Yukio Kotani

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Yukio Kotani ( Japanese 小 谷 幸雄 , Kotani Yukio ; born November 18, 1931 ) is Japanese professor emeritus for comparative literature at the Risshō University in Tokyo , literary translator and poet .

Live and act

Kotani completed a university degree in literature as well as German and French in Tokyo. He concluded his studies with an investigation into the influence of Johann Wolfgang von Goethe on the work of André Gide . In addition to his university education, he belonged to the group of students of the Buddhist scholar Hanjirō Tominaga (1883-1965), who refused to teach academically and held private lectures in a temple. He tried to build an intercultural bridge based on Nichiren's thinking , because the "mental constitution of old Goethe now regards Tominaga Hanjiro as related to the deepest basis of the knowledge of Buddha." Kotani's literary and scientific work was strongly influenced by Tominaga's thinking.

Study and research stays took Kotani to France and Germany. In the 1970s he worked at the Klages archive of the German Literature Archive in Marbach am Neckar . In Germany, Kotani dealt particularly with the poetry of Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, the philosophy of Ludwig Klages and the ideas of Hans Prinzhorn .

Kotani submitted numerous scientific and literary works in Japan. He also translated works by André Gide and Ludwig Klages into Japanese. In addition to the books and articles that he wrote in Japanese, he published many essays in German, French and English on cultural comparisons, questions of philosophy of life and problems of poetry, especially haiku .

He cultivated literary friendships with Ingeborg Drewitz , Imma von Bodmershof and Carl Heinz Kurz , among others . Kotani also tries to make European poets known in Japan. Kotani is Ilse Pracht-Fitzell's translator . Much of his work is intended to promote a deeper understanding of the Japanese poets Matsuo Bashō and Takarai Kikaku in Europe.

Kotani lives in Sagamihara .

Viewpoints

Kotani criticizes the one-sided awareness of Zen Buddhism outside of Japan: “One likes to form an idealized picture of Zen Buddhism, which is concerned with ascetic exercise by virtue of the will; but it is a 'dry tree and cold rock', as it is often called. ”Instead, he refers to Buddhist masters like Nichiren (1222–1282), who emphasize the importance of the world and society, and undertakes an interpretation of Buddhism in light the philosophy of life after Henri Bergson and Ludwig Klages. According to Reinhard Falter , Kotani's interpretation questions “whether the Buddha's nirvana thought (sic) is not misunderstood by his students. Rather, originally a resonance with the uninterrupted wave of life could not be meant as redemption, but rather as an agreement with the cycle of life and death. "

Influenced by Hanjirō Tominaga, Kotani takes the position that, in order to gain an intercultural understanding, it can be useful, beyond researching reception phenomena, to compare circumstances or people who are not directly related to history or content. For example, he related Goethe and the Buddha Siddhartha Gautama as well as Alphonse Daudet and Mori Ōgai to each other.

Works

  • Bashô, Goethe and symbolic thinking. In: Volker Zotz (Ed.): Interfaces. Buddhist encounters with shamanism and western culture. Festschrift for Armin Gottmann on his 70th birthday. Luxembourg: Kairos Edition 2013, ISBN 978-2-919771-04-2 , pp. 105–120
  • The symbolism of the moon in Japanese poetry. In: Franz Tenigl (Ed.): Fairy tales, myths and symbols . Bonn 1985, ISBN 3-416-01875-3
  • “Against nirvana and civilization. Ludwig Klages in contemporary Japan. ” Hestia. Yearbook of the Klages Gesellschaft 1994/95 . Bonn 1995
  • "Changes in the awakening - the journey through death and rebirth." In: Cause & Effect , No. 27, 1999

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Franz Tenigl: Klages, Prinzhorn and personality psychology: To the world view of Ludwig Klages. Bonn 1987, ISBN 3-416-02013-8 , p. 82.
  2. ^ Hans Wahl , Andreas Bruno Wachsmuth : Yearbook of the Goethe Society Weimar 1957 (Volume 19), p. 136.
  3. ↑ Hans Kasdorff: Ludwig Klages in the Controversy of Opinions: an impact history from 1895-1975 . Bonn 1978, ISBN 978-3-416-01402-1 , p. 585.
  4. ↑ Yukio Kotani: What does Hans Prinzhorn encourage me to do? –Personality and cosmopolitanism. In: Hestia. Yearbook of the Klages Gesellschaft 1986/87 , ISBN 978-3-416-02013-8 , pp. 80-89.
  5. ↑ Yukio Kotani: Seikai-wo musubu: kokoro-to kotoba ("Connecting the world: heart and word"). In: Risshô Daigaku kyôyôbu ronsha ( Risshô University Journal of the Faculty of General Education ) No. 28, 1994, pp. 113-145.
  6. ↑ Ilse Pracht-Fitzell and Yukio Kotani: Apartments. Göttingen 1991, ISBN 978-3-88996-278-2 .
  7. ↑ Franz Tenigl: Klages, Prinzhorn and personality psychology: To the world view of Ludwig Klages. Bonn 1987, ISBN 3-416-02013-8 , p. 5.
  8. ↑ Yukio Kotani: The Haijin at Dachau. In: Michael Groißmeier : In the light of the firefly . Munich 2005, ISBN 3-86520-080-X , p. 124.
  9. ↑ Reinhard Falter : The Dionysian and the Apollonian. In: Nietzsche-Kreis Munich (Ed.): On the impossibility or possibility of being a Christian: Symposium 1996 of the Nietzsche-Kreis Munich: Lectures from the years 1996-2001 . Munich 2001, ISBN 978-3-935284-47-9 , p. 267
  10. ^ Yukio Kotani: Ôgai to Dôde. (Ogai Mori et Alphonse Daudet. Étude documentaire), Hikaku bungaku kenkyu - Etudes de littératures comparées 6 (1957): 4, 7, pp. 138-145.
personal data
SURNAME Kotani, Yukio
ALTERNATIVE NAMES 小 谷 幸 夫 (Japanese)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Japanese literary scholar
DATE OF BIRTH November 18, 1931
PLACE OF BIRTH Japan