Natsume Soseki

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Natsume Soseki (February 9, 1867 – December 9, 1916), born Natsume Kin'nosuke, was a Japanese novelist.

He is best known around the world for his novels Kokoro, Botchan, I Am a Cat and his unfinished work Light and Darkness.

He was also a scholar of British literature and composer of haiku, kanshi, and fairy tales.

From 1984 until 2004, his portrait appeared on the front of the Japanese 1000 yen note.

In Japan, he is often considered the greatest writer in modern Japanese history.

He has had a profound effect on almost all important Japanese writers since.

Early years

Natsume Kin'nosuke was born on 9 February 1867 in the town of Babashita, Ushigome, Edo (present Kikui, Shinjuku, Tokyo), the fifth son of village head (nanushi) Natsume Kohē Naokatsu and his wife Chie. His father, a powerful and wealthy nanushi, owned all land from Ushigome to Takadanobaba in Edo and handled most civil lawsuits at his doorstep. He was a descendant of Natsume Yoshinobu, a Sengoku period samurai and retainer of Tokugawa Ieyasu. Sōseki began his life as an unwanted child, born to his mother late in her life, forty years old and his father then fifty-three. When he was born, he already had five siblings. Having five children and a toddler had created family insecurity and was in some ways a disgrace to the Natsume family. A childless couple, Shiobara Masanosuke and his wife, adopted him in 1868 and raised him until the age of nine, when the couple divorced. He returned to his biological family and was welcomed by his mother although regarded as a nuisance by his father. His mother died when he was fourteen, and his two eldest brothers died in 1887, intensifying his sense of insecurity.

Sōseki attended the First Tokyo Middle School (now Hibiya High School), where he became deeply enamored with Chinese literature, and fancied that he might someday become a writer. His desire to become an author arose when he was about fifteen when he told his older brother about his interest in literature. However, his family disapproved strongly of this course of action, and when Sōseki entered the Tokyo Imperial University in September 1884, it was with the intention of becoming an architect. Although he preferred Chinese classics, he started studying English at that time, feeling that it might prove useful to him in his future career, as English was a necessity in Japanese college.

In 1887, Sōseki met Masaoka Shiki, a friend who would give him encouragement on the path to becoming a writer, which would ultimately be his career. Shiki tutored him in the art of composing haiku. From this point on, he began signing his poems with the epithet Sōseki, a Chinese idiom meaning "stubborn". In 1890, he entered the English Literature department, and quickly mastered the English language. In 1891 he produced a partial English translation of the classical work Hōjōki upon request by his then English literature professor James Main Dixon. Sōseki graduated in 1893, and enrolled for some time as a graduate student and part-time teacher at the Tokyo Normal School.

In 1895, Sōseki began teaching at Matsuyama Middle School in Shikoku, which later became the setting of his novel Botchan. Along with fulfilling his teaching duties, Sōseki published haiku and Chinese poetry in a number of newspapers and periodicals. He resigned his post in 1896, and began teaching at the Fifth High School in Kumamoto. On June 10 of that year, he married Nakane Kyōko.

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Literary career

Sseki's literary career began in 1903 when he began contributing haiku, renku (handy verse), haitaishi (linked verse on a set theme), and literary sketches to literary journals, such as the influential Hotogisu, edited by his former mentor Masaoka Shiki, and later by Takahama Kyoshi. Nevertheless, it was the commercial success of his satirical book I Am a Cat in 1905 that earned him widespread media adoration as well as critical acclaim.

He continued his success with short stories, such as "Remember t" ("Tower of London") in 1905, and the books Botchan ("Live Master"), and Kusamakura ("Grass Pillow") in 1906, which established his fame in the industry and allowed him to leave his job as a writer in 1907 and begin writing full time. A large portion of his research examines the connection between Japanese culture and Western culture. His early works, particularly his undergraduate studies in London, were inspired by his studies in London; his book Kairo-k was the first and only major prose study of the Arthurian legend in Japan; he died in 1992. A year before his death from a stomach ulcer in 1916, he began writing one.

Ordinary people, struggle against economic hardship, hunger and desire (a traditional Japanese theme), industrialization and defiance, economic and human development, misogyny, and misogyny and societal confusion are among Seki's works' key themes; see giri), loyalty and group mentality, personal fragmentation and alienation, social and national development, mocking Japan's imperialism and misogyny, mockery of Japanese history, and a critical of human being e Sseki took an active interest in the writers of the Shirakaba (White Birch) literary group. Authors such as Akutagawa Rynnosuke and Kume Masao became close followers of his literary style in his last years.

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