Page 54 Yukio Mishima. This Album is not an invitation to add any photos in your photo stream or favourites that would have made my grandmothers blush. Thanks.
Kimitake Hiraoka (平岡 公威, Hiraoka Kimitake, January 14, 1925 – November 25, 1970), known also under the pen name Yukio Mishima[a] (三島 由紀夫, Mishima Yukio), was a Japanese author, poet, playwright, actor, model, film director, nationalist, and founder of the Tatenokai. Mishima is considered one of the most important Japanese authors of the 20th century. He was considered for the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1968, but the award went to his countryman and friend Yasunari Kawabata.[5] His works include the novels Confessions of a Mask and The Temple of the Golden Pavilion as well as 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".[6]
Born: Kimitake Hiraoka. January 14, 1925. Shinjuku, Tokyo, Japan
Died: November 25, 1970 (aged 45). Ichigaya, Tokyo, Japan
Cause of death: Suicide by seppuku
Resting place: Tama Cemetery
Alma mater: University of Tokyo
Occupation: Novelist, playwright, poet, short-story writer essayist, critic.
Japanese name: Kanji. 三島 由紀夫
Hiragana. みしま ゆきお
Katakana. ミシマ ユキオ
Transcriptions:
Romanization Mishima Yukio
Japanese name: Kanji. 平岡 公威
Hiragana. ひらおか きみたけ
Katakana. ヒラオカ キミタケ
Transcriptions:
Romanization Hiraoka Kimitake
Signature:
Yukio Mishima signature.png
Mishima's personal life was controversial, and he remains a controversial figure in modern Japan.[7][8][9][10] Ideologically a right-wing nationalist who opposed the westernization of Japan, Mishima formed the Tatenokai, an unarmed civilian militia, for the avowed purpose of restoring power to the Japanese Emperor. On November 25, 1970, Mishima and four members of his militia entered a military base in central Tokyo, took the commandant hostage, and attempted to inspire the Japan Self-Defense Forces to overturn Japan's 1947 Constitution. When this was unsuccessful, Mishima committed seppuku.
Early life:
Mishima in his childhood (c. April 1931):
Mishima was born in the Yotsuya district of Tokyo (now part of Shinjuku). His father was "Azusa Hiraoka" (平岡梓), a government official, and his mother, "Shizue" (倭文重), was the daughter of the 5th principal of the Kaisei Academy. Shizue's father, "Kenzō Hashi" (橋健三), was a scholar of Chinese classics, and the Hashi family had served the Maeda clan for generations in Kaga Domain. Mishima's paternal grandparents were "Sadatarō Hiraoka" (平岡定太郎) and "Natsuko" (なつ) (family register name: Natsu). He had a younger sister, "Mitsuko"(美津子), who died of typhus in 1945 at the age of 17, and a younger brother, "Chiyuki"(千之).[11][page needed]
Mishima's early childhood was dominated by the presence of his grandmother, Natsuko (Natsu), who took the boy, separating him from his immediate family for several years.[12] Natsuko was the granddaughter of "Matsudaira Yoritaka" (松平頼位), the daimyōof Shishido in Hitachi Province, and had been raised in the household of Prince Arisugawa Taruhito; she maintained considerable aristocratic pretensions even after marrying Sadatarō Hiraoka(Mishima's grandfather), a bureaucrat who had made his fortune in the newly opened colonial frontier in the north and who eventually became Governor-General of Karafuto Prefecture on Sakhalin Island. Through his grandmother, Mishima was a direct descendant of Tokugawa Ieyasu.[13] Natsuko was prone to violence and morbid outbursts, which are occasionally alluded to in Mishima's works.[14] It is to Natsuko that some biographers have traced Mishima's fascination with death.[15] Natsuko did not allow Mishima to venture into the sunlight, to engage in any kind of sport or to play with other boys; he spent much of his time alone or with female cousins and their dolls.[14]
Mishima returned to his immediate family when he was 12. His father was a man with a taste for military discipline, and employed parenting tactics such as holding the young boy up to the side of a speeding train. He also raided Mishima's room for evidence of an "effeminate" interest in literature and often ripped apart the son's manuscripts.[16]
Schooling and early works:
At the age of six, Mishima enrolled in the elite Gakushūin, the Peers' School in Tokyo.[17] At twelve, Mishima began to write his first stories. He voraciously read the works of numerous classic Japanese authors as well as Raymond Radiguet, Oscar Wilde, Rainer Maria Rilke, Thomas Mann and other European authors, in translation. He studied German. After six years at school, he became the youngest member of the editorial board of its literary society. Mishima was attracted to the works of the Japanese author "Shizuo Itō" (伊東静雄), "Haruo Satō" (佐藤春夫), "Michizō Tachihara" (立原道造), which in turn created an appreciation for the classical Japanese poetry form of waka. Mishima's first published works included waka poetry before he turned his attention to prose.
