Featured Content Page about: masaoka shiki

{{Infobox Writer

}}Masaoka

Masaoka Shiki 正岡 子規 Masaoka Shiki extra=September 17, 1867 – September 19, 1902 was the pen-name of a Japanese author, poet, literary critic, and journalist in Meiji period Japan. His real name was Masaoka Tsunenori (正岡 常規), but as a child he was called Tokoronosuke (処之助). Later, he changed his name to Noboru (升).

Early life

Shiki was born in Matsuyama city in Iyo province (present day Ehime prefecture) to a ''samurai'' class family of modest means. His father, Tsunenao, was a low-ranking official, and his mother, Yae, was the eldest daughter of Ohara Kanzan, a teacher at the clan school. Shiki lost his father when he was five.

Literary career

Shiki was a strong advocate of modernization of Japanese poetry, introducing the terms ''haiku'' to replace stand-alone ''hokku'', and ''tanka'' to replace the 31-mora ''waka''.

Later life

Shiki suffered from tuberculosis much of his life. In 1889, after coughing up blood, he adopted the pen-name of ''Shiki''. His illness was severely aggravated by a stint as a war correspondent with the Imperial Japanese Army during the First Sino-Japanese War. Upon return from military service in 1895 he convalesced at Natsume Sōseki's house in Matsuyama, but he realized that he was terminally ill. He continued to write vigorously, but was largely bed-ridden by 1898. He kept a series of journals dated 1901-1902, in which he described his physical deterioration and the progress of his illness in clinical detail. These journals also contain numerous ''tanka'' and ''haiku'', which occurred to him while he was writing. He died in Tokyo on 19 September 1902.

Legacy

Shiki is today often credited with single-handedly revitalizing the poetry forms of ''haiku'' and ''tanka''. Although his ideas and theories were regarded as revolutionary by his contemporaries, he mostly remained within the bounds of the traditionally established “rules” and formats, unlike his more radical free verse successors. His work has an austerity, and a freshness that remains popular today. He is now regarded as one of the four great masters of haiku, along with Bashō, Buson, and Issa.

Shiki also played baseball in his early days and entered Japanese Baseball Hall of Fame in 2002.