Prior to Chamberlain, F. V. Dickins translated
Japanese Lyrical Odes, but the outcome was far from perfect. In 1939 Nippon Gakujutsu Shinkokai published
The Manyoshu, whose introduction said, “The first adequate work in this field appeared in 1880 in
The Classical Poetry of the Japanese which was written by Basil Hall Chamberlain (1850-1935), then professor of Tokyo Imperial University and a foremost authority on Japanese classics.” Since the time of its publication
The Classical Poetry of the Japanese has been the standard textbook among those interested in Japanese poetry.
Chamberlain came to Japan in 1873 and read his paper on
The Use of Pillow-Words and Plays upon Words in Japanese Poetry in 1877 at the Asiatic Society of Japan. There he suggested that a careful study of the ancient poetry of Japan must precede any successful attempt to translate the Hebrew Psalms into Japanese. In the same year he read his own translation of
The Maiden of Unai at the A. S. J. and in this translation we can see his style of rendering in rhyme well-established. In 1880 he published
The Classical Poetry of the Japanese, the first orthodox study on Japanese poetry. He chose the verses from
The Manyoshu, the Kokinshu, Yokyoku and Kyagen. All poems taken from
The Manyoshu were cho-ka, longer poems of 5.7.5.....7.7 syllables, and the short stanza tanka of 5.7.5.7.7 syllables were taken out of The Kokinsha. They were all translated in accordance with traditional English prosody : in ballad style, elegiac stanza, heroic couplet and blank verses, etc.
Lectures on Japan, the collection of lectures Dr. Nitobe gave in the U.S.A. and Canada was published in 1936. In it he introduced ten poems out of
The Manyoshu and The Kokinshu. He said, “I shall take a few typical pieces of Japanese poetry translated by some of the best English translators, chiefly Aston, Chamberlain and Waley.” He did not give the name of the translator of each poem, but it is easy to guess the translator from the way it is rendered. Chamberlain translated freely in rhyme in accordance with the traditional English prosody, while Aston and Waley were literalists.
In spite of Nitobe's apparent reference to Chamberlain's rhymed translation, Chamberlain had changed his rendering style after
The Classical Poetry of the Japanese. Three years after the publication, his translation of the
Kojiki appeared. This translation includes a number of
tanka. Here we can see his shift from a free translator to a literalist. He rendered
tanka word for word and explained his attitude : “The only object aimed at has been a rigid and literal conformity with the Japanese text.” In his next book,
A Practical Introduction to the Study of Japanese Writing (1899) he showed a new word-for-word translation of the same
tanka from the
Kokinshtu that in
The Classical Poetry of the Japanese he had already rendered in rhymed style. Chamberlain even declared openly in the preface of
Japanese Poetry (1910), the revised edition of
The Classical Poetry of the Japanese, that he had joined the camp of literalists.
In 1899 Aston published
A History of Japanese Literature and it turned out to be an important work in the innovation of tanka in the Meiji Era. In this book, influenced by Chafnberlain's
The Classical Poetry of the Japanese, he criticized Japanese poetry from the Westerner's point of view. Yosano Tekkan, quoting Aston's view on Japanese poetry in the early numbers of the
Myojo, led the movement of Innovating tanka. This also shows that Chamberlain was a great pioneering scholar on Japanese poetry.
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