He was invited to write a short story for the Gakushūin literary magazine "Hojinkai-zasshi" (輔仁会雑誌) and submitted Hanazakari no Mori (花ざかりの森, "Forest in Full Bloom"), a story in which the narrator describes the feeling that his ancestors somehow still live within him. Mishima's teachers were so impressed that they recommended the story to the prestigious literary magazine Bungei-Bunka (文藝文化), which belongs to "Nihon Roman-ha" (日本浪曼派, "Japanese Romantic School"). The story makes use of the metaphors and aphorismsthat later became his trademarks and was published in book form in 1944 in a limited edition (4,000 copies) because of the wartime shortage of paper. To protect him from a possible backlash from his father Azusa, his teacher and Bungei-Bunka’s members(Fumio Shimizu (清水文雄), Zenmei Hasuda (蓮田善明), etc.) coined the pen-name "Yukio Mishima". [18] In the magazine, Zenmei Hasuda praised Mishima’s genius as below, "This juvenile author is also a heaven-sent child of eternal Japanese history. He is much younger than us, but is the birth of already mature".[19] Then, on the day of embarking to the Java, Singapore, Johor(Southern Front of Pacific War) on October 1943, Hasuda told Mishima, "I entrusted you with the future of Japan".[20][21]
Mishima's story Tabako (煙草, "The Cigarette"), published in 1946, describes some of a pale love he felt at school when he teased from members of the school's rugby union club that he belonged to the literary society. And also, Shi o Kaku Shōnen (詩を書く少年, "The Boy Who Wrote Poetry") in 1954 is one of the short story based on school memories.
Mishima received a draft notice for the Imperial Japanese Army during World War II, and he barely passed the second class test on 27 April 1944. However, at the time of his medical check up on convocation day of 10 February 1945 he had a cold and the young army doctor heard rales from the lung which were misdiagnosed as tuberculosis so Mishima was declared unfit for service.[22][16]
Although his authoritarian father had forbidden him to write any further stories, Mishima continued to write every night in secret, supported and protected by his mother, who was always the first to read a new story. Attending lectures during the day and writing at night, Mishima graduated from the University of Tokyo in 1947. He obtained a position as an official in the government's Finance Ministry and was set up for a promising career. However, Mishima had exhausted himself so much that his father agreed to his resigning from the position during the first year of employment to devote himself to writing.[16]
Post-war literature:
Mishima wrote novels, popular serial novellas, short stories and literary essays, as well as highly acclaimed plays for the Kabukitheatre and modern versions of traditional Noh drama. Kemono no Tawamure (獣の戯れ, The Frolic of the Beasts) is considered a parody of the classical Noh play Motomezuka, written in the fourteenth century by the playwright Kiyotsugu Kan'ami. Mishima began the short story Misaki nite no Monogatari (岬にての物語, "A Story at the Cape") in 1945, and continued to work on it through the end of World War II. In January 1946, he visited famed writer Yasunari Kawabata in Kamakura, taking with him the manuscripts for Chūsei (中世, "The Middle Ages") and Tabako, and asking for Kawabata's advice and assistance. In June 1946, following Kawabata's recommendations, Tabako (煙草, "The Cigarette") was published in the new literary magazine Ningen (人間, "Humanity").
Also in 1946, Mishima began his first novel, Tōzoku (盗賊, "Thieves"), a story about two young members of the aristocracy drawn towards suicide. It was published in 1948, placing Mishima in the ranks of the Second Generation of Postwar Writers. He followed with Kamen no Kokuhaku (仮面の告白, Confessions of a Mask), a semi-autobiographical account of a young homosexual who must hide behind a mask to fit into society. The novel was extremely successful and made Mishima a celebrity at the age of 24. Around 1949, Mishima published an essay about Yasunari Kawabatain Kindai Bungaku (近代文学), for whom he had always had a deep appreciation.
