Suematsu Kench ¯o and the first

English translation of Genji

monogatari: translation, tactics,

and the ‘women’s question’

R E B E K A H C L E M E N T S

Abstract:

In 1882 Suematsu Kench ¯o, Japanese diplomat, scholar, and politi-

cian, published an English translation of the first seventeen chapters of the Tale
of Genji. Scant previous research has recognized Suematsu’s political motivations
but his translation has largely been consigned to a footnote in history and many
important questions remain unanswered. This article examines the skillful ideo-
logical and linguistic ways in which Suematsu – who was later to serve as Japanese
Minister for Communications and Home Minister – translated Genji so as to ap-
peal to nineteenth-century English readers and, through the use of previously
unstudied reviews of his translation in the British press, considers its effect and
impact. In particular, Suematsu skillfully used both classical orientalist discourse
and contemporary British concern with the position of women to strike a chord
with his readers. The article also considers the question of what official Japanese
support if any might have been behind the translation, with the aim of learn-
ing more about the role of Japanese scholar-diplomats like Suematsu in Europe
during the Meiji period.

Keywords:

Suematsu Kench ¯o, Genji monogatari, translation, women, oriental-

ism, scholar-diplomats

Introduction

The publication in 1882 of a partial translation of Genji monogatari by the Japanese
diplomat and scholar Suematsu Kench ¯o (1855–1920) has long been recognized
as a political act, an attempt to introduce Japanese history and culture to an
English-speaking audience, and in doing so to demonstrate the parity of Japanese
with European civilization at a time when the Unequal Treaties were still in
operation (Mehl 1993, Rowley 1997). This assessment does not go far beyond
what Suematsu himself declared as the aim of his translation in his introduction

Japan Forum 23(1) 2011: 25–47

ISSN: 0955–5803 print/1469–932X online

Copyright

C

2011 BAJS

DOI: 10.1080/09555803.2011.580193

26

Suematsu Kench¯o and Genji monogatari

to Genji monogatari: the most celebrated of the classical Japanese romances (Suematsu
1882, p. xvi). There has been some recent work on the subject in Japanese (It ¯o
and Kamura 2007, Kawakatsu 2008), but for the most part both English- and
Japanese-language scholarship has consigned Suematsu’s translation to a footnote
in the history of Genji reception, nineteenth-century Japanese diplomacy, or his
own biography and left it at that.

As a result, many important questions remain unanswered. How, for example,

did Suematsu, former journalist, prot´eg´e and later son-in-law of It ¯o Hirobumi
(1841–1909), go about the task of translating and promoting the first seventeen
chapters of Genji in a way that he hoped would appeal to Victorian readers? What
was the response of these and later readers, including Arthur Waley, who read
Suematsu’s translation many decades afterwards and found it ‘well deserving
of resurrection’, until a more thorough translation, namely his own, could be
made (Waley 1921, p. 287, De Gruchy 2003, p. 124)? And did Suematsu decide
to translate Genji on his own initiative or at the behest of political or financial
sponsors at home in Japan? The answers to such questions will not only fill in
gaps in the early history of Genji reception and perceptions of Japanese culture
in Europe, since Suematsu’s was the first translation of Genji monogatari into a
European language, but will also add to our understanding of the role played by
Japanese scholar-diplomats like Suematsu in Europe during the Meiji period.

1

Suematsu’s career and English-language publications

Throughout his life Suematsu, ‘a genuine polymath’, was active in an astonishing
number of fields from journalism to diplomacy, poetry, and moral education
(Mason 1979, p. 20). One argument of this article is that Suematsu Kench ¯o’s
partial translation of Genji monogatari should not be considered in isolation, but
rather seen together with his other English-language works as part of a lifelong
project to demonstrate the high level of Japanese civilization and its similarity
to Europe by means of the printed word. To this end, and because Suematsu is
largely a forgotten figure in Japanese history, it is necessary briefly to revise his
background and career.

