American Measure: William Carlos Williams’s Vision of Free Verse

American Measure

William Carlos Williams’s Vision of Free Verse

  • Aya YOSHIDA／2021.3
  • JPY 5,000／A4 size, hard cover, 156 pages
  • bookdesign: Tamon Yahagi

William Carlos Williams championed the distinctive rhythms of American speech over against the English ones imposed in schools. He also resisted the foreign idioms embraced by Eliot and Pound, which he saw as a threat to the integrity of American verse. This was not a stay-at-home poet-doctor’s resentment of flamboyant cosmopolitanism, but obeyed a task imposed on him by the American language itself. Taking up this challenge, he found a new voice for America, in a style of composition which was by no means as free, casual, or direct as it might have appeared. Aya Yoshida shows this by tracing Williams’s quarrel with “free verse,” which he regarded as an oxymoron, and by uncovering the hidden prosodic discipline which was his lifelong concern. Central to this project was his invention of a ‘variable foot’ that replaced iambic constriction with a subtler music to catch the modern ear. The correlative experiments in typography that he also pursued throughout his career set up a dialectic between the aural and the visual, which could charge an individual image such as the iconic “red wheelbarrow” with a new kind of presence and significance. Yoshida’s analyses of these effects will kindle a thirst in her readers to renew acquaintance with this great American poet, and to make many similar discoveries of their own. –– Joseph S. O’Leary

（ISBN 9784861107320）

Table of contents

Acknowledgments
List of Abbreviations
List of Illustrations
Introduction
Chapter 1 The Embodiment of Freedom
Chapter 2 So Much Depends Upon a Variable Foot
Chapter 3 Ut pictura poesis
Chapter 4 A Recognizable American Idiom
Chapter 5 Asphodels
Coda
Notes
Bibliography
Index

Author

Aya YOSHIDA is Program-Specific Lecturer at the Institute for Liberal Arts and Sciences, Kyoto University. She received her Ph.D. in Human and Environmental Studies from Kyoto University. Her research interests focus on modern American poetry. Recent publications include “Surrealistically ‘glazed with’ the American Idiom: Williams’s Translations from French Verse and Prose,” published in William Carlos Williams Review 37 (2020).

Shakespeare Performances in Japan: Intercultural-Multilingual-Translingual

Shakespeare Performances in Japan

Intercultural-Multilingual-Translingual

  • Emi HAMANA / 2019.9
  • JPY 5,500 / A4 size, softcover, 188 pages
  • bookdesign: Toshinobu NAGATA

This book is the result of three research projects: the Intercultural Performances of Shakespeare’s Plays, Intercultural Education through World Shakespeare Performances and Translingual Performances of Shakespeare Worldwide. Although these projects were closely related and built upon one another, this book is divided into two parts—Part I: Intercultural and Multilingual Performance and Part II: Translingual Performance—according to the order of their development, logical continuity and coherence. The outcomes of the critical explorations presented in Part I lead to the proposal of a challenging new field in Part II, set against the backdrop of a paradigm shift in language education and new approaches in theatre studies.
（ISBN 9784861106576）

Table of contents 

Acknowledgements
Introduction
Part I Intercultural and Multilingual Performance
Chapter 1 This Is, and Is Not, Shakespeare: A Japanese–Korean Transformation of Othello
1. The Critical Impact of Local Shakespeare on Global Shakespeare: Othello in the Japanese Mugen Noh Style with Elements of Korean Shamanism: A Creative Subversion
2. The Critical Impact of the Japanese–Korean Adaptation of Othello on Global Shakespeare
Chapter 2 Performing Shakespeare after the 11 March 2011 Disaster: Yamanote Jijosha’s The Tempest
1. The Tempest as Prospero’s Apocalyptic Delusion
2. Caliban’s Binding and Torture on Stage
3. An Additional Japanese Ending
Chapter 3 The Last Shakespeare Plays Directed by Yukio Ninagawa: Possessed by the Power of Theatre
1. Richard II with Wheelchairs and the Tango
2. NINAGAWA (or Samurai) Macbeth: The Legendary Production Revived
3. The Two Gentlemen of Verona with an All-Male Cast
Chapter 4 Multilingual Performances of Shakespeare Worldwide: Multilingual King Lear, Directed by Tadashi Suzuki
1. Tadashi Suzuki and Multilingual Performance
2. A Short Performance History of King Lear (1984–2006), Directed by Tadashi Suzuki
3. The Four-Language Performance of King Lear (2009)
Part II Translingual Performance
Chapter 5 Translingual Performances of Shakespeare Worldwide with a Focus on Henry V
1. Fundamental Concepts and Facts
2. An Analysis of Henry V, Act 5, Scene 2
Chapter 6 Lear Dreaming, Directed by Ong Keng Sen
1. Basic Ideas of Lear Dreaming
2. An Analysis of Several Scenes in Lear Dreaming from a Translingual Perspective
Chapter 7 Safaring the Night: A Midsummer Night’s Dream Updated
1. Basic Information about Safaring the Night
2. An Analysis of Several Elements of Safaring the Night from a Translingual Perspective
Conclusion
Appendix: Performance Review: Sandaime Richard, written by Hideki Noda and directed by Ong Keng Sen. Performed in Japanese, English and Indonesian, with Japanese and English Subtitles.
Notes
Works Cited
List of Original Publications
Author Profile
Index

