Background
Kojiro Yoshikawa was born on 18 March 1904 in Kobe, Japan, as the second son of a local merchant.
(Translated by Burton Watson.)
Translated by Burton Watson.
https://www.amazon.com/Introduction-Poetry-Harvard-Yenching-Institute-Monograph/dp/0674462505/?tag=2022091-20
1967
(Translated by John Timothy Wixted.)
Translated by John Timothy Wixted.
https://www.amazon.com/Hundred-Years-Chinese-Poetry-1150-1650/dp/0691605483/?tag=2022091-20
1989
幸次郎 吉川
Kojiro Yoshikawa was born on 18 March 1904 in Kobe, Japan, as the second son of a local merchant.
Kojiro Yoshikawa entered middle school in 1916 and was introduced to the classics of Chinese history and historical fiction, such as the Records of the Grand Historian, Water Margin, Journey to the West, and Romance of the Three Kingdoms. In 1920, Yoshikawa entered the Third Advanced School in Kyoto, where he met fellow China enthusiast and future colleague Masaru Aoki and began studying Mandarin Chinese. In 1923, prior to entering university, Yoshikawa traveled to China, spending time in and around Jiangsu Province. Yoshikawa's interest in literature increased during this period as he read the works of noted Japanese authors Ryunosuke Akutagawa and Haruo Sato.
Yoshikawa matriculated at the Department of Literature of Kyoto University in 1923, where he studied Chinese and classical Chinese literature under the guidance of scholars Naoki Kano (1868-1947) and Torao Suzuki (1878-1963). He graduated in 1926 with a thesis on rhythm and prosody in Chinese poetry.
After graduating, Yoshikawa was accepted as a graduate student and began advanced study in Tang poetry. From 1928 to 1931, Yoshikawa studied in Peking (modern Beijing), where he became friends with fellow sinologist Takeshiro Kuraishi (1897–1975). Following his six years in China, Yoshikawa returned to Japan where he took up a position at what is now The Kyoto University Research Centre for the Cultural Sciences and taught courses in Kyoto University's Department of Literature.
During the late 1930s and 1940s Yoshikawa and his colleagues worked on editing and translating an edition of the 7th century Chinese work Shangshu zhengyi 尚書正義, a commentary on the Book of Documents written by scholar Kong Yingda.
(Translated by John Timothy Wixted.)
1989(Translated by Burton Watson.)
1967Yoshikawa was an ardent admirer of Confucius and sought to emulate traditional Chinese Confucian scholars in his personal conduct, even adopting a Chinese courtesy name: Zenshi 善之 (Mandarin: Shànzhī).
In 1932, Yoshikawa married a woman named Nobu Nakamura and bought a home in the Sakyō area of Kyoto, where he and his wife lived together their entire lives.
