Foreword to the Catalog of "The Complete Works of Kyoka"

Master Kyoka Izumi stands alone among writers past and present, a supreme master of letters. When, with his brisk and brilliant gift, he depicts a beautiful woman, her charm seems to outshine all else: before the palace of Yang Guifei, even the peonies breathe out a richer fragrance. When, with his pure and lofty imagination, he paints spirits and demons with consummate subtlety, one hears, outside Zou Yan’s house, the willows themselves break into chirping song. These things are already praised everywhere under heaven, and we need add little more. Yet the fact that, in the literature of the Meiji and Taisho eras, he opened a great road for Romanticism and brought into being the world of Kyoka, whose sensuousness is deeper than the rain-mood over Mount Wu and whose grandeur is fiercer than the wind off the Yi River, is not merely a magnificent achievement of a single age: it is in truth a splendid spectacle in the artistic gardens of East and West, one that will shine through a hundred generations.

The novels, plays, essays, and other works he has produced, long and short intermingled, number more than five hundred. In the warp of them he has swallowed whole the elegance of three hundred years of Edo, so that ten thousand transformations overflow naturally from his own heart; in the woof he has exhausted the feelings of the people of all the sixty provinces of our land, and in a single breath he reaches suddenly across a thousand years. Truly this is a seamless robe of heavenly brocade. The old gathers within his breast and becomes ever more mellow, like blue jade; the new issues from beneath his brush and grows ever more radiant, like pearls from an oyster. Moreover, Master Kyoka’s insight springs directly from his native temperament, and not a little of modern Western thought he had already pierced through long ago. When he denounces what is crooked and mocks vulgarity, it is as though a breath of ice and snow had come from beyond the sky and were about to strike our very brows. If one were to compare works equal in stature to his with the great masters of French Romanticism, then in quality he might surpass Merimee, like one of heaven’s seven-jeweled pillars; in scope he might stand shoulder to shoulder with Balzac, like a carefree tree rising straight from the earth. Great indeed is Master Kyoka’s accomplishment.

That greatness, of course, arises from his natural endowment. Yet half of it must also be credited to his heroic perseverance in devoting himself wholly to literature for more than thirty years without respite. Say no more of poets and men of taste as creatures of ease and leisure. Surely that gaunt appearance did not come merely from being possessed by the demon of poetry. In former days, when Naturalism first rose and the vulgar world mindlessly echoed it, the dust and fog again and again saddened the soaring bird, and the mud and sand time after time hampered the old dragon. Standing amid such adversity, Master Kyoka, with a single hand, upheld the collapsing flood of Romanticism and, in solitary integrity, preserved the mantle of Koyo Sanyu. His bitterness at ill fortune and his will to stride alone on his own great path are both plain to see. We too are all men who weave with the heart and till with the brush. It is not that, hearing the long cry of a fine steed in the marketplace, we boast of being its true friend; yet how many times have we, seeing a white crane wheel and fly over the fields, felt our own lofty ambitions stirred? Now at last a heavenly wind has swept away the noxious vapors, and the literary world throughout the land has come to rest at Master Kyoka’s feet. Ah, alas, could such an achievement have been accomplished without ten thousand sorrows? We raise our hands to our brows and look up at the auspicious clouds above the Kyoka tower. Though joy forbids us to break into lamentation, there is still something before our eyes that will not let us remain without tears.

Now Master Kyoka has compiled the fifteen volumes of The Complete Works of Kyoka, intending to leave behind the mark of a giant spirit’s divine axe. We, who have been honored beyond our worth by his trust, have dared, with our poor abilities, to assist in the humble work of collation and proofreading. Our strength is slight and not equal to the charge; yet beyond the famous heroic pieces and monumental works that moved all eyes in our age, we have sought also to gather the countless scattered fragments of jade and little pearls dispersed far and wide in the world, hoping that not a single one might be lost. Perhaps from this time forth the separate heaven-and-earth created by Master Kyoka alone will at last stand complete. An ancient man said, “To extend one’s sight for a thousand miles, ascend one more story.” So too, once the cultivated gentleman has obtained these fifteen volumes of The Complete Works of Kyoka, he may freely behold the unprecedented grandeur of Master Kyoka’s sun-bright and crystal-clear prose, illuminating human life in its sorrows and joys alike, making empty emerald ripple before the spring-water balustrade and piling tangled blue beyond the spring clouds. If one wishes to know its broad outlines, the table of contents of the fifteen volumes of The Complete Works of Kyoka is given in full after this foreword. I respectfully ask that you favor it with your inspection.

(March, 1925)