Ishikawa Takuboku

Poet and tanka poet. His real name was Hajime. He was born on February 20, 1886 in Hinoto Village, Minamiiwate County, Iwate Prefecture (now Tamayama, Morioka City). His father was Ishikawa Ittei, the head priest of Jokoji Temple of the Soto sect in this village. His mother, Katsu, was the younger sister of Ittei's teacher, Katsurahara Taigetsu. In the spring of 1887 (Meiji 20), Ittei became the head priest of Houtokuji Temple in Shibutami Village, Kitaiwate County (now Shibutami, Morioka City), so his family moved to this village. It was Shibutami Village that Takuboku fondly called his "hometown" throughout his life, and is now the site of the Ishikawa Takuboku Memorial Museum.

After graduating from Shibutani Elementary School in Iwate County, Takuboku went on to Morioka Higher Elementary School, and in April 1898, at the age of 13, he entered Morioka Junior High School in Iwate Prefecture with the best grades, ranking 10th out of 128 students. However, as he advanced to the upper grades, he became absorbed in literature and romance and neglected his studies, cheating on exams at the end of his fourth year and in the first semester of his fifth year, which led to his dropping out of Morioka Junior High School. He was forced to move to Tokyo in the autumn of 1902 (Meiji 35) under the pretext of making a living through literature, and tried to open a new destiny, but failed. At the end of the year, with the help of a friend working at the Nihon Rikkokai in Kanda, he asked Sasa Seisetsu, editor-in-chief of Kinkodo's magazine Bungeikai, for a job as an editor, but it did not work out. In February of the following year, 1903, he returned home to his hometown to recover from his illness and defeat in a Zen temple.

In the summer of 1902, influenced by the American sea poem collection "Surf and Wave," Takuboku aspired to become a poet. He later became acquainted with Yosano Tekkan (Hiroshi), became a member of the Tokyo Shinshisha, and was active in the magazine "Myojo." In May 1905, his first collection of poems, "Akogare," was published by Odashima Shobo in Tokyo, and he showed great promise as a poet of the Myojo school. However, at the end of the previous year, Takuboku's father was dismissed from his position as head priest of Houtoku-ji Temple by the Soto Zen Buddhist Administration Office for non-payment of temple dues, so the family moved to Morioka in the spring of that year, and Takuboku eventually married Horiai Setsuko (1886-1913) and took on the responsibility of supporting the family. He soon found himself unable to make ends meet, so in the spring of 1906, he returned to Shibutamimura and became a substitute teacher at his alma mater. In order to make a comeback while working, he aspired to become a novelist and wrote "Clouds are geniuses," "Look," and "Funeral Procession." He also tried to get Ichijo back to Houtoku-ji Temple after he was granted a pardon by the Soto Zen sect's constitution. However, after a year, having failed in both his novel and his father's reunion, he left his hometown and moved to Hokkaido.

"As if being chased by stones, the sadness of having to leave my hometown never fades."
In the late spring of 1908 (Meiji 41), Takuboku moved to Tokyo from Hokkaido and devoted himself to his creative life. In just over a month after arriving in Tokyo, he wrote over 300 pages of manuscript for five novels, including "Kikuchi-kun," "Hospital Window," "Mother," "Velvet," and "Two Lines of Blood." He tried to sell the novels but failed, and as a result, he had no income and was in poverty. In the spring of 1909, he was saved from his predicament by the editor-in-chief of the Tokyo Asahi Shimbun, Sato Hokko (Shinichi), who was from Morioka, and was hired as a proofreader at the newspaper company. Takuboku finally got a permanent position and was able to start a new life with his family in the second floor of Kinotoko (Arai-ko) in Yumicho 2-chome, Hongo-ku, Tokyo (now Hongo, Bunkyo-ku). In September 1910, he became a judge for the Asahi Tanka section through the generosity of Shibukawa Ryujiro, head of the social affairs department, and published his first collection of tanka, "A Handful of Sand," at the end of the same year. His unique three-line writing style and the freshness of his theme of "singing about life" attracted attention both inside and outside the tanka world, and he established himself as a leading tanka poet. Shocked by the High Treason Incident that occurred in June of the same year, he approached socialist thought, and became an avid reader of works by Kotoku Shusui and the Russian thinker Kropotkin, imagining a socialistic Japan of the future. His representative works, such as the tanka collections "A Handful of Sand" and "Sad Toys," the poetry collection "The Calling Child and the Whistle," and the critique "The Current State of the Closed Era," created during his time in Tokyo, were born from the thoughts and lifestyle of his later years, and have immortalized the name of the genius Takuboku. He died of pulmonary tuberculosis on April 13, 1912, in a rented house at 74 Hisakata-cho, Koishikawa-ku (currently 5-11-7 Koishikawa, Bunkyo-ku). He was 27 years old. His life was literally miserable and exiled.

[Yoshinori Iwaki, January 19, 2017]

When I breathe, there is a sound inside my chest. A sound lonelier than the sound of a cold wind!

