63 - Modern Japanese poetry to the 1910s

Summary

Shintaishisho was the first anthology of Western poems in translation. Though heavily censured by the leading literati of the day, the anthology literally created a new age of Japanese poetry, and younger readers ardently embraced its appearance. The first major poet to appear in the wake of Omokage was Shimazaki Toson. His first collection Wakanashu broke new ground in new-style poetry. His poems, full of youthful pathos and sensuality, are an exquisite mixture of traditional waka suaveness and fresh "modern" sensibilities. Ueda Bin's Kaicho-on, the most important collection of translated poems in modern Japan, appeared in 1905. In contrast to earlier collections containing chiefly British, American, and German poems, Kaicho-on featured a considerable number of the latest French and Belgian poets of the Parnassian and Symbolist schools. Japanese poems have been mostly written in free verse since the 1910s. There is a sense, however, that Japanese poetry will never break completely free from the spell of seven-and-five-syllable units.