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Ichiyō Higuchi

Ichiyō Higuchi (樋口 一葉 Higuchi Ichiyō), pseudonimo di Natsu Higuchi (樋口 奈津 Higuchi Natsu) (2 maggio 1872 – Tokyo, 23 novembre 1896), è stata una poetessa di tanka e scrittrice giapponese. Specializzata nella scrittura di racconti, è stata una delle più importanti scrittrici del peiodo Meiji (1868–1912) e la prima scrittrice giapponese di primo piano dei tempi moderni.

Lo stile di scrittura di Higuchi non fu influenzato dal modello occidentale; al contrario si servì del giapponese classico all'interno dei suoi racconti. Per questo motivo è complicato tradurre i suoi scritti nella lingua giapponese moderna, e si preferisce lasciarli nella sua forma originale, seppur risultino complicati da leggere anche per i giapponesi stessi.

I primi anni

Nacque a Tokyo con il nome di Natsuko Higuchi. I suoi genitori si trasferirono nella capitale dopo essere vissuti in una comunità agricola di una provincia nelle vicinanze (Yamanashi). Attraverso l'acquisizione di titoli, il padre divenne samurai di basso grado, status sociale in seguito perso dopo la caduta del Bakufu. Lavorò successivamente a servizio del nuovo governo come pubblico funzionario della prefettura di Tōkyō durante il periodo in cui nacque Ichiyō.

A 14 anni, Higuchi iniziò a studiare poesia classica in una scuola privata chiamata "Hagi no ya". Ichiyō si sentiva a disagio tra gli studenti, i quali provenivano in gran parte da famiglie di ceto alto. Mantenne un atteggiamento umile, e il fatto che fosse miope e di bassa statura non la aiutò a socializzare.

La sua propensione alla scrittura divenne evidente nel 1891, quando iniziò a scrivere un diario in modo rigoroso. Divenne lungo un centinaio di pagine, e coprì i rimanenti cinque anni della sua vita. Vista la sua percezione di inferiorità sociale, la sua timidezza, e lo stato di povertà in cui si trovava la famiglia, il diario rappresentò per lei uno strumento con cui potersi sfogare e far conoscere i propri pensieri. Spesso le pagine del diario venivano scritte come fossero parte di un romanzo. Di notevole qualità ed interesse, il diario non fu mai pubblicato in lingua inglese.

Efforts to become a writer

She, her mother, and younger sister made ends meet by doing needlework, washing, and other jobs. In 1892, after seeing the success of a classmate, Kaho Tanabe, who wrote a novel,^[1] Higuchi decided to become a novelist to support her family.

Nevertheless, her initial efforts at writing fiction were in the form of a short story, a form to which she would remain true. In 1891 she met her future advisor who would help, she assumed, this poet-turned-fiction-writer and connect her with editors: Tosui Nakarai. She fell in love with him right away, not knowing that, at 31, he had a reputation as a womanizer. Nor did she realize that he wrote popular literature which aimed to please the general public and in no way wished to be associated with serious literature.

Her mentor did not return her passionate, if discreet, love for him, and instead treated her as a younger sister. This failed relationship would become a recurrent theme in Higuchi's fiction.^[2]

Eventually, she got the break she was so eager for: her first stories were published in a minor newspaper under her pen name, Ichiyo Higuchi. The stories from this first period (1892–94) suffered from the excessive influence of Heian poetry.^[3] Higuchi felt compelled to demonstrate her classical literary training. The plots were thin, there was little development of character and they were loaded down by excessive sentiment,^[4] especially when compared to what she was writing concurrently in her diary. But she was developing rapidly. Several of her trademark themes appear; for example, the triangular relationship among a lonely, beautiful, young woman who has lost her parents, a handsome man who has abandoned her (and remains in the background), and a lonely and desperate ragamuffin who falls in love with her. Another theme Higuchi repeated was the ambition and cruelty of the Meiji middle class.^[5]

The story "Umoregi" ("In Obscurity") signaled Higuchi's arrival as a professional writer. It was published in the prestigious journal Miyako no Hana^[6] in 1892, only nine months after she had started writing in earnest. Her work was noticed and she was recognized as a promising new author.

