was a Japanese literary critic and a professor of Russian literature at

Waseda University Waseda University (Japanese: ), abbreviated as or , is a private university, private research university in Shinjuku, Tokyo. Founded in 1882 as the Tōkyō Professional School by Ōkuma Shigenobu, the fifth Prime Minister of Japan, prime ministe ...

. He is also known as Tengen Katagami .

Biography

Katagami was born in

Imabari, Ehime is a city in Ehime Prefecture, Japan. It is the second largest city in the prefecture. , the city had an estimated population of 152,111 in 75,947 households and a population density of 360 persons per km². The total area of the city is . Th ...

and graduated

in 1906, majoring

English literature English literature is literature written in the English language from the English-speaking world. The English language has developed over more than 1,400 years. The earliest forms of English, a set of Anglo-Frisian languages, Anglo-Frisian d ...

. He supported naturalism as an editor of a journal '' Waseda bungaku''. He became a professor at Waseda University in 1910, but later he became interested in

Russian literature Russian literature refers to the literature of Russia, its Russian diaspora, émigrés, and to Russian language, Russian-language literature. Major contributors to Russian literature, as well as English for instance, are authors of different e ...

and traveled to

Russia Russia, or the Russian Federation, is a country spanning Eastern Europe and North Asia. It is the list of countries and dependencies by area, largest country in the world, and extends across Time in Russia, eleven time zones, sharing Borders ...

to study

(1915-1918). In 1920, when Waseda University created a department of

, Katagami was appointed as the chief professor. Katagami was also a translator; he translated two editions of ''

Don Quixote , the full title being ''The Ingenious Gentleman Don Quixote of La Mancha'', is a Spanish novel by Miguel de Cervantes. Originally published in two parts in 1605 and 1615, the novel is considered a founding work of Western literature and is of ...

'', first in 1915 and then in 1927.

Masuji Ibuse was a Japanese author. His novel ''Black Rain (novel), Black Rain,'' about the Atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, bombing of Hiroshima, was awarded the Noma Prize and the Order of Culture, Order of Cultural Merit. Early life and educat ...

, who was one of his students at that time, witnessed Katagami, an

epileptic Epilepsy is a group of non-communicable neurological disorders characterized by a tendency for recurrent, unprovoked seizures. A seizure is a sudden burst of abnormal electrical activity in the brain that can cause a variety of symptoms, rang ...

, at the onset of a seizure. Following quarrels with two of his professors, and the incident with Katagami, Ibuse withdrew from both Waseda and art school. Embarrassed, Katagami campaigned against Ibuse's readmission to Waseda University. Katagami's literature theory became the basis of

proletarian literature Proletarian literature refers here to the literature created by left-wing writers mainly for the class-conscious proletariat. Though the ''Encyclopædia Britannica'' states that because it "is essentially an intended device of revolution", it is t ...

in Japan. Katagami also introduced ''Don Quixote'' to the Soviet statesman

Anatoly Lunacharsky Anatoly Vasilyevich Lunacharsky (, born ''Anatoly Aleksandrovich Antonov''; – 26 December 1933) was a Russian Marxist revolutionary and the first Soviet People's Commissariat for Education, People's Commissar (minister) of Education, as well ...

References

External links

Katagami's ''Umi no Chikara''
at

Aozora Bunko Aozora Bunko (, , also known as the "Open Air Library") is a Japanese digital library. This online collection encompasses several thousand works of Japanese-language fiction and non-fiction. These include out-of-copyright books or works that t ...

(in Japanese) 1884 births 1928 deaths Japanese writers Slavists Waseda University alumni {{Japan-writer-stub Japanese people with disabilities Scholars and academics with disabilities Academic staff of Waseda University