Kodama Kagai

Japanese: 児玉花外 - こだま・かがい

Year of death: September 20, 1943
Year of birth: July 7, 1874
A socialist poet from the Meiji to Showa periods. He was born in Kyoto, the eldest son of the doctor Seisai Kinue. His real name was Denpachi. He dropped out of Doshisha, Sendai Touka School, Sapporo Agricultural College, and Tokyo Senmon Gakko (Waseda University). He was an admirer of Byron, and began writing poetry, eventually sympathizing with the socialist movement led by Katayama Sen and others. He contributed poems to the Tokyo Independent Magazine, edited by Uchimura Kanzo, and other publications. In 1903, he attempted to collect his previous works and publish them as a Socialist Poetry Collection, but immediately after printing, the plates and all the printed versions were confiscated, and the collection became a phantom. Hanagai's talent was so harsh that he was said to have been inspired by the ideas of "pathy, indignation, and rage," but these were largely abstract, and even in later times when proletarian literature was on the rise, he did not take part in the practice of socialism himself, instead devoting himself to being a writer and guiding younger poets. His works include Hanagai Poetry Collection (1904) and Yukumo (1906). <References> Kawai Suimei “Representative Meiji Poet”

(Shigeru Oikawa)

Source: Asahi Japanese Historical Biography: Asahi Shimbun Publications Inc. About Asahi Japanese Historical Biography

Japanese:

没年：昭和18.9.20(1943)
生年：明治7.7.7(1874)
明治から昭和の社会主義詩人。医師精斎,絹江の長男,京都生まれ。本名,伝八。同志社,仙台東華学校,札幌農学校,東京専門学校(早大)を,いずれも中退。バイロンに傾倒,詩作を始め,やがて片山潜らの社会主義運動に共鳴する。内村鑑三主宰の『東京独立雑誌』などに詩を寄稿。明治36(1903)年,それまでの作品を集め,『社会主義詩集』として出版しようとしたが,印刷直後,整版,版本一切を押収され,幻の詩集となった。花外の本領は「悲憤慷慨」の発想といわれるほどに時代に厳しかったが,それは多分に抽象的で,のちにプロレタリア文学が勃興した時代になっても,自らは社会主義の実践に参画せず,後進の詩人の指導に当たり著述家に徹した。著書に『花外詩集』(1904),『ゆく雲』(1906)などがある。<参考文献>河井酔茗『明治代表詩人』

(及川茂)

出典　朝日日本歴史人物事典：（株）朝日新聞出版朝日日本歴史人物事典について　情報

<<: Kodama family

>>: Gomphina aequilatera (small pearl shell)