Introduction
preface, in which these lines may be found:
“I feel that a woman has a faculty of summing up the temperament of the age. She can do this in the descriptive and lyrical fields. Akiko Yosano in her present work has achieved this most admirably.”
Though still romantic, she had abandoned the gothic exuberance of her early style. Her artificial and epigrammatic expression had given way to a deeper calling of the spirit.
By 1909, the New Poetry movement, as I have stated, was in decline. Its official organ, now moribund, had served its purpose. The germ of decay had been implicit in the movement itself, but in its last stage, the total loss of restraint, sincerity, and originality as well as the constant singing of one strain, had tired the younger poets; they were no longer willing to identify themselves with the Yosanos or the movement. One by one they dropped out or drifted away.
Moreover, the promised turn of thought which was indicated in the Spring Mire did not materialize, and Akiko’s poems became more and more matter-of-fact and stylized. Despite extensive journeyings through Europe and Manchuria, her inner life seemed barren. This criticism also
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