Ochiai Naobumi


Ochiai Naobumi was a Japanese tanka poet and scholar of Japanese literature of the Meiji Era. He was born as Ayukai Morimitsu and was the biological elder brother of the Korean scholar Ayukai Fusanoshin.

Biography

Ochiai was born in what was then Motoyoshi County, Mutsu Province, as the second son to Ayukai Tarō Tairamorifusa, a high-ranking retainer of the Sendai Domain. From the ages 11 to 13, he studied, among other things, kangaku, at the Sendai Private School, and in 1874 was adopted by the kokugaku scholar Ochiai Naoaki. His adopted father's research took him to Ise, where he studied in the Jingū Kyōin.
In 1881, he moved to Tokyo, and the following year entered the School of Literature at Tokyo Imperial University. In 1884 he dropped out, and began three years of military service.
From 1889 onward, he taught at various academic institutions including Dai-ichi Kōtō Chūgakkō and the Tōkyō Senmon Gakkō. One of his students at the Dai-ichi Kōtō Chūgakkō was the tanka poet and calligrapher Saishū Onoe.
In 1889, he joined Mori Ōgai in forming the literary society Shinsei Sha, and in August of that year they jointly translated and published the poetry anthology Omokage which was to have a significant impact on contemporary Japanese poetry.
In 1893, he formed another literary society, the Asaka Society.

Legacy

called him "he first distinctively new poet of the Meiji period" but commented that while he attempted to update tanka for the modern era, his attempts were "halfhearted".
The Ochiai Naobumi National Tanka Contest is named after him.