Shiki Masaoka - Masaoka Shiki

Haiku poet and tanka poet. Born on September 17th (October 14th) of the 3rd year of the Keio era in Fujiwara Shinmachi, Onsen County, Iyo Province (Aratamamachi, Matsuyama City). His real name was Tsunenori, and his childhood name was Tokoro no Suke, also known as Noboru. He was also known as Dassai Shokushujin, and was from Takenosato. His father, Hayata, was a low-ranking samurai of the Matsuyama domain. He aspired to be a politician, dropped out of Matsuyama Middle School, and in 1883 (Meiji 16) at the age of 17, he moved to Tokyo relying on his uncle, Kato Takusen. He eventually entered the Hitotsubashi University Preparatory School (the predecessor to the former First Higher School), where he met Natsume Soseki. Around this time, he began composing waka and haiku, was fond of human interest books and enjoyed rakugo, but was also passionate about baseball, which had just started to take off at the time. At one point, he tried to become a philosopher, but at the same time, he continued to study ancient haiku and wrote haiku with his friends. In 1889, he coughed up blood and adopted the name Shiki. The following year, in 1890, he enrolled in the Department of Japanese Literature at the Faculty of Letters of the Imperial University (now the Faculty of Letters of the University of Tokyo), but his plans changed three times. Influenced by the up-and-coming writer of the time, Koda Rohan, he wrote the novel Tsuki no Miyako (Moon City) in 1891, but it was unsuccessful, and he wrote, "I do not wish to be a novelist, I wish to be a poet," and ultimately resolved to live as a haiku poet.

In 1892, he serialized "Dassai Shoya Haiwa" in the newspaper "Nihon", becoming a pioneer of the haiku reform movement. He then dropped out of university and joined the Japan Newspaper Company. He lived next door to the company's president, Kugaku Katsunan (then in Kaminegishi-cho, Shita-ya Ward), and was under Katsunan's protection for the rest of his life. In 1895, he volunteered to serve in the Sino-Japanese War, coughing up blood on the way home and later developing spinal caries, and was bedridden almost until his death, but during the intervening seven or eight years, Shiki worked tirelessly. He published his haiku mainly in the newspaper Nippon and the magazine Hototogisu, which was launched in 1897. Through his interactions with Western-style painter Nakamura Fusetsu and others, he came to realize the importance of sketching nature in haiku, and learned from Buson's pictorial and free-flowing verse. He rejected conventional conventions and reasoning and became a central figure among young poets, promoting the innovation of haiku. His main haiku theories include Haikai Taiyo (1895) and Haiku Poet Buson (1897). In 1898, he embarked on the innovation of waka poetry, publishing A Note for Poets attacking the old school of poets who were bound by tradition, and in Ten Poets from a Hundred (1898) he presented tanka poetry using a radical and innovative technique that was unconventional for the time.

Shiki's haiku are collected in his handwritten manuscripts "Kanzan Rakugi" (5 volumes) and "Haiku Ko" (2 volumes), totaling nearly 20,000, and his tanka (Japanese poems) are collected in "Take no Sato Ka" (Take no Sato Ka), totaling about 2,400 including supplements. As he approached the end of his life, his haiku and tanka progressed to a state of utmost purity that made the most of his state of mind, due to his ingestion of the "Manyoshu" and his growing illness. Some of his famous works include "There must be fourteen or five chicken heads," "The night has become one with various insects chirping," and "A single flower has bloomed, and to my eyes, this year's spring is about to pass." He died on September 19, 1902.

Shiki also tried his hand at new style poetry and novels, but his essays "A Drop of Ink" (1901), "Six Feet of a Sickbed" (1902), and especially his diary "Gyoga Manroku" (1901-1902) show his frank humanity. He also advocated descriptive writing, in which experiences are written in a clear and objective manner, and had a considerable influence on the establishment of simple Japanese in later generations. His haiku was inherited by Takahama Kyoshi and others who based his work on "Hototogisu," and his tanka was inherited by Ito Sachio and others who based his work on "Araragi." In 1981 (Showa 56), the Shiki Memorial Museum was opened in his hometown of Matsuyama City.

