Yamada Bimyo

(pen name of Yamada Taketaro). Born July 8, 1868, in Edo; died Oct. 24, 1910, in Tokyo. Japanese writer and philologist.

Yamada studied Western European and classical Japanese literature. The founder of the Japanese romantic school, he wrote primarily on historical themes, notably in the short story The Musashi Plain (1887), the collection of short stories Summer Grove (1888), and the novella Kocho (1889). In 1885 he helped establish Kenyusha (Friends of the Inkstone Society), a literary group that adhered ideologically and artistically to the traditions of old Japanese literature. An early figure in the movement for the unification of colloquial Japanese with the literary language, Yamada made a notable contribution to the development of a new literary language, a model of which was provided by his prose.