Background
Kuriyagawa Hakuson was born in Kyoto.
廚川 白村
Kuriyagawa Hakuson was born in Kyoto.
He graduated from Tokyo Imperial University, where he had studied under Koizumi Yakumo and Natsume Sōseki, and later became a professor at Kumamoto University and Kyoto Imperial University.
His real name was Kuriyagawa Tatsuo. His writings include: Kindai bungaku jikko ("Ten Aspects of Modern Literature", 1912), Zoge no to o dete ("Leave the Ivory Tower!", 1920) and Kindai no ren-aikan ("Modern Views on Love", 1922). In Kindai no ren-aikan Hakuson regarded "love marriage" (renai kekkon) to be a practice indicating an advanced nation and society, as opposed to the practice of arranged marriage, which was more commonly practiced in Japan at the time.
He was killed by a tsunami, which swept away his cottage near the beach in Kamakura, Kanagawa prefecture, during the Great Kantō earthquake of 1923.
He lectured on 19th century Western literature, and criticized traditional Japanese writing on naturalism and romanticism.