William Butler Yeats (1865-1939)
Irish poet
and playwright.
- 1903 Noguchi met Yeats in London in January.
- 1903-4 Yeats's American lecture tour.
- 1904 Noguchi's "Eibungaku no shin choryuu" [A New Current in English Literature], in Eibun Shinshi (The Student) is the first extended discussion of Yeats's work in Japanese.
- 1907 Mr. Yeats and the No introduced Yeats to the Noh drama, which subsequently became an important influence.
- 1907 Noguchi's "Yeats and the Irish Revival" in the Japan Times comments on the significance of the Irish revival.
- 1911 Noguchi's essay "A Japanese Note on Yeats" (1911, also included in Through the Torii, 1914).
- 1914 Noguchi's meets Yeats and Ezra Pound in London, as described in "W.B. Yeats," T.P.'s Weekly (Jan. 1915) and "A Japanese Poet on W. B. Yeats," Bookman (N.Y.) (June 1916).
- 1917 Noguchi discusses Yeats's 1916 No play, At the Hawk's Well in an essay, "Yeats and the Noh Play of Japan," Japan Times, 2 Dec. 1917.
- 1920 Yeats cancels his plan to take a position as lecturer at Keio and Tokyo universities.
- 1920 Noguchi dedicates Japanese Hokkus to Yeats.
- 1921 Yeats, in his one surviving letter to Noguchi, expresses thanks for a copy of Hiroshige and regrets not coming to Japan.
- 1935 Yeats uses Noguchi's translation of Kobayashi Issa's
haiku in
"Hobby" as the basis for his poem
"Imitated from the Japanese."
- see W. B. Yeats, Imitated from the Japanese (David Ewick's page).
For more on Noguchi and Yeats:
- Shotaro Oshima, W.B. Yeats and Japan (Tokyo: Hokuseido Press, 1965).
- Edward Marx, "Yone Noguchi in W.B. Yeats's Japan," Yeats Annual 17 (2007).
See also: