and soon became one of the outstanding mediators between Japanese and Western literature. In the 1930s, he fell increasingly out of favor with the American public, as he supported the aggressive course of the Japanese government.

Noguch is also known for collecting ukuyo-e prints and other Japanese arts. In 1947 he died of stomach cancer.

Works

• Seen & Unseen, or, Monologues of a Homeless Snail (1897, 1920)
• The Voice of the Valley (1897)
• The American Diary of a Japanese Girl (1902, 1904, 1912, 2007)
• From the Eastern Sea (pamphlet) (1903)
• From the Eastern Sea (1903, 1903, 1905, 1910)
• The American Letters of a Japanese Parlor Maid (1905)
• Japan of Sword and Love (1905)
• The Summer Cloud (1906)
• Ten Kiogen in English (1907)
• The Pilgrimage (1909, 1912)
• Kamakura (1910)
• Lafcadio Hearn in Japan (1910, 1911)
• The Spirit of Japanese Poetry (1914)
• The Story of Yone Noguchi (1914, 1915)
• Through the Torii (1914, 1922)
• The Spirit of Japanese Art (1915)
• Japanese Hokkus (1920)
• Japan and America (1921)
• Hiroshige (1921)
• Selected Poems of Yone Noguchi (1921)
• Korin (1922)
• Utamaro (1924)
• Hokusai (1925)
• Harunobu (1927)
• Sharaku (1932)
• The Ukiyoye Primitives (1933)
• Hiroshige (1934)
• Hiroshige and Japanese Landscapes (1934)
• The Ganges Calls Me (1938)
• Harunobu (1940)
• Hiroshige (1940)
• Emperor Shomu and the Shosoin (1941).
• Collected English Letters , ed. Ikuko Atsumi (1975).
• Selected English Writings of Yone Noguchi: An East-West Literary Assimilation , ed. Yoshinobu Hakutani, 2 v. (1990-1992).
• Collected English Works of Yone Noguchi: Poems, Novels and Literary Essays , ed. Shunsuke Kamei, 6 v. (2007) [1]

literature

• S. Noma (Ed.): Noguchi Yonejirō . In: Japan. An Illustrated Encyclopedia. Kodansha, 1993, ISBN 4-06-205938-X , p. 1110.

Japanese name: As is common in Japan, the family name comes before the first name in this article . Thus, Noguchi is the family name, Yonejirō the first name.