[Shinichi Miyaji October 19, 2018]

"The Complete Works of Shiki, Volume 22 and Supplementary Volume 3 (1975-1978, Kodansha)"

Source: Shogakukan Encyclopedia Nipponica About Encyclopedia Nipponica Information | Legend

俳人・歌人。慶応(けいおう)3年旧暦9月17日（陽暦10月14日）伊予国温泉郡藤原新町（松山市新玉町）に生まれる。本名常規(つねのり)、幼名処之助、また升(のぼる)。別号獺祭書屋主人(だっさいしょおくしゅじん)、竹の里人。父隼太(はやた)は松山藩の下級武士。政治家を志し、松山中学校を中退して、1883年（明治16）17歳のとき、叔父の加藤拓川(たくせん)を頼って上京した。やがて一ツ橋大学予備門（旧制一高の前身）に入学し、夏目漱石(そうせき)を知る。この前後に和歌や俳句をつくり始め、また人情本に親しみ落語なども好んだが、当時はやりだしたベースボールにも熱中した。一時、哲学者になろうとしたが、一方、古俳諧(はいかい)の研究を進め、友人と句作に励んだ。1889年に喀血(かっけつ)して子規と号し、翌1890年帝国大学文科大学（現、東京大学文学部）国文科に入学し志望が三転した。当時の新進作家幸田露伴(ろはん)の影響を受け、1891年小説『月の都』を書いたが成功せず、「僕は小説家となるを欲せず、詩人とならんことを欲す」と記して、結局俳人として生きる決意を固めた。

　1892年新聞『日本』に『獺祭書屋俳話』を連載。俳句革新運動の先駆けとなる。ついで大学を中退し、日本新聞社に入社。社長陸羯南(くがかつなん)の家の隣（当時下谷区上根岸町）に住み、終生羯南の庇護(ひご)を受ける身となった。1895年、日清(にっしん)戦争に志願して従軍し、帰途喀血、のち脊椎(せきつい)カリエスとなり、死ぬまでほとんど病床に釘(くぎ)づけになったが、その間の7、8年に子規は獅子奮迅(ししふんじん)の働きをした。発表の場は主として新聞『日本』と1897年創刊の雑誌『ホトトギス』で、洋画家中村不折らとの交流により、俳句に自然を描写する写生の重要性を悟り、また蕪村(ぶそん)の絵画的で自在な句境を学び、従来の月並や理屈を排して若い作者の中心となり俳句の革新を進めた。おもな俳論に『俳諧大要』（1895）、『俳人蕪村』（1897）などがある。1898年には和歌の革新に乗り出し、『歌よみに与ふる書』を発表して因襲にとらわれる旧派の歌人を攻撃し、『百中十首』（1898）をもって、当時としては破天荒の斬新な手法による短歌を示した。

　子規の俳句は自筆の稿本『寒山落木』全5巻、『俳句稿』全2巻などに2万近く収められ、短歌は『竹乃里歌』に記され、補遺をあわせて2400首ほど。晩年に近づくにつれて俳句も短歌も境涯を生かした至純な境地に進んだのは、『万葉集』からの摂取、また病苦の深まりによるものである。「雞頭(けいとう)の十四五本もありぬべし」「さまざまの虫鳴く夜となりにけり」「いちはつの花咲きいでゝ我目には今年ばかりの春行かんとす」などの作は有名なもの。明治35年9月19日没。

　子規は新体詩、小説にも手を染めたが、随筆『墨汁一滴』（1901）、『病牀六尺(びょうしょうろくしゃく)』（1902）、とくに日記『仰臥漫録(ぎょうがまんろく)』（1901～1902）に率直な人間性がみられる。また経験を平明に客観的に書く写生文も提唱して、後世の平易な日本語の成立にも少なからぬ影響を与えた。彼の俳句は、『ホトトギス』に拠(よ)る高浜虚子(きょし)らに、短歌は『アララギ』に拠る伊藤左千夫(さちお)らに継承された。1981年（昭和56）郷里松山市に子規記念博物館が開館した。

［宮地伸一　2018年10月19日］

『『子規全集』22巻・別巻3（1975～1978・講談社）』

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