Tsubouchi Shōyō 坪内逍遙 (1859-1935) was the first person to translate the Complete Works of William Shakespeare into Japanese. The translations were published in full in 1928 after almost twenty years’ effort and remained popular through to the 1960s and 70s, when they were superseded by more modern translations by Fukuda Tsuneari and then Odashima Yushi. Shoyo’s view of Shakespeare – developed over five decades of fifty years of assiduous scholarship – has had a pervasive influence on the Bard’s reception in Japan. There are many who believe that Shoyo’s elegant sonorities come closest to the spirit of Shakespeare, and some who aver that he relied too much on his native kabuki drama for the Shakespeare to get through. It is certainly worth studying Shoyo’s achievement in terms of the native aesthetics and culture that shaped his sensibility before modernity took hold in the 20th century; as Sumimoto Noriko observes, ‘the remarkable height of his scholarship was due to his conscious and positive localization of Shakespeare according to his own cultural stance.’

Tsubouchi’s birth name was Yuzo, and Shoyo the pen name that – like many writers of his generation – he adopted in his youth. The word shoyo in Japanese means ‘rambling’ or ‘peripatetic’, and refers in Tsubouchi’s case to Aristotle’s Peripatetic School of the 4th century B.C., whose ideas were based on personal experience in contrast to Plato’s ‘theory of forms’ (or idealism). Tsubouchi’s rejection of the aesthetic idealism of art historian Ernest Fenollosa in the 1880s and of fellow writer Mori Ogai in the 1890s clarifies his position.

1869   family moves to Nagoya following Meiji Restoration

1874   attends Aichi English School, where he is introduced to Shakespeare by native American instructors

1876   scholarship to Tokyo Kaisei Gakko (preparatory school of Imperial University of Tokyo)

1880   death of mother – with Takada Sanae, he translates part of Walter Scott's The Bride of Lammermoor

1881   fails American professor Houghton's examination for didactic analysis of Hamlet’s Gertrude

1882   death of father – active as political satirist

1883   starts lecturing at Okuma Shigenobu's Tokyo Senmon Gakko (later Waseda University) on British constitutional history

1884   translates Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar in traditional dramatic style – adopts pen name of Shoyo

1885   writes novel on student life, Tosei shosei katagi, and influential treatise on literary reform, Shosetsu shinzui (The Essence of the Novel)

1886   begins friendship with novelist and Turgenev translator Futabatei Shimei – criticizes aesthetics of Tokyo University professor Ernest Fenollosa

            marries former geisha Ugai Sen and takes interest in dramatic reform

1889   Futabatei publishes Ukigumo, whose acclaim as first ‘modern’ Japanese novel leads Shoyo to give up fiction

1890   lecturing on Shakespeare at Waseda and spell as editor of Yomiuri Shimbun newspaper

            forms play reading circle with Waseda students (kabuki and Shakespeare)

1891   launches literary journal Waseda Bungaku

           ‘idealism’ debate on purpose of literature (botsuri ronso) with German-influenced novelist Mori Ogai

1893   adopts his nephew Tsubouchi Shiko (later distinguished drama critic) – death of Shoyo's kabuki mentor, playwright Kawatake Mokuami

1894   essay calling for more realistic, coherent playwriting, 'Waga kuni no shigeki' – writes historical drama Kiri no hitoha (with connections to Hamlet

            and Macbeth)

1896   appointed head of Waseda Middle School – interest in ethical education

1897   writes play about Fall of Osaka Castle (1615), Hototogisu kojo no rakugetsu

1899   awarded Doctor of Letters by Waseda (thereafter Dr. Tsubouchi) – meets Shakespearean actress Janet Waldorf on her tour of Japan

1900   writing Japanese language readers for use in elementary schools (censored by Ministry of Education)

1901   Shoyo's Julius Caesar adaptation staged by Ii Yoho at Meijiza – dispute with critic Takayam Chogyu over role of individuality in drama

1902   sends disciple Shimamura Hogetsu on study tour of United States and Europe

1904   writes ‘new’ musical drama based on Japanese folktale and influenced by ideas of Wagnerian opera, Shinkyoku Urashima

            nephew killed in Russo-Japanese War

1906   forms Japan's first modern theatre company, Bungei Kyokai (Literary Arts Association) – they perform his translation of The Merchant of Venice

            at Kabukiza

1907   begins his translation of Shakespeare’s Complete Works

1909   article comparing Shakespeare, Chikamatsu and Ibsen

1911   Bungei Kyokai stage Hamlet (criticized by Natsume Soseki in newspaper review) and later Ibsen’s Doll’s House, at new Imperial Theatre

1912   Bungei Kyokai's production of Sudermann's Heimat halted by Tokyo police

1913   Bungei Kyokai collapses following affair of Hogetsu with lead actress Matsui Sumako – translates Shaw's Mrs Warren's Profession

1914   interest in kabuki dance drama – writes Onatsu kyoran

1915   translates The Tempest – resigns from university chair following president Takada's appointment as Minister of Education and consequent unrest

          at university

1917   writes his theatrical masterpiece En no gyoja (with Tempest parallel)

1920   buys retirement villa (Soshisha) in seaside resort of Atami – where he completes his Shakespeare translations

1921   writes Atami Pageant – interest in children’s literature

1923   experiences Great Kanto Earthquake at Waseda

1927   audience of 1,600 hear Shoyo lecturing on Shakespeare at Waseda

1928   Tsubouchi Theatre Museum (Enpaku) opened at Waseda and translations of Complete Works published in 40 volumes by Chuo Koron (revised

1933   gramophone records made of Shoyo reciting from his translations of Hamlet and The Merchant of Venice

           declines to meet George Bernard Shaw on his visit to Japan

1935   dies at Soshisha (Feb 28th) – citation read in National Diet and excerpt from King Lear performed on memorial ceremony