Author

Emi HAMANA
PhD, Professor Emeritus of Tsukuba University, is currently Professor of English Literature at Tokyo Woman’s Christian University. She specialises in Shakespeare studies, cultural studies and English education, focusing on multicultural, multilingual and translingual performances of Shakespeare’s plays worldwide, along with intercultural collaboration in contemporary theatre. Her current research interest concerns cognitive and digital approaches to Shakespeare. Her publications include The Wonder of Gender: Shakespeare and Gender (in Japanese; Nihon Tosho Centre, 2004) and Connecting Cultures: From Shakespeare to Contemporary Asian Theatre (in Japanese; Tsukuba UP, 2012). She has also contributed to The Cambridge Guide to the Worlds of Shakespeare, vol. 2 (Cambridge UP, 2016) and Shakespeare; His Infinite Variety (Lodz UP, 2017; to be re-published by Columbia UP, 2019), and to many academic journals. Her website is at https://emihamana.net.

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The Sound of Literature: Aspects of Language and Style in The Owl and the Nightingale

The Sound of Literature

Aspects of Language and Style in The Owl and the Nightingale

  • Kiyoaki KIKUCHI / 2016.2
  • JPY 7,500 / A5 size, hardcover, 216 pages
  • bookdesign: Haruo MATSUDA (Creative Concept)

（ISBN 9784861104886）

Table of contents

Introduction: The Historical Setting of the Poem
Chapter I: A Comparative Study of The Owl and the Nightingale and The Thrush and the Nightingale
Chapter II: A Stylistic Approach to the Characters in The Owl and the Nightingale
Chapter III: Some Aspects of Colloquial Speech
Chapter IV: Repetition in The Owl and the Nightingale
Chapter V: Aspects of Repetitive Word Pairs
Chapter VI: Conclusion: Colloquialisms, Language of Law and the Dynamics of Aural Literature

Author

Kiyoaki KIKUCHI
Professor of English philology in the Faculty of English and American Literature at Rikkyo University, Tokyo. He is the author of “Studies in Medieval English Language and Literature I: Aspects of Middle English” (2015) as well as articles on the Gawain-poet and Chaucer. Ph.D.(Osaka University).

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Essays on Dickens, Forster, Austen: A Japanese Reader’s Appreciation

Essays on Dickens, Forster, Austen

A Japanese Reader’s Appreciation

  • Eisuke FUJITA / 2013.12
  • JPY 3,000 / duodecimo, hardcover, 210 pages
  • bookdesign: Tamon YAHAGI, book-cover images: Yuko TAKENAMI

Dickens “David Copperfield”, Forster “A Passage to India”, Austin “Pride and Prejudice”, while also discussing British novels with classicality and contemporaryity, even with Dostoevsky and Zen. A consideration that the sensitivity and mentality of the Japanese live.
※This is a translated version of a previously published “Dickens, Forster, Austin – British novel living now(Dickens, Forster, Austin: Ima ni Ikiru Igirisu Shousetsu)” (Shumpusha Publishing 2008).
（ISBN 9784861103889）

Table of contents

PREFACE
CHAPTER ONE: A Mysterious Attraction and Liveliness: A Study of Several Characters in David Copperfield
CHAPTER TWO: Passion Underneath Modesty: A Reevaluation of Esther Summerson
CHAPTER THREE: A Passage to India: Western Mentality and India
CHAPTER FOUR: A Reading of Pride and Prejudice
CHAPTER FIVE: A Reading of Emma: Highbury ? A Village Both Realistic and Idyllic

Author

Eisuke FUJITA
Born in 1938. Professor of Emeritus at Dokkyo University. He received his M.A. degree from Tokyo University. Among his recent books are “The Japanese Translation of The Rise of the Novel by Ian Watt” (Tokyo: Nan’un-do Publishing, 1999), “Essays on Dickens, Forster, Austen”(Yokohama: Shumpusha Publishing, 2006), “The Japanese Translation of The Sacred Chain: The History of the Jews [by Norman F. Canter]”(Tokyo: Hosei University Press, 2005).