Her last years

In 1893, Higuchi, her mother and her sister abandoned their middle class house and, with a grim determination to survive, moved to a poor neighborhood where they opened a stationery store that before long failed. Their new dwelling was a five-minute walk from Tokyo's ill-famed red-light district, the Yoshiwara. Her experience living in this neighborhood would provide material for several of her later stories,^[7] especially "Takekurabe", (literally, "Comparing heights"; "Child's Play" in the Robert Lyons Danly translation; also called "Growing Up" in the Edward Seidensticker translation.)^[8]

The stories of her mature period (1894–96) were not only marked by her experience living near the red-light district and greater concern over the plight of women, but also by the influence of Ihara Saikaku, a 17th-century writer, whose stories she had recently discovered. His distinctiveness lay in great part in his acceptance of low-life characters as worthwhile literary subjects.^[9] What Higuchi added was a special awareness of suffering and sensitivity. To this period belong "Ōtsugomori" ("On the Last Day of the Year"), "Nigorie" ("Troubled Waters"), "Wakare-Michi" ("Separate Ways"), "Jūsan'ya" ("The Thirteenth Night") and "Takekurabe" ("Child's Play"). The last two are considered her best work.^{[senza fonte]}

With these last stories her fame spread throughout the Tokyo literary establishment. In her humble home she was visited by other writers, students of poetry, admirers, the curious, critics, and editors requesting her collaboration.

But between constant interruptions and frequent headaches, Higuchi stopped writing. As her father and one of her brothers had before her, she had caught tuberculosis.^[10]

She died on November 23, 1896, at the age of twenty-four.

Higuchi's likeness adorns the Japanese 5000 yen banknote as of fall 2004, becoming the third woman to appear on a Japanese banknote, after Empress Jingū in 1881 and Murasaki Shikibu in 2000. Her best-known stories have been made into movies.^[11]

La banconota da 5000 yen

Ichiyō Higuchi è stata la prima donna ad apparire in una banconota emessa dalla Banca del Giappone. Rappresentatrice delle donne che lottano per non essere scoraggiate dalle barriere di genere e povertà, e in quanto simbolo di successo letterario del Giappone nel periodo moderno, il suo volto è stato scelto per apparire nella banconota da 5000 yen.

Footnotes

1. ^ Kaho Tanabe (田辺花圃^?, Tanabe Kaho, 1868–1943) who wrote Yabu no uguisu ("Songbirds in the grove", 1888).
2. ^ Danley. p.50.
3. ^ Danley. p.60.
4. ^ Danley. p.82.
5. ^ Danley. p.82.
6. ^ Danley. p.75.
7. ^ Danley. p.109.
8. ^ Keene, Donald. (1956) Modern Japanese Literature. New York: Grove Press. p.70.
9. ^ Danly. p.109.
10. ^ Danly. p.161.
11. ^ Danly. p.vii.

Bibliography

• Robert Lyons Danly. A study of Higuchi Ichiyō. Yale University, 1980.
• Robert Lyons Danly. In the Shade of Spring Leaves: The Life and Writings of Higuchi Ichiyō. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1981.
• Yukiko Tanaka. Women writers of Meiji and Taishō Japan: their lives, works and critical reception, 1868–1926. McFarland, 2000.

Further reading

English:

• Compernolle, Timothy J. Van. "Happiness Foreclosed: Sentimentalism, the Suffering Heroine, and Social Critique in Higuchi Ichiyō's 'Jūsan'ya.'" Journal of Japanese Studies 30, no. 2 (2004): p. 353–381. Available at JSTOR.

Japanese:

• Ikuta, Hanayo. Ichiyō to Shigure—denki: Higuchi Ichiyō/Hasegawa Shigure denki sōsho. Tokyo: Ōzorasha, 1992.

External links

• E-texts of Higuchi Ichiyō's works at Aozora bunko (JA)
• J'Lit | Authors : Ichiyo Higuchi | Books from Japan (EN)
• Higuchi Ichiyō's grave (EN)