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Introduction

“By dawn a few could compose one hundred poems, but the majority of us had to stop at fifty or sixty or even fewer. Takuboku used to slip under the mosquito net of Mrs. Yosano’s baby and take a short nap. I remember a young man who used to pull a cloak over his head, getting out once in a while to write down his poems, for, according to him, the light interfered with his muse.”

After 1909, with the strong naturalistic trend in the literary field, the New Poetry movement declined. Already the Myojo had been discontinued with its one hundredth anniversary issue, in November, 1908. Akiko, too, seemed to have drained her source of inspiration. Hiroshi went to Europe in 1911, and in June of the following year, Akiko met him in Paris. Together they travelled extensively, returning to Japan in February, 1913. Although she had long been an admirer of France and things French, inwardly this journey did not seem to touch her at all.

In 1921 Hiroshi, together with a few others, founded a girls’ school, Bunka Gakuin, based on broad cultural principles, and Akiko assumed the duties of dean, to which she has devoted much of her energy. After 1920, Akiko began to write occasional essays. She is an ardent advocate of

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