"The Complete Works of Ishikawa Takuboku, 8 volumes (1978-1980, Chikuma Shobo)" ▽ "'Complete commentary on the Takuboku collection of poems' by Iwaki Yukinori" (included in 'Special edition of Japanese literature: The essential Ishikawa Takuboku collection', 1981, Gakutosha)" ▽ "'Ishikawa Takuboku theory' by Imai Yasuko (1974, Hanawa Shobo)" ▽ "'Takuboku biography' by Iwaki Yukinori (1976, Gakutosha)" ▽ "'Ishikawa Setsuko: I want to believe in the eternity of love' by Sawachi Hisae (1981, Kodansha)"

Source: Shogakukan Encyclopedia Nipponica About Encyclopedia Nipponica Information | Legend

歌人、詩人。本名一(はじめ)。明治19年2月20日、岩手県南岩手郡日戸(ひのと)村（現、盛岡(もりおか)市玉山(たまやま)）に生まれる。父はこの村の曹洞(そうとう)宗常光寺住職石川一禎(いってい)。母カツは一禎の師僧葛原(かつらはら)対月の妹。1887年（明治20）の春一禎は北岩手郡渋民(しぶたみ)村（現、盛岡市渋民）宝徳寺の住職になったので一家はこの村に移った。啄木が生涯「ふるさと」とよんで懐かしがったのはこの渋民村で、現在石川啄木記念館がある。

　啄木は岩手郡渋民尋常小学校を卒業後、盛岡高等小学校に進み、1898年4月13歳のとき、128名中10番の好成績で岩手県盛岡尋常中学校に入学した。しかし上級学年に進むにつれて文学と恋愛に熱中して学業を怠り、4年生の学年末と5年生の1学期の試験にカンニング事件を起こし、これが原因となって盛岡中学校を退学した。やむなく彼は文学をもって身をたてるという美名のもとに1902年（明治35）の秋上京、新運命を開こうとするが失敗、年末、神田の日本力行会(りっこうかい)に勤務する友人の奔走で、金港堂の雑誌『文芸界』の主筆佐々醒雪(さっさせいせつ)を頼って雑誌の編集員として就職を希望するが実現せず、翌1903年2月帰郷して故郷の禅房に病苦と敗残の身を養った。

　1902年の夏、アメリカの海の詩集『Surf and Wave』の影響を受けて詩作に志した啄木は、その後与謝野鉄幹(よさのてっかん)（寛(ひろし)）の知遇を得て東京新詩社の同人となって『明星』誌上で活躍、1905年5月には東京の小田島書房より処女詩集『あこがれ』を刊行、明星派の詩人としてその前途が嘱望された。しかし前年の暮れ、啄木の父が宗費滞納を理由に曹洞宗宗務局より宝徳寺の住職を罷免されたので、一家はこの年の春盛岡に移り、啄木はやがて堀合節子（1886―1913）と結婚して一家扶養の責任を負うことになる。まもなく生活に行き詰まったため1906年の春渋民村に帰り、母校の代用教員となった。彼は勤務のかたわら再起を図るため小説家を志し、『雲は天才である』『面影』『葬列(そうれつ)』を書き、また曹洞宗宗憲の発布で特赦となった一禎の宝徳寺復帰に努力した。しかし1年後、小説にも父の再住にも失敗して故郷を去り、北海道に移住するのである。

「石をもて追はるるごとく／ふるさとを出でしかなしみ／消ゆる時なし」
　1908年（明治41）の晩春、北海道より上京した啄木は創作生活に没頭、上京後1か月余に『菊池君』『病院の窓』『母』『天鵞絨(ビロード)』『二筋の血』など五つの作品300余枚の原稿を書き、その小説の売り込みに奔走したが失敗、ために収入なく生活は困窮した。1909年の春彼を窮地から救い東京朝日新聞社の校正係に採用したのは、盛岡出身の同社編集部長佐藤北江(ほっこう)（真一）で、啄木はようやく定職を得て、東京・本郷区弓町二丁目（現、文京区本郷）の喜之床(きのとこ)（新井(あらい)こう）の2階に家族を迎えて新生活を始めることができた。1910年9月社会部長渋川柳次郎の厚意で「朝日歌壇」の選者となり、この年の暮れ処女歌集『一握(いちあく)の砂』を刊行。その特異な三行書きの表記法と、「生活を歌う」主題の新鮮さは歌壇内外の注目を浴び、第一線歌人としての地位を確立した。またこの年6月の大逆事件に衝撃を受けて社会主義思想に接近、幸徳秋水やロシアの思想家クロポトキンの著作を愛読して、未来のソシアリスティックな日本を思い描いたが、東京時代につくられた歌集『一握の砂』『悲しき玩具(がんぐ)』、詩集『呼子(よぶこ)と口笛』、評論『時代閉塞(へいそく)の現状』などの代表作は、そうした晩年の思想や生活のなかから生まれたもので、天才啄木の名を不朽のものとした。明治45年4月13日、小石川区久堅(ひさかた)町74番地（現、文京区小石川5-11-7）の借家で肺結核で死んだ。享年27歳。文字どおり薄幸にして流亡の生涯であった。

［岩城之徳　2017年1月19日］

　呼吸(いき)すれば、／胸の中(うち)にて鳴る音あり。／凩(こがらし)よりもさびしきその音！

『『石川啄木全集』全8巻（1978～1980・筑摩書房）』▽『岩城之徳著「啄木歌集全歌評釈」（『別冊国文学　石川啄木必携』所収・1981・学燈社）』▽『今井泰子著『石川啄木論』（1974・塙書房）』▽『岩城之徳著『啄木評伝』（1976・学燈社）』▽『沢地久枝著『石川節子・愛の永遠を信じたく候』（1981・講談社）』

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