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It was about 1885 when Katai started to send poems composed in Chinese to the magazine Eisai Shinshi, or New Magazine for Talented Men. Katai writes about Eisai Shinsai in Bunshō Sekai, or The World of Writing.[1]
About that time [1833–35] I attended the elementary school at Kanrin [Gumma Prefecture] where I learned Chinese. Studying Chinese was regarded as more important at that time than nowadays. Therefore, I learned to compose Chinese poems . . .
As in the case of all contributors, when I saw my poems in the magazine [Eisai Shinsi], I was very proud. I showed my poems in the magazine to everyone. I was interested in composing poems and was permitted to buy the magazine by my family who said it was better to spend by money in this way than for some other useless purposes, even though my family was so poor that they could barely afford the two pennies for one copy of the magazine. This magazine could be regarded as becoming my sole consolation and moral support. I looked forward to the publication of each issue of the magazine and I was disappointed when my poem was not printed; however, generally speaking my compositions were printed in the magazine and I was flattered.[2]
At seventeen, he started to study waka under Matsuura Tatsuo, a disciple of the Keien school of waka.[3] Katai later affectionately recalls his teacher Matsuura in his memoirs.[4] Katai learned from Matsuura the most important attitude of a poet for composing poems, the precept of
- ↑ Tayama Katai, ed., Bunshō Sekai, Vol. III, no. 13, Oct. 1908, quoted in Yanagida Izumi, Tayama Katai no Bungaku ("The Works of Tayama Katai") (2 vols.; Tokyo, 1956–58), II, 85.
- ↑ Ibid.
- ↑ A school for waka, or Japanese poetry, founded by Kagawa Kageki, a critic of the late Tokugawa period. He attempted to restore the poet's simple and original style as was the case of Japanese-forms of poetry of the Heian period that appeared in Kokinshū, the first imperial anthology collected around 905. The basic form of Waka consists of 31 syllables arranged in 5-7-5, 7-7.
- ↑ Tayama Katai, Tokyo no Sanjūnen ("Thirty Years in Tokyo"), Vol. XCVII of Gendai Nihon Bungaku Zenshū (99 vols.; Tokyo: Chikuma Shobō, 1953–59), pp. 304–05.
