Shinobu Orikuchi
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Shinobu Orikuchi (折口 信夫 Orikuchi Shinobu?, February 11, 1887 - September 3, 1953)), also known as Chōkū Shaku (釋 迢空?), was a Japanese ethnologist, linguist, folklorist, novelist, and poet. As a disciple of Kunio Yanagita, he established an original academic field named Orikuchi-ism (折口学 Orikuchigaku?), which is a mixture of Japanese folklore, Japanese classics, and Shinto. He produced many works in a diversity of fields covering the history of literature, folkloric performing arts, folklore itself, Japanese language, the classics study, Shintoology, ancient study, and so on. Yukio Mishima once called him "Japanese Walter Pater".
He was born in Nishinari, Osaka. After graduating with a degree in Japanese literature from Kokugakuin University in 1910, he started to teach Japanese and Chinese classics at junior high schools. In 1919, he became employed as a part-time instructor in Kokugakuin University. In 1922, he was promoted to the professor there. In 1924, he was hired as a professor in Keio University as well, since then, he taught at two different universities until he died. As a poet, he and Kitahara Hakushu established a tanka magazine called Nikkō ("The Sunshine") in 1924. In 1925, he published Between the Sea and the Mountains (海やまのあひだ Umi Yama no Ahida?), his first tanka book, which is highly estimated.
In 1934, he took a Ph.D. for his study on Man'yōshū. He also established The Japan Folklorists Society (日本民俗協会).
As a folklorist, Yanagita was known for rejecting every sexual subject, but Orikuchi, a gay, was very openminded to those matters. As a misogynist, he never married. He also gave a model for the protagonist in Mishima's short story, Mikumano Mōde (三熊野詣).
[edit] Major works
- Umi Yama No Ahida (海やまのあひだ; "Between The Sea And The Mountains" - tanka book)[citation needed]
- Haru No Kotobure (春のことぶれ; "The Spring Forerunner" - tanka book)
- Shisha No Sho (死者の書; "The Book Of The Dead" - novel)
- Kodai Kenkyū (古代研究; "The Ancient Study" - treatise on folklore and literature in ancient Japan)
- Kabuki San (かぶき讃; "Viva Kabuki" - Kabuki review)
