Background

Koda Rohan, whose legal name was Koda Shigeyuki, was born on August 25, 1867 (some sources say August 23), in Edo (now Tokyo), Japan. He was the son of Koda Sigenobu, a noble at the Edo castle, and Yu.

Education

Koda, later to become known by his pen name, Rohan, was born into a noble family. This would normally have guaranteed him a privileged upbringing and an excellent private education, but his family lost much of their prestige and comfortable wealth during the Restoration of the Maiji period and this loss had a significant impact on their ability to educate their large family (six sons, two daughters). He began at the Tokyo Normal School and, at age thirteen, and began studies at Tokyo First Middle School in 1879. Financial hardship forced his withdrawal, and he was sent to the Tokyo English School for a year.

It was at this school that Koda received his training in the English language, which would become important later on in his development as a writer. As family finances failed to improve, he eventually was enrolled in a free academy that had been established by the neo- Confucian scholar Kikuchi Shoken. This school was dedicated to Chinese pedagogy, and Koda’s training here, too, had a strong impact on his later development. He left the academy in 1883. At the age of seventeen, Koda enrolled in the School of Telegraph Technology, largely in recognition of his practical need to learn a skill by which he could adequately support himself.

Career

In 1885, Koda was appointed to a three-year position as telegraph engineer in Hokkaido prefecture. Koda spent a year of living rough in this rural region, but he also used the solitude and independence as an opportunity to read voraciously from Chinese and Buddist texts. Koda performed his assigned duties well, but suddenly, in 1886, he decided to make a journey back to Tokyo to see his family. This was in violation of his terms of employment and resulted in his being fired, but for all its consequences and the physical hardships of the actual journey, it was the turning point in Koda’s life - it inspired his first literary work. He wrote Tokkan kiko, a journal of his travels, and a haiku in which he referred to himself for the first time as “Rohan.”

This term, “rohan,” can be translated as “companion of the dew,” but it has another significant meaning to the young poet of samurai descent. In traditional Japan, samurai were warriors who lived and fought in service of a lord, or shogun. If a samurai’s lord died, or if he was dismissed from service, he became a wanderer. He had no home; no place in society unless he was taken on by a new master. The rohan’s life might seem romantic, but in reality it was one of hardship, and in the strict social hierarchy of traditional Japan, a samurai who lost his master also lost much prestige.

Although Koda’s journey home was the event that marked his birth as a writer, at the time of his arrival at his parents’ home in Tokyo its positive aspects were not immediately apparent. His family was greatly displeased that their son had lost his job, particularly since his father had recently lost his own position. Koda had to pitch in at home, but he found lime to continue his reading at the Tokyo library, where he met the writer Yoda Gakkai in 1888. Throughout this period, Koda would write late into the evening, and his new friend Gakkai encouraged his efforts, particularly after seeing the manuscript of “Tsuyu dandan” (“Dewdrops Falling,” a short story). On Gakkai’s recommendation, the story was bought by the Tokyo publisher Kinko Do, which published it in serialized form in the journal Miyako no Hana in 1889, using Koda's pen name of Rohan, and brought it out as a book in 1890.

The year 1890 was important for Rohan, both in terms of productivity and in terms of public recognition. That year, literary critics announced that “The Age of Koyo and Rohan” had begun, in recognition the two major talents of the day. In particular, they applauded Rohan’s heroic, dramatic creative voice. But Rohan was unsatisfied with his own work, although he was writing torrentially. He underwent a serious re-evaluation, which resulted in a shift in his creative focus.

Novels that Rohan published during the following year show that he began to incorporate some of Shoyo’s realism, to delineate psychologically complex characters who were not mere representations of moral values or abstract ideas. This year saw another prodigious outpouring of works, including Goju no to (“The Pagoda”), cited by most as his most representative, and quite possibly his best known, novel. He also brought out a number of pieces of short fiction, several essays, and his first play. Rohan’s work continued to evolve thematically and stylistically over the remainder of the decade, but he remained within the Sino-Japanese classical style, whereas literary fashion was beginning to embrace a more colloquial voice. His critics grew increasingly vocal in expressing their disapproval.

The first decade of the 1900s marked the close of Rohan’s most productive period, and his final works of that time reflected his increasing preoccupation with fate. No matter that his works had begun to more explicitly deal with contemporary issues and worldly affairs, they retained a strong mystical sensibility that was directly at odds with the now dominant Naturalist school and his latter work was largely ignored. In response, Rohan withdrew from fiction writing, and joined the literature faculty of Kyoto University. A year later, however, he resigned the position but did not return to fiction writing for another 30 years.

This interim period - 1908 through 1938 - was one of great personal loss, as Rohan mourned the loss of many friends and family members. Among those he lost were his first wife, Kimiko, his first daughter, and his only son. But in spite of these misfortunes, Rohan continued to write, albeit outside the fiction genre, concentrating instead on essays and literary commentary. However, this period had its rewards amid the troubles.

In 1938, Rohan broke his long silence in the fiction genre, beginning a new phase of literary productivity, though at a far slower pace than in earlier years. The pieces he published during this period were collected into the volume Gendan (“Fantastic Tales,” 1941), the year of Japan’s entry into World War II.

Rohan, having moved from Tokyo to Ito, ceased writing fiction entirely, although he continued with his literary commentary. In 1947, the year of his death, his critical essays on the haiku of the poet Basho was brought out in a collection, Hyo shaku Basho. He died on July 30th of that year.

Achievements

• Among critics of Japanese literature, Koda Shigeyuki’s work is highly esteemed. However, he also earned the reverence of Japanese people, not only through his writings and prominent position in the literary world of that time, but also through his life, which he devoted to the pursuit of wisdom and virtue.
  
  In 1911, the Japanese Ministry of Education recognized his stature as a scholar by awarding him a doctorate in literature; his nonfiction works were highly respected, and, in 1927, he was elected to the Japan Academy. With the renewed attention to his work that these honors brought, publishers brought out anthologies of his earlier work, and in 1937, Rohan was honored twice more: he was awarded the Order of Culture medal and was made a member of the Imperial Academy of Arts.

Works

More photos

• book

  • Pagoda, Skull & Samurai

    (This volume contains three of Rohan Koda's best-known sho...)

    1982
  • El samurái barbudo 2012
  • La Pagode a Cinq Etages: Et Autres Recits 2009
  • Kōda Rohan 1991
  • Leaving the Hermitage 1925
  • Gojunoto 1994
  • Yūjōki 1919
  • Hyoshuaku_Sarumino 2015
  • Imgawa-Yoshimoto 2015
  • Sankashu: National Diet 2019

Views

Rohan is credited for shrugging off the then popular Western themes in Japanese art. He instead focused on the themes and techniques of classical Chinese literature. In his belief that literature is an art form, Shigeyuki wrote in an elegantly prose style and observed the many conventions of traditional Japanese literature, including the use of Buddhist symbolism to convey themes.

Membership

In 1927, Rohan was elected as a member of the Japan Academy and was a member of the Imperial Academy of Arts.

Interests

• Mathematics, sciences

Connections

Rohan was married twice. His first wife’s name was Kimiko. She died in 1910. Rohan had one son and several daughters including Aya.

Father:

Koda Sigenobu Rohan

Mother:

Yu Rohan

Wife:

Kimiko Rohan

References

• DLB 180: Japanese Fiction Writers, 1868-1945 This award-winning multi-volume series is dedicated to making literature and its creators better understood and more accessible to students and interested readers, while satisfying the standards of librarians, teachers and scholars. Dictionary of Literary Biography provides reliable information in an easily comprehensible format, while placing writers in the larger perspective of literary history.
  1997
• Kōda Rohan
  1977