The symposium, “Cross-Cultural Perspectives on Verse” took place on 16 and 17 December 2023 in collaboration with the Shakespeare Institute to commemorate the publication of Dr. Robert Stagg’s book, Shakespeare’s Blank Verse: An Alternative History. The speakers of the two-day event included Dr. Stagg, along with Dr. Jessica Chiba from the Shakespeare Institute; Professor Daniel Gallimore of Kwansei Gakuin University; Professors Adrian Pinnington, Gaye Rowley, and Rieko Suzuki, Dr. Kristopher Reeves, and MA student Yoshikaze Kawakami of Waseda.
In the panel, “Translating Shakespeare’s Verse,” Professor Gallimore read a paper on how certain traits of Tsubouchi Shoyo appear in his translations of Shakespeare’s sonnets even as he was masking his own identity through the act of translating. This was followed by a discussion about the shifts in focus in the subsequent translations.
The “Early Modern Poetry” roundtable, chaired by Professor Rowley, started by considering Kino Tsurayuki’s definition of poetry and the idea of spontaneity, which led to a comparison of Philip Sidney’s discussion about the utility of poetry compared with a more spontaneous sense of poetry in Shakespeare and Wordsworth. There was also discussion about the transmission of poetry and how this affected political authority in Early Modern Japan and Britain. The third point explored was intertextuality and a comparison was made of the status of Chinese poetry in Japanese verse with the use of Latin versification to raise the status of English verse. Another topic of discussion was the idea that poetry should be viewed as history, which can be found in both Japanese and English verse. The roundtable concluded with an examination of poems that each speaker had chosen, which ranged from a Sinitic poem composed by the Daijo Tenno, a commentary on The Tales of the Genji, Shakespeare’s Sonnet 81, Catherine Dyer’s poem engraved on the funerary monument for her husband in Bedfordshire, and a poem by Yosano Akiko.
Dr. Stagg’s lecture, “Shakespeare’s Arabic Sonnets” explored Arab connections in Shakespeare’s sonnets. In particular, sonnets 126 and 20 were considered in relation to the Turkish feminine rhyme and the tradition of pattern poems in Arabic. This was followed by a tea break during which the undergraduate and graduate students attending the lecture had a chance to approach Dr. Stagg with questions about this fascinating topic.
The final session was the “Sonnets and the Cross-Cultural” roundtable, chaired by Dr. Chiba. The session started off with an explanation of how Japanese poetry developed through translations of English poetry and a look at how the form of Japanese haiku is understood through pauses. This gave way to a discussion about how Japanese sonnets experimented with the form of Japanese poetry as well as a look at how the influence of English sonnets on Japanese poetry was not just lyrical but also through their political subject matters. There was also an examination of the significance of the visual (the way the poem looks on the page) as opposed to the aural. Among the works discussed were poems of P. B. Shelley, Nagase Kiyoko, Susukida Kyukin, Kanbara Ariake, and Nakamura Minoru. The discussions continued during the symposium lunch and reception dinner.
The event was sponsored by Waseda’s Global Japanese Studies Model Unit and the Great Britain Sasakawa Foundation as a part of the Birmingham/Waseda research collaboration. Special thanks are due to Professors Hiromi Fuyuki and Norimasa Morita as well as Drs. Stagg and Chiba of the Shakespeare Institute for all their hard work in organizing the symposium.
(By Tetsuhito Motoyama, Professor at Waseda University)
Event Details
- Date and Time: 16 December 2023 (Saturday) 15:30-17:00
PANEL: TRANSLATING SHAKESPEARE’S VERSE
Robert Stagg / Daniel Gallimore / Jessica Chiba
17 December 2023 (Sunday) 9:30-11:00 ROUNDTABLE: EARLY MODERN POETRY IN BRITAIN AND JAPAN
Jessica Chiba/ Yoshikaze Kawakami/ Kristopher Reeves / Gaye Rowley / Robert Stagg
13:00-14:00 LECTURE: SHAKESPEARE’S ARABIC SONNETS
Robert Stagg
14:15-15:45 ROUNDTABLE: SONNETS AND THE CROSS-CULTURAL
Jessica Chiba/ Daniel Gallimore / Adrian Pinnington / Robert Stagg / Rieko Suzuki - Venue: Room 106, Building 8, Waseda University
- FREE AND OPEN TO THE PUBLIC
- Sponsored by THE TOP GLOBAL UNIVERSITY PROGRAM, WASEDA UNIVERSITY
With the help of THE SHAKESPEARE INSTITUTE, UNIVERSITY OF BIRMINGHAM
