Yukio Mishima | |||||
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三島由紀夫 | |||||
Born | Kimitake Hiraoka 14 January 1925 | ||||
Died | 25 November 1970
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Cause of death | Suicide by seppuku | ||||
Resting place | Tama Cemetery, Tokyo | ||||
Education | University of Tokyo | ||||
Occupations |
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Organization | Tatenokai ("Shield Society") | ||||
Writing career | |||||
Language | Japanese | ||||
Period | Contemporary (20th century) | ||||
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Years active | 1938–1970 | ||||
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Japanese name | |||||
Kanji | 三島 由紀夫 | ||||
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Japanese name | |||||
Kanji | 平岡 公威 | ||||
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Yukio Mishima[a] (三島 由紀夫, Mishima Yukio), born Kimitake Hiraoka (平岡 公威, Hiraoka Kimitake, 14 January 1925 – 25 November 1970), was a Japanese author, poet, playwright, actor, model, Shintoist, nationalist, and founder of the Tatenokai (楯の会, "Shield Society"). Mishima is considered one of the most important post-war stylists of the Japanese language. He was considered for the Nobel Prize in Literature five times in the 1960s—including in 1968, but that year the award went to his countryman and benefactor Yasunari Kawabata.[6] His works include the novels Confessions of a Mask and The Temple of the Golden Pavilion, and the autobiographical essay Sun and Steel. Mishima's work is characterized by "its luxurious vocabulary and decadent metaphors, its fusion of traditional Japanese and modern Western literary styles, and its obsessive assertions of the unity of beauty, eroticism and death",[7] according to author Andrew Rankin.
Mishima's political activities made him a controversial figure, which he remains in modern Japan.[8][9][10][11] From his mid-30s, Mishima's right-wing ideology and reactionary beliefs were increasingly evident.[11][12][13] He was proud of the traditional culture and spirit of Japan, and opposed what he saw as western-style materialism, along with Japan's postwar democracy, globalism, and communism, worrying that by embracing these ideas the Japanese people would lose their "national essence" (kokutai) and their distinctive cultural heritage (Shinto and Yamato-damashii) to become a "rootless" people.[14][15][16][17] Mishima formed the Tatenokai for the avowed purpose of restoring sacredness and dignity to the Emperor of Japan.[15][16][17] On 25 November 1970, Mishima and four members of his militia entered a military base in central Tokyo, took its commandant hostage, and unsuccessfully tried to inspire the Japan Self-Defense Forces to rise up and overthrow Japan's 1947 Constitution (which he called "a constitution of defeat").[17][14] After his speech and screaming of "Long live the Emperor!", he committed seppuku.
bio-m1
was invoked but never defined (see the help page).Jacobin
was invoked but never defined (see the help page).In the context of post-war literary and intellectual history, Mishima Yukio tends to be seen as a romantic nihilist and ultra reactionary, a prolific but ultimately predictable writer whose spectacular seppuku accentuated his artistic career. On the other hand, even though his philosophical agenda, as he developed it in a series of essays, seems readily accessible for critical evaluation, his fictional creations do not necessarily conform to this image.
nibun
was invoked but never defined (see the help page).eiyo
was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
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