Daigaku Horiguchi

Daigaku Horiguchi was a poet and translator active during Japan’s Taishō and Shōwa eras, known for bringing French surrealism into Japanese poetry and for translating works by more than 66 French authors.

He was born in Tokyo’s Hongō district. His father, Horiguchi Kumaichi—the son of an ex-samurai from Echigo—was a career diplomat who served as Japanese consul in Incheon during the First Sino-Japanese War. Daigaku enrolled in the literature department at Keio University but never graduated. This is ironic because his given name, “Daigaku,” uses the same kanji as “university”; his father was still a student at Tokyo Imperial University when he was born. Before entering university, Horiguchi had already joined the Shinshisha (New Poetry Society) and contributed tanka to *Subaru* and other literary magazines, including *Mita Bungaku*. Encouraged by Tekkan Yosano and his wife Akiko Yosano, he began writing other verse forms.

In 1911, Horiguchi left school to accompany his father on overseas postings. Over the next 14 years abroad, he became fluent in French—helped by his Belgian stepmother—and developed an interest in French literature, especially Symbolist novels and poetry. He spent more than a year in Mexico, where he was diagnosed with tuberculosis. This illness ended his father’s hopes for a diplomatic career, and Horiguchi instead devoted himself to writing and translation. While in Mexico during the Mexican Revolution, he was drawn to Parnassianism as a verse style. In 1913, the family moved to Belgium via Siberia. There, he studied Paul Verlaine and other Symbolists, including Remy de Gourmont. He later lived briefly in Spain, Paris, Brazil, and Romania, and corresponded with Marie Laurencin and Thomas Mann, whose works he translated while recovering at a Swiss sanatorium.

In 1919, Horiguchi published his first poetry collection, *Gekko to Pierrot* (Moonlight and Pierrot), and a book of waka, *Pan no fue* (Pan pipes). After returning to Japan in 1925, he released *Gekka no ichigun*, a collection that introduced Japanese readers to Jean Cocteau, Raymond Radiguet, Paul Verlaine, and Guillaume Apollinaire. This work deeply influenced modern Japanese poetry from the late 1920s onward. His translation of Paul Morand’s *Ouvert la nuit* (*Yo hiraku*; Night opens) also strongly impacted the Shinkankakuha (New Sensation School), whose best-known figure was Yokomitsu Riichi.

In 1928, he founded his own poetry magazine, *Pantheon*, but it ceased publication the next year after a falling-out with co-author Kōnosuke Hinatsu. He then launched a new magazine, *Orpheon*. In 1932, he moved to Tokyo’s Ishikawa neighborhood. By 1935, he was vice-chairman of the Japan PEN Club (chaired by Tōson Shimazaki), and in May of that year he hosted Jean Cocteau during his visit to Japan, taking him to see kabuki. Horiguchi spoke out against Japan’s growing militarization. After the National Mobilization Law was enacted, he confined himself to a hotel on Lake Nojiri, continuing his French translations under close censorship. In 1941, he evacuated to Okitsu, Shizuoka, but briefly returned to Tokyo in 1942 to deliver a eulogy at Akiko Yosano’s funeral. He stayed in Shizuoka until 1945, then moved briefly to Sekikawa, Niigata before the war ended.

After World War II, Horiguchi returned to Shizuoka. A five-volume anthology of his poetry appeared in 1947. From 1950, he lived in Hayama, Kanagawa, for the rest of his life. In 1957, he was elected to the Japan Art Academy and met André Chamson, president of PEN International, during his visit to Japan. In 1959, one of his works won the Yomiuri Prize. Over the next decade, he was frequently invited to speak on modern Japanese poetry nationwide. In 1967, his traditional-style poem on the topic of fish, submitted for the Utakai Hajime contest at the Imperial Palace, drew praise from Emperor Hirohito (an amateur marine biologist), and Horiguchi received the Order of the Sacred Treasures, 3rd class. In 1970, he became honorary chairman of the Japan Poetry Club and was named a Person of Cultural Merit. He received the Order of the Sacred Treasures, 2nd class, in 1973. In 1976, a limited edition of his poems titled *Tōten no Niji* (Rainbow in the Eastern Sky) was illustrated by modernist artist Hodaka Yoshida, who contributed seven signed and numbered prints. In 1979, he was awarded the Order of Culture. He died in March 1981 at age 89 and is buried at Kamakura Reien cemetery.

Over his career, Horiguchi published more than 20 books of poetry. His verse blended the flexibility of Japanese style with echoes of French language, and he was known for using colloquial Japanese in his translations to better capture the original imagery, rather than forcing poems into traditional Japanese forms.