Born the fourth son of a village headman in what is now Fukuoka Prefecture,

Suematsu began his contact with the English language and international affairs
when he came to Tokyo in 1871. Together with his friend and English teacher,
future Japanese Prime Minister Takahashi Korekiyo (1854–1936), then a student
himself, one way Suematsu managed to support himself was by translating English
newspaper articles into Japanese and selling them to the Japanese papers (Tamae
1985, pp. 22–34). Suematsu went on to work for the editorial department of
the T¯oky¯o nichinichi shinbun where his duties included the writing of editorials on
foreign affairs and where he came to the attention of It ¯o Hirobumi, who convinced
him that his future lay with the civil service. In 1875, at It ¯o’s behest, Suematsu
went to Korea as attach´e to special envoy Kuroda Kiyotaka (1840–1900). He
also accompanied Yamagata Aritomo (1838–1922) to Kumamoto as part of the

Rebekah Clements

27

mission sent to suppress the Satsuma Rebellion in 1877 (Tamae 1985, pp. 43–53,
174). Suematsu’s experiences as a journalist and as member of these diplomatic
missions left him well equipped for his subsequent role as a representative of
Japan in Europe. In particular, as a journalist responsible for editorials on foreign
affairs and the translation of English-language articles into Japanese, Suematsu
would have had an excellent understanding of the conventions of the English
press, including the way Japan and other ‘oriental’ nations were portrayed, which
was later to influence his own writing on the subject.

In 1878 Suematsu was sent to the Japanese legation in London ostensibly as Stu-

dent First Secretary (itt¯o shokisei minarai) and to investigate English and French
methods of recording history. However, it is likely that Suematsu’s selection for
this position from among many applicants was the result of a recommendation by
It ¯o Hirobumi; while in England, Suematsu wrote to him with reports on Euro-
pean political matters (Tamae 1992, pp. 13–15). In this way Suematsu deepened
his familiarity with European politics and the European press, as well as his links
with top officials in the Meiji Government.

In 1882 Suematsu entered Cambridge University, graduating with an LLB in

1884. It was while at Cambridge that Suematsu published his English translation
of the first seventeen chapters of Genji monogatari. After returning to Japan in
1886, Suematsu became a senior official in the Home Ministry and was also
active in the theatre reform movement, arguing strongly for the sanitization of the
native kabuki theatre tradition along European lines (Mason 1979, pp. 20–40).
He married the second daughter of It ¯o Hirobumi and was elected as a Diet
representative in the first general election of 1890, going on to serve as Minister
of Communications in the third It ¯o cabinet and Home Minister in the fourth.
Once back in Japan Suematsu also continued to publish original scholarly works
as well as Japanese translations that mirror his translation of Japanese works into
English (Suematsu and Ninomiya 1887–1890, Suematsu 1911–1921).

Then, during the Russo-Japan war, Suematsu, now a baron (danshaku), revived

his earlier role as cultural ambassador for Japan in Europe when he was sent as
special envoy to the Court of St James in an effort to quell fears of a ‘Yellow
Peril’ (Matsumura 1987). Again, Suematsu’s weapon of choice was the pen. He
published two English-language works in the same year: A Fantasy of Far Japan
or Summer Dream Dialogues and The Risen Sun (Suematsu 1905a, 1905b). In
A Fantasy of Far Japan he portrayed himself as ‘the Japanese Mentor’ or ‘the
Missionary of all things Japanese’ in Europe (Suematsu 1905a, p. 88). Of these
two works I shall have more to say later.

The Identity of the Great Conqueror Genghis Khan

Suematsu’s first English-language work, The Identity of the Great Conqueror Genghis
Khan with the Japanese hero Yoshitsun´e, was published privately in 1879 and is the
forerunner to his translation of Genji monogatari three years later. The Identity
of the Great Conqueror is a polemic in which Suematsu argues for Japan’s place

