Taiyō (magazine)

Taiyō
Taiyō cover
CategoriesLiterary magazine
Founded1895
First issueJanuary 1895
Final issue
Number		1928
34
CompanyHakubunkan
CountryJapan
Based inTokyo
LanguageJapanese

Taiyō (太陽; The Sun) was a literary and general interest magazine that existed between 1895 and 1928 which covered the Meiji and Taishō eras. The magazine was published in Tokyo, Japan. It is a significant publication which contained mostly literary criticism, samples of Japanese literature and translations of the literary work by international authors.[1] The magazine was one of the publications of Hakubunkan that made it well-known in the country.[2]

History and profile

Taiyō was founded in 1895, and the first issue appeared in January 1895.[3][4] Its publisher was Hakubunkan.[3][5] It was one of the most successful brands of the company.[6] The magazine targeted middle class people who were middle school graduate men and women.[4]

Editors of Taiyō included Yoshino Sakuzō (1878-1933),[6] Takayama Chogyū (1871–1902) and Hasegawa Tenkei (1876–1940).[1][7] It was instrumental in making romanticism and naturalism more popular in the Japanese literary circles.[1] Therefore, the magazine featured translations of the work by major figures of these literary approaches, including Edgar Allan Poe, Gustave Flaubert, Guy de Maupassant, Mark Twain, Maurice Maeterlinck and Leo Tolstoy.[1] Major naturalist Japanese authors of which works were published in the magazine were Tokuda Shūsei, Tayama Katai and Shimazaki Tōson.[1] Japanese author Shimizu Shikin had a column in the magazine for nearly five years.[8] It was entitled Hanazono Zuihitsu (Japanese: Scribblings from a Flower Garden), and she used her real name, Kozai Toyoko, in the column.[8]

The content of Taiyō was comprehensive and was not limited to literary works.[9] The magazine was also influential in using innovative technologies such as photography and illustrations.[10] It frequently carried articles on political, military, economic and social commentary and on the Imperial family, women, commerce as well as articles on the natural sciences and cultural trends.[4][11] The magazine frequently covered articles about the Ottoman Empire which were accompanied with photographs and illustrations.[9]

Takayama Chogyū published articles on literature, philosophy, and aesthetics in the magazine.[12] Masaharu Anesaki wrote for Taiyō under the pen name Anesaki Chōfū, including an article on German composer Richard Wagner's opera work.[13] It was one of the earliest articles about Wagner in Japan.[13] From 1902 Taiyō began to publish selected photographs of natural landscapes in Japan.[14]

Taiyō ended publication in February 1928 after producing 34 volumes and 531 issues.[3][4] The volumes of the magazine was digitalizated by JKBooks on the JapanKnowledge+ platform.[15] A similar archive also exists at the library of the Ohio State University.[16] The texts published in Taiyō were used to generate a corpus of Japanese language.[5]

References

  1. ^ a b c d e "Taiyō. Japanese magazine". Encyclopædia Britannica.
  2. ^ Peter Kornicki (2011). "Japan, Korea, and Vietnam". In Simon Eliot; Jonathan Rose (eds.). A Companion to the History of the Book. Hoboken, NJ; Chichester, West Sussex: Wiley & Blackwell. p. 117. ISBN 978-1-4443-5658-8.
  3. ^ a b c "Taiyo (The Sun)". Japan Knowledge. Retrieved 26 July 2020.
  4. ^ a b c d Leith Morton (1997). "The Concept of Romantic Love in the Taiyō Magazine 1895-1905". Japan Review. 8 (8): 79–103. JSTOR 25790980.
  5. ^ a b Kikuo Maekawa (2006). "Kotonoha, the Corpus Development Project of the National Institute for Japanese Language" (PDF). Proceedings of the 13th NILJ Conference: 52–62.
  6. ^ a b Adam Thorin Croft (2019). Urban Culture in Pre-War Japan. Abingdon; New York: Routledge. p. 43. ISBN 978-0-429-74889-9.
  7. ^ Tomi Suzuki (2008). "The tale of genji, national literature, language, and modernism". In Haruo Shirane (ed.). Envisioning the Tale of Genji: Media, Gender, and Cultural Production. New York: Columbia University Press. p. 281. ISBN 978-0-231-14236-6.
  8. ^ a b René Andersson (2000). Burakumin and Shimazaki Toson's Hakai: Images of Discrimination in Modern Japanese Literature (PhD thesis). Lund University.
  9. ^ a b Ali Volkan Erdemir (2017). "Japanese Images of Turkey in Taiyō (The Sun)". Kare Dergi. 2 (1). ISSN 2536-4596.
  10. ^ Molly Des Jardin (March 2017). "Imperial Language in Taiyō Magazine". Price Lab for Digital Humanities. Retrieved 26 July 2020.
  11. ^ Tokiko Y. Bazzell (16 April 2019). "Trial access to Taiyo (The Sun) 太陽 Full-text Database via Japan Knowledge". University of Hawaii at Manoa Library. Retrieved 26 July 2020.
  12. ^ "Takayama, Chogyu". NDL. Retrieved 26 July 2020.
  13. ^ a b Brooke McCorkle (2018). "Was ist Japanisch? Wagnerism and Dreams of Nationhood in Modern Japan". In Neil Gregor; Thomas Irvine (eds.). Dreams of Germany: Musical Imaginaries from the Concert Hall to the Dance Floor. New York: Berghahn Books. p. 176. ISBN 978-1-78920-033-1.
  14. ^ Tomoo Mizutani (2017). "Impact of landscape photographs distribution by the "Taiyo" magazine on the way Japanese see natural landscape". Journal of the Japanese Institute of Landscape Architecture. 80 (5).
  15. ^ "Taiyō Magazine and Nationhood". Molly des Jardin. 20 September 2016. Retrieved 26 July 2020.
  16. ^ "Hakubunkan's Taiyō (1895-1928) full text". Library of Ohio State University. 18 June 2012. Retrieved 26 July 2020.