Makoto Ueda

Originally published by Twayne Publishers, 1970.

Master Haiku Poet

Far Beyond the Field is a first-of-its-kind anthology of haiku by Japanese women, collecting translations of four hundred haiku written by twenty poets from the seventeenth century to the present. By arranging the poems chronologically, Makoto Ueda has created an overview of the way in which this enigmatic seventeen-syllable form has been used and experimented with during different eras. At the same time, the reader is admitted to the often marginalized world of female experience in Japan, revealing voices every bit as rich and colorful, and perhaps even more lyrical and erotic, than those found in male haiku. Listen, for instance, to Chiyojo, who worked in what has been long thought of as the dark age of haiku during the eighteenth century, but who composed exquisitely fine poems tracing the smallest workings of nature. Or Katsuro Nobuko, who wrote powerfully erotic poems when she was widowed after only two years of marriage. And here, too, is a voice from today, Mayuzumi Madoka, whose meditations on romantic love represent a fresh new approach to haiku.

Haiku by Japanese Women : an Anthology

Far Beyond the Field

The West has become familiar with Japanese haiku predominantly through the works of classical masters such as Bash , Buson, and Issa. If the leading haiku poets in modern Japan are unknown in the West, it is simply because translations of their works have not been available. This anthology presents, in English translation, twenty haikus each from the work of twenty modern poets. The writers have been selected to exemplify the various trends that have dominated Japanese haiku in the last hundred years, but the individual haiku have been selected for literary merit; more than anything else this is intended to be a book of poetry. In the introduction Professor Ueda traces the development of the verse form to the present. Brief biographies of the twenty poets are also provided. Haiku, by its very nature, asks each reader to be a poet. Thus, for each haiku the poetic translation is accompanied by the original Japanese and a word-by-word translation into English, and the reader is invited to compose his own poem, to enter into that private relationship with the poem that haiku demands.

現代日本俳句選集

Portrayals of Women in Modern Japanese Fiction (Japan's Modern Writers)

The Mother of Dreams and Other Short Stories

Light Verse from the Floating World

His introduction gives an excellent overview of the development of tanka in the last one hundred years.

An Anthology

Modern Japanese Tanka

Michigan Classics in Japanese Studies No. 6

Literary and Art Theories in Japan

"Maiden, wife, mistress, mother, working woman: the 18 stories by 16 authors, both male and female, in this appealing anthology reflect these traditional women's roles while showing what radical changes have taken place within them, especially since WW II," concluded PW. (Nov.).

Portrayals of Women in Modern Japanese Fiction

To Lafcadio Hearn at the turn of the twentieth century, Japan's most priceless objets d'art were not the delicate masterpieces of its fine arts but its women. Today, the women of Japan are viewed with a mixture of old stereotypes and new misconceptions. The Mother of Dreams is an anthology of modern Japanese fiction portraying Japanese women, arranged according to five categories: the maiden, the mistress, the wife, the mother, and the working woman. These short stories span a period that has seen great changes in the status of Japanese women. There has also been a transformation in women's expectations of themselves and of the people around them. Such changes are manifest in the treatment of the protagonists in this anthology, some of whom adhere to traditional roles while others seek to find new functions and attitudes. The young maidens in the three short pieces by Nobel laureate Kawabata Yasunari contrast sharply with the contemporary women, such as the ordinary housewife and budding actress portrayed by Mori Yoko. But just as significant as change is continuity. The mistress-turned-stripper-turned-prostitute of Nagai Kafu's immediate postwar world has much in common with Kaiko Takeshi's virgin-whore from the period of the Korean War. Such images are in turn challenged by the middle-aged geisha portrayed by Enchi Fumiko and the young mother who abandons her child in Setouchi Harumi's piece, women whose depth of emotion defies the stereotypes assigned to them by their class and their occupation. Professor Ueda's anthology presents some of the finest work of Japan's major writers, both female and male, on a subject of truly universal significance. At a time when change and continuity pose problems as well as solutions in the search for identity and meaning in our lives, The Mother of Dreams provides thought-provoking and meaningful material for us all.

The Mother of Dreams

Haiku by Japanese Women

A wide-ranging collection of seventeen essays which explore the current frontiers of comparative literature. Features famous literary figures as well as less well-known authors, and examines their contributions to world literature.

Essays in Comparative Literature

Explorations

Buson Yosa

Buson Taniguchi

Yosa Buson (1716-83) is a towering figure in the history of haiku. A painter by profession, Buson took delight in the natural beauty of colors and forms as well as in the artistic beauty of composition. A seeker of ideals that were more aesthetic than religious or moral, he freely let his imagination wander into a land of exotic beauty far removed from contemporary society, often evoking ancient China, Heian Japan, and the world of the supernatural. This book presents an overview of Buson's life and poetry, beginning with speculations on the mysterious circumstances of his birth and then tracing the various stages of his career as poet. In the process, the author cites some 180 of Buson's haiku in English translation, and analyzes them from a predominantly biographical point of view. The book is illustrated with twelve examples of Buson's work as painter and calligrapher.

The Life and Poetry of Yosa Buson

The Path of Flowering Thorn

This book sketches the life and poetry of Kobayishi Issa, a major Japanese haiku poet, and tries to identify the sources of his bold individualism and all-embracing humanism in terms of his long and checkered carrier.

The Life and Poetry of Kobayashi Issa

Dew on the Grass

Modern Japanese Poets and the Nature of Literature

Matsuo Basho

Matsuo Bashō

This book has a dual purpose. The first is to present in a new English translation 255 representative hokku (or haiku) poems of Matsuo Basho (1644-94), the Japanese poet who is generally considered the most influential figure in the history of the genre. The second is to make available in English a wide spectrum of Japanese critical commentary on the poems over the last three hundred years.

Makoto Ueda

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