Tsubouchi Shoyo

(pen name of Tsubouchi Yuzo). Born May 22, 1859, in the village of Ota, Gifu Prefecture; died Feb. 28, 1935. Japanese writer and literary scholar.

Tsubouchi Shoyo graduated from the department of letters of the University of Tokyo in 1883. He was one of the founders of modern Japanese literature. His treatise The Essence of the Novel (1885) became the theoretical manifesto of the new literature, and his novel The Character of Present-day Students (1886) was its first creative work. Tsubouchi rejected fabricated plots and didacticism and advocated the realistic depiction of life. However, while he described everyday life and mores in his novel, he was not able to capture the essence of his characters. He introduced conversational language into literature, and took part in the progressive literary and theatrical group Bungei Kyokai (1909). He was one of the reformers of modern Japanese theater (shingeki) and author of its first original play, The Pilgrim (1916; staged 1926). Tsubouchi Shoyo translated the complete works of Shakespeare into Japanese (1928).