Modern Japanese Poetry Colloquium - “Do not forget me as I was when I went to Paris”: Yosano Akiko’s marriage and poetry

Modern Japanese Poetry Colloquium - "Do not forget me as I was when I went to Paris": Yosano Akiko's marriage and poetry

Professor Janine Beichman -Daito Bunka University

Friday, January 16, 2009 - 12:00pm to 1:30pm
Seminar Room 207, Sterling Memorial Library See map
120 High Street
New Haven, CT 6511

The poems Akiko wrote about her journey to Europe in 1912 are moving and beautiful in themselves, particularly those which express her love for her husband and her children; but when we complicate our readings of this poetry by factoring in other texts, particularly personal essays and letters about her marriage, we arrive at a deeper and more resonant portrait of the poet who, in addition to her literary importance, was seen as the first New Woman of Meiji-Taisho Japan. Professor Beichman, currently a visiting scholar at Columbia University, is a translator and scholar of well-known Japanese poet and social critic Yosano Akiko (1878-1942).

Co-sponsored with the Department of East Asian Languages and Literatures
Tags: 
Region: 
Japan