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Decoding Paul Muldoon: Poetics and Politics

Decoding Paul Muldoon

Poetics and Politics

  • Ryoji OKUDA / 2009.3
  • JPY 2,500 / duodecimo, paperback, 168 pages
  • bookdesign: Tamon YAHAGI

Paul Muldoon, contemporary poet of Northern Ireland, following Seamus Heaney. Using the concept of “hybridity” as a key, it understands the political hidden in the deep layer of the sideways speech.
（ISBN 9784861101762）

Table of contents

Preface
Introduction
CHAPTER 1 Mixed Marriage: the Poetics of Hybridity
CHAPTER 2 Translating Poetry and Politics in Monologues
CHAPTER 3 Transcending the Limits of Language: Imagination and Politics
CHAPTER 4 Artistic Subtlety of Politics: Decoding the Messages in “Madoc-A Mystery”
CHAPTER 5 Emigration and Homesickness
Conclusion
Appendix: Poetry and Politics in Ireland
Selected Bibliography
Index

Author

Ryoji OKUDA
Born in Hiroshima, Japan in 1958. Professor in English at Tokai University, Hiratsuka, Japan.  He is coeditor/author of “Meeting Paul Muldoon” (1994) and cotranslator of “Paul Muldoon: Selected Poems 1968-1983” (Japanese translation, 1996).  Essays include “In Search of Momentary Life: Yeats’s ‘Among School Children’”(Humanity Viewed from Language, 2000), “The dream of Irish Restoration in Dubliners: Joyce’s Messages” (Linguistic Expression and Creativity, 2005). He is currently secretary of the Yeats Society of Japan.

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From the Country of Kimonos

From the Country of Kimonos

  • Yuko KOYANO / 2006.12
  • JPY 1,905 / A5 size, hardcover, 224 pages
  • bookdesign: Tamon YAHAGI

B. S. Gordon who wrote the rights of women in the Constitution of Japan and H. Kolein who became a prisoner of the Japanese Army. Chiune Sugihara who issued a visa to the Jews, Japanese culture and war as seen in the eyes of the “world” such as the aesthetics and solidarity that still exists at the Kinkakuji Gion Festival!
（ISBN 4861100917）

Table of contents

AUREATE MEDITATION
The Temple of the Golden Pavilion
One of Japan’s great cultural treasures
THE SOUND OF RECTITUDE
Chiune Sugihara
The Japanese diplomat who during W.W. II signed
transit visas allowing thousands of European Jews
to escape the Nazis
A CENTURY-LONG DESIRE
Beate Sirota Gordon
The American woman who was responsible for writing the article of the new Japanese constitution in 1946 guaranteeing equal rights for women
A TOUCH OF SOLACE
Helen Colijn
A Dutch citizen interned by Japanese forces in
Indonesia at the outbreak of W.W. II
AWAKENING IN JULY
The Gion Matsuri
A diary-like account of witnessing the construction of the giant floats for the Gion Matsuri in Kyoto

Author

Yuko KOYANO
Born in Dalian, China in 1946. Graduated from the Department of English literature in Kyoto Women’s Junior College in 1967. Living in America with her family for her husband’s work in 1974-1975 and 1985-1990. She is the author of “From a town on the Hudson”(1996, Tuttle Publishing).

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Beowulf

Beowulf

  • Shuichi HASHIMOTO / 2006.2
  • JPY 2,000 / duodecimo extensional size, hardcover, 140 pages
  • bookdesign: Toshinobu NAGATA

An epic representing Anglo-Saxon literature, “beowulf” . The author reads closely the mysterious text which is said to be made in the 7th century under themes such as “monster” “witch” “dragon”.  This book also considers the relationship with Christianity.
（ISBN 4861100607）

Table of contents

Prologue
Wealhtheow
Grendel
Draconitas in Beowulf
The ‘Thryth-Offa Digression’ in Beowulf
A Historical Survey of Beowulf Studies? From the 19th to the 20th century?
Interpretation of the Line 2390b in Beowulf
Epilogue

Author

Shuichi HASHIMOTO
Born in Tokyo in 1956. He received M.A. degree from Sophia University. Professor of The Chiba Institute of Technology, Japan.

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Paradox and Post-Christianity: Hardy’s Engagements Religious Tradition and The Bible

Paradox and Post-Christianity

Hardy’s Engagements Religious Tradition and The Bible

  • Shuji AWANO / 1999.12
  • JPY 5,905 / A5 size, hardcover, 304 pages

A new approach to Thomas Hardy’s view on Christianity!
British writer Thomas Hardy is known for “Tess” and “Juvenile Jude”. Not discussed in Hardy’s research so far, in Hardy’s novels there are many metaphors of the Bible. Discussion on Japan’s first “handling of Hardy and Christianity”.
（ISBN 4921146039）

Table of contents

Acknowledgements
Textual Note
Introduction
1. Hardy’s Pastoral: Beginning with the Fall
2. The Return of the Native: A Post-Christian Tragedy
3. The Mayor of Casterbridge: Language and Being
4. The Woodlanders: Tree and Life
5. Tess of the d’Urbervilles: A Version of the Fall
6. Jude the Obscure: A Post-Christian Apocalypse
Conclusion
Notes
Bibliography

Author

Shuji AWANO
Assistant Professor of Osaka Gakuin University, Japan.

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