28

Suematsu Kench¯o and Genji monogatari

alongside European nations in the hierarchy of civilizations. Suematsu puts for-
ward his argument for the theory, still the subject of popular historical writing in
Japan today (e.g. Sasaki et al. 2000, Oka 2005), that Minamoto no Yoshitsune
(1159–1189) did not die at Koromogawa but instead fled through Ezo (modern
Hokkaido) into China where he became the conqueror later known to the world as
Genghis Khan. Suematsu’s arguments are tenuous, and based on what he admits
to be the scanty resources available on the subject in the British Library at the
time of writing; however, the aim of the work is more ideological than historical,
as can be seen in Suematsu’s basic argument and the language he uses to make
his point. Unlike Japan, Suematsu argued, the Mongolian nation was a ‘restless’,
‘nomadic’, ‘aggressive’, ‘undisciplined mass of people’ (Suematsu 1879, p. 97).
They were in need of ‘a leader of ability trained in a system of civilisation and dis-
cipline superior to their own’ (Suematsu 1879, p. 97). Suematsu writes that such
a leader was found in Yoshitsune. ‘Can you be so short sighted as to suppose’, he
asks, ‘that the barren deserts of Tartary should produce such a wonderful man?’
(Suematsu 1879, p. 35). In other words, it is not the weight of historical evidence
that forms the most compelling argument for the theory that Yoshitsune became
Genghis Khan, but, rather, the fact that Japan’s superior civilization could have
produced such a leader whereas the Mongols’ could not.

Margaret Mehl (1993, p. 186) has suggested that Suematsu’s interest in the

subject of Genghis and Yoshitsune was that of an enthusiastic amateur scholar, and
no doubt this is partly the case. Suematsu also had a deeper purpose, however. His
assertions that Genghis brought law and culture to the Mongols, that such benefits
could only have come from a superior civilization like Japan’s, as well as his choice
of subject matter – an Asian conqueror who came close to overpowering Europe
– suggest that Suematsu was also attempting to overturn the preconceptions of
what Said has called Orientalist discourse and paint Japan as a strong and civilized
exception to ‘oriental’ nations considered to be in need of European rule and
guidance. Compare the following statement Suematsu made about Yoshitsune
with an extract from a speech by Lord Balfour to which Said has drawn our
attention. Suematsu writes:

[Genghis was] the organiser of the Mongolian nation, and he was the first giver
of law to the people, and introduced many new ideas into their social life.

(1879, p. 134)

Four decades later, referring to British rule in the colonies, Lord Balfour asked:

Is it a good thing for these great nations . . . that this absolute government
should be exercised by us? I think it is a good thing. I think that experience
shows that they have got under it far better government than in the whole
history of the world they ever had before.

(Balfour 1910, Said 1995, p. 33)

Suematsu’s choice of language and his claims for the beneficence of

Yoshitsune’s gift to the Mongols places Japan in a relationship vis- `a-vis the

Rebekah Clements

29

‘undisciplined’ Mongolian nation that echoes the discursive relationship of Britain
with respect to its colonies. Although the main thrust of the work is ostensibly
to demonstrate that Genghis and Yoshitsune are one and the same, Suematsu’s
final sentence in The Identity of the Great Conqueror is a reiteration of his claim that
the connection between Yoshitsune and Genghis demonstrates Japan’s superior
civilization, hinting at his real motive in publishing the work:

And if our theory is established, that Genghis Khan, neither was nor could
be the outcome of wild and nomadic states, in the lowest state of civilisation,
the philosophical maxim, that no great general nor organiser can be produced
without previous baptism of bloodshed and fire accompanying the general ad-
vancement of material civilisation in its general relations, is again confirmed.

(Suematsu 1879, p. 147)

Significantly, later in his career when growing Japanese military might and talk

of a ‘Yellow Peril’ had begun to alarm Europeans, Suematsu, who was again in
Europe in order to quell such fears, fell silent about his theory on the Japanese
conqueror who once threatened the continent. Suematsu often revisited his pre-
vious works, especially his Genji translation, yet there is no mention of Genghis
Khan and Yoshitsune to be found in any of his English-language works after 1879
when the book was published. It was, however, translated into Japanese in 1885
and reprinted several times in Japan (Uchida 1885).

2

Genji monogatari: the most celebrated of the classical Japanese romances

Suematsu’s translation of the first seventeen chapters of Genji monogatari was
his second English-language work and was published on commission in 1882 by
Tr ¨

ubner & Co of London, noted publishers of scholarly works on ‘the orient’

(