Introduction
the emancipation and higher education of women, and in spite of her arduous duties in connection with her large family and the deanship, she has written continuously for magazines and newspapers.
Akiko’s ideal companionship came to an end only when, at the age of sixty-two, Hiroshi died of pneumonia on the 26th of February, 1935. Akiko is the mother of twelve children, ten of whom are living.
| · | · | · | · | · | · |
Akiko Yosano has had two advantages over her contemporaries. First, she is a woman with a certain audacity and glamour that appeal to the public imagination. Her dramatic appearance, after Hiroshi had set the stage, was extremely timely; she made his creed articulate. Secondly, while the outstanding poets of the modern period have been short lived, Akiko has enjoyed thirty-five years of unbroken literary activity. Had death spared longer Shiki Masaoka, Takuboku Ishikawa, and Tomiko Yamagawa, they might have done great things for modern poetry, because, in spite of their poverty, ill health, and early deaths, they left many significant works.
10 
