English translation of the prose
AI-assisted English translation of the prose; quoted poems remain in Japanese. The Japanese original remains authoritative.
AI-assisted English translation. The Japanese original remains authoritative.
Originally published:
A dialogue on Romanticism published in April 2020. The original exchange is preserved as historical material and is followed by “安心向上Q&A2〜5.”
Prose-only translation. The quoted poetic lines remain in Japanese; ordinary prose quotations are translated.
Q&A (1): Are Romantics Hedonists Who Live Only for the Moment?
Questions: 山口栄宏, Morioka, Iwate
Answers: Seishu Hamano, President of the Society
Is Romanticism concerned only with the moment?
Q: Romanticism brings to mind 鉄幹 and 晶子’s Tokyo Shinshisha. In 永畑道子’s 『華の乱』 and 『夢のかけ橋』, which portray them so well, they seem very pleasure-seeking and concerned only with the moment.
A: Yes, romantic love is treated as supreme. Including her portrayal of 有島武郎, 永畑’s works are reading matter shaped like stories rather than scholarly papers.
Q: I think her view of Romanticism puts too much emphasis on passion and living for the moment. It seems too fictionalized to me. Was reality like that?
A: It was quite different. Follow Shinshisha’s activities and examine the Yosano household’s finances, and there is much to sympathize with. 晶子’s actual life was one hardship after another. Far from indulging in pleasure, she was so occupied with raising her children that she could scarcely sleep peacefully.
Q: But when we consider 鉄幹’s relationships with 山川登美子 and 茅野雅子, and the scandals surrounding 『恋衣』, it still looks like hedonism. I worry that the Reiwa Online Manyoshu may have a tendency to follow that path.
A: The world of love and hatred sometimes develops into scandals driven by passing impulses. The Shiobara incident involving 平塚らいてう and 森田草平 is another example. But this is not confined to Romantic poets or campaigners for women’s rights. In the world of realism, too, ordinary society contains plenty of people who cling to wealth, power or face and indulge in them for pleasure.
Q: What is the difference?
A: Romantics devote themselves to love for humanity, and to justice and virtue with an enduring dimension. They pursue the value of living as a question of the heart. Life and death are the greatest issues. This is the opposite of satisfying material desires, and that is why I consider it worth pursuing.
Q: So Romantic love is not necessarily confined to fleeting love between men and women?
A: Of course not. Love between parent and child, friendship, and compassion for people living in unfortunate circumstances are all Romantic. Many teachers, without being famous, try to help the next generation find happiness and meaning in life and grow into fine people. Even if they never compose a single tanka, they work with children in a splendid Romantic spirit. That is precious, and it gives our own efforts meaning.
Q: Is the Romantic spirit, in other words, selfless love or compassion?
A: This year marks the bicentenary of Nightingale’s birth. Her selfless dedication endured precisely because she had that Romantic spirit within her.
Q: There are other educators with that kind of Romanticism too.
A: 新島襄 of Doshisha, 成瀬仁蔵 of Japan Women’s University, 津田梅子 of Tsuda College, and 福沢諭吉 of Keio. They all studied abroad and awakened to the importance of educating the Japanese people. They returned full of love for humanity rather than self-love, and established schools embodying their ideals.1 You could call that the characteristic work of Romantics.
Q: They sound more like stoics encouraging self-cultivation than hedonists.
A: Exactly. It is wrong to judge people by the narrow idea that only literary writers or poets can be Romantics. That is a limited outlook. Today Romanticism also lives in film and gardening. Think of it as a fundamental innocence at the root of how one lives.
What Fukuzawa and Franklin share in Romanticism
Q: 福沢諭吉 makes me think of practical learning. That is why he gave economics priority from the outset. I had the impression that he was entirely concerned with practical benefit, with no Romantic side at all, so I am surprised to hear that he possessed a Romantic inner world.
A: Love for humanity ran throughout his life. It began in childhood. For example, when a beggar’s child called チエ arrived with a head full of lice, 諭吉’s mother picked them out one by one and placed them on a stone. As the young 諭吉 crushed them with another stone, his mother taught him the feeling that disadvantaged children, above all, deserved love.
Repeatedly caring for those at the bottom of society developed into the conviction that, as Japanese people adopted Western ways, a fine country could be built only by educating everyone equally. At that time, status rigidly separated the peerage, former samurai and commoners. He founded a school for ordinary people, a gijuku, to remove those barriers through education. He himself knew Europe and America, having sailed aboard the Kanrin Maru and returned. That experience could have taken him to any number of high offices, yet he consistently refused such invitations and remained a commoner all his life. I think that way of living embodies an admirable Romantic spirit.
Q: I had never thought of 福沢諭吉 as a Romantic.
A: He was a prolific writer. Besides publishing many books, including 『学問のすすめ』 and 『文明論之概略』, he passionately continued to write enlightening articles for 『時事新報』 almost every day. He explained his ideals through criticism rather than tanka. Like Benjamin Franklin, he kept writing his ideals for everyone, without any particular rank or status, and his ideas therefore became widely known. He continually discussed the economy and the organization of society. Such passion would not be possible unless the Romantic heart reached into every part of society. 福沢 never pursued fleeting pleasure. Indeed, he disliked expressing passion in that way, and lived an upright life that served as an example of proper conduct. In other words, his way of giving expression to Romanticism, his way of living, was distinctively his own.
The vulnerable Romantics who cannot withstand harsh circumstances
Q: Is that the path this Japan Romanticism Academia follows?
A: Not at all! The feelings of poets such as 山川登美子 and 茅野雅子 matter too: people who held Romanticism in their hearts, yet could do nothing about their vulnerability and had no choice but to follow a path towards ruin. Even in a vulnerable end such as 登美子’s there is boundless sorrow, and an aesthetics of perishing akin to the uncertainty of existence in 堀辰雄’s literature of tuberculosis. This, too, is dear to us.
Q: In that sense, 与謝野晶子 was also caught between a complicated marriage and the authorities…
A: Yes. Intellectuals of that time lived each day feeling pressure as though even freedom of the heart were restricted. That undermined their household finances. Even campaigners for freedom and people’s rights turned towards nationalism around the time of the Sino-Japanese War. Naturally, the lives and statements of groups of free-thinking poets became convoluted, and their lifestyles themselves moved towards living for the moment and pleasure-seeking. In 「君死にたまふことなかれ」, she expressed anger as if rebuking the government, and came under intense scrutiny.
Q: Certainly, in response to 晶子’s 「君死にたまふ」, people asked whether being a Sakai merchant excused one from supporting war, that great national undertaking…
A: Yes. 大町桂月 pointed to 晶子’s lines 「すめらみことは戦いにおん自らは出でまさね」 and admonished her for being “too bold.” She could not remain silent, retorting, “When, as now, loyalty to the sovereign and patriotism are forced upon us with cries of ‘die, die,’ I cannot remain silent.” In such a closed and suffocating age, with seemingly nowhere to escape, their actions naturally became doubtful and they fell into living for the moment, with no assurance of the future.
Q: I see. I look forward to speaking again.
A: Brilliance alone is not enough. I look forward to tanka with depth.
(To be continued)
1. Translation note: the source reads 「学舎を送検した」. “Established schools” is the contextual reading used here; the Japanese source is unchanged.
Original wording, author credits, notes and source materials are preserved there.