His writing gained him international celebrity and a sizeable following in Europe and the United States, as many of his most famous works were translated into English. Mishima traveled extensively; in 1952 he visited Greece, which had fascinated him since childhood. Elements from his visit appear in Shiosai (潮騒, "Sound of the Waves"), which was published in 1954, and drew inspiration from the Greek legend of Daphnis and Chloe.
Mishima made use of contemporary events in many of his works. Kinkakuji (金閣寺, "The Temple of the Golden Pavilion") published in 1956 is a fictionalization of the burning of the famous temple in Kyoto. Utage noo ato (宴のあと, "After the Banquet"), published in 1960, so closely followed the events surrounding politician Hachirō Arita's campaign to become governor of Tokyo that Mishima was sued for invasion of privacy.[23] In 1962, Mishima's most avant-garde work, Utsukusii hoshi (美しい星, "A Beautiful Star"), which at times comes close to science fiction, was published to mixed critical response.
Mishima was considered for the Nobel Prize for Literature three times[24] and was a favourite of many foreign publications.[25]However, in 1968 his early mentor Kawabata won the Nobel Prize and Mishima realized that the chances of it being given to another Japanese author in the near future were slim.[26] In a work published in 1970, Mishima wrote that the writers he paid most attention to in modern western literature were Georges Bataille, Pierre Klossowski, and Witold Gombrowicz.[27]
Acting and modelling:
Mishima was also an actor, and had a starring role in Yasuzo Masumura's 1960 film, Karakkaze yaro (からっ風野郎, "Afraid to Die"). He also had roles in films including Yukoku (憂国, "Patriotism, the Rite of Love and Death") (directed by himself, 1966), Kurotokage (黒蜥蜴, "Black Lizard") (directed by Kinji Fukasaku, 1968) and Hitokiri (人斬り, "Hitokiri") (directed by Hideo Gosha, 1969). He also sang the theme song for Afraid to Die(lyrics by himself; music by Shichirō Fukazawa).
Mishima was featured as a photo model in Bara-kei (薔薇刑, "Ba-ra-kei: Ordeal by Roses") by Eikoh Hosoe, as well as in Nihon no bodybuilder tachi (体道~日本のボディビルダーたち, "Young Samurai: Bodybuilders of Japan") and Otoko (男, "Otoko: Photo Studies of the Young Japanese Male") by Tamotsu Yatō. American author Donald Richie gave a short lively account of Mishima, dressed in a loincloth and armed with a sword, posing in the snow for one of Tamotsu Yato'sphotoshoots.[28]
In 1955, Mishima took up weight training and his workout regimen of three sessions per week was not disrupted for the final 15 years of his life. In his 1968 essay Sun and Steel,[29] Mishima deplored the emphasis given by intellectuals to the mind over the body. Mishima later also became very skilled at kendo, traditional Japanese swordsmanship.
After briefly considering a marital alliance with Michiko Shōda (who later married Crown Prince Akihito and became Empress Emerita Michiko),[30] Mishima married Yoko Sugiyama (瑤子)(daughter of Yasushi Sugiyama (杉山寧)) on June 11, 1958. The couple had two children: a daughter named Noriko (紀子) (born June 2, 1959) and a son named Iichiro (威一郎) (born May 2, 1962).
While working on Kinjiki (禁色, "Forbidden Colors"), Mishima visited gay bars in Japan.[31] Mishima's sexual orientation was an issue that bothered his widow, and she always denied his homosexuality after his death.[32] In 1998, the writer Jiro Fukushima published an account of his relationship with Mishima in 1951, including fifteen letters between himself and the famed novelist. Mishima's children successfully sued Fukushima for violation of copyright on his letters.[33]
In 1967, Mishima enlisted in the Ground Self-Defense Force (GSDF) and underwent basic training. A year later, he formed the Tatenokai ("shield society"), a private militia composed primarily of young students who studied martial principles and physical discipline, and swore to protect the Emperor of Japan. Mishima trained them himself. However, under Mishima's ideology, the emperor was not necessarily the reigning Emperor, but rather the abstract essence of Japan. In Eirei no koe (英霊の聲, "The Voices of the Heroic Dead"), Mishima denounced Emperor Hirohito for renouncing his claim of divinity after World War II, arguing that millions of Japanese had died in the war for their "living god" Emperor, and that the Showa Emperor's renouncing his divinity meant that all those deaths were in vain.[34]
In the final ten years of his life, Mishima wrote several full-length plays, acted in several films, and co-directed an adaptation of one of his stories, Patriotism, the Rite of Love and Death. He also continued work on his final tetralogy, Hōjō no Umi (豊饒の海, "The Sea of Fertility"), which appeared in monthly serialized format from September 1965.[35]
Mishima espoused a very individual brand of nationalism towards the end of his life. He was hated by leftists, in particular for his outspoken commitment to bushido, the code of the samurai, and by mainstream nationalists for his contention, in Bunka Bōeiron (文化防衛論, "A Defense of Culture"), that Hirohito should have abdicated and taken responsibility for the loss of life in the war.
On November 25, 1970, Mishima and four members of the Tatenokai (楯の会, "Shield Society"), under pretext, visited the commandant of the Ichigaya Camp, the Tokyo headquarters of the Eastern Command of the Japan Self-Defense Forces.[32] Inside, they barricaded the office and tied the commandant to his chair. With a prepared manifesto and a banner listing their demands, Mishima stepped onto the balcony to address the soldiers gathered below. His speech was intended to inspire a coup d'état to restore the power of the emperor. He succeeded only in irritating the soldiers, and was mocked and jeered. He finished his planned speech after a few minutes, returned to the commandant's office and performed seppuku. The assisting kaishakunin duty at the end of this ritual (to decapitate Mishima) had been assigned to Tatenokai member Masakatsu Morita, who was unable to properly perform the task. After three failed attempts at severing Mishima's head, he allowed another Tatenokai member, Hiroyasu Koga, to behead Mishima. Morita then knelt and stabbed himself in the abdomen and Koga again performed the kaishakunin duty.[36] This coup is called "Mishima jiken" (三島事件, "Mishima Incident") in Japan.
Another traditional element of the suicide ritual was the composition of so-called death poems before their entry into the headquarters.[37] Mishima planned his suicide meticulously for at least a year and no one outside the group of hand-picked Tatenokai members had any indication of what he was planning. His biographer, translator John Nathan, suggests that the coup attempt was only a pretext for the ritual suicide of which Mishima had long dreamed.[38] Mishima made sure his affairs were in order and left money for the legal defence of the three surviving Tatenokaimembers.
Legacy:
Much speculation has surrounded Mishima's suicide. At the time of his death he had just completed the final book in his Sea of Fertility tetralogy.[32] He was recognized as one of the most important post-war stylists of the Japanese language. Mishima wrote 34 novels, about 50 plays, about 25 books of short stories, and at least 35 books of essays, one libretto, as well as one film.
Mishima's grave is located at the Tama Cemetery in Fuchū, Tokyo. The Mishima Prize was established in 1988 to honor his life and works. On July 3, 1999, "Mishima Yukio Bungaku-kan" (三島由紀夫文学館, "Mishima Yukio Literary Museum") was opened in Yamanakako.
A Memorial service Deathday for Misima, called "Yukoku-ki" (憂国忌), is held every year in Japan on 25 November.
A 1985 biographical film by Paul Schradertitled Mishima: A Life in Four Chaptersdepicts his life and work; however, it has never been given a theatrical presentation in Japan. A 2012 film titled 11:25 The Day He Chose His Own Fate also looks at Mishima's last day.
In 2014, Mishima was one of the inaugural honourees in the Rainbow Honor Walk, a walk of fame in San Francisco's Castro neighbourhood noting LGBTQ people who have "made significant contributions in their fields."[39][40][41]
David Bowie painted a large expressionist portrait of Mishima, which he hung at his Berlin residence.[42]
Awards:
Shincho Prize from Shinchosha Publishing, 1954, for The Sound of Waves
Kishida Prize for Drama from Shinchosha Publishing, 1955 for Shiroari no Su (白蟻の巣, "Termites' nest")
Yomiuri Prize from Yomiuri Newspaper Co., for best novel, 1956, The Temple of the Golden Pavilion[43]
Shuukan Yomiuri Prize for Shingeki from Yomiuri Newspaper Co., 1958, for Bara to Kaizoku (薔薇と海賊, "Rose and Pirate")
Yomiuri Prize from Yomiuri Newspaper Co., for best drama, 1961, Toka no Kiku (十日の菊, "The chrysanthemum on the tenth", "The day after the fair")
One of six finalists for the Nobel Prize in Literature, 1963.[44]
Mainichi Art Prize from Mainichi Shimbun, 1964, for Silk and Insight
Art Festival Prize from Ministry of Education, 1965, for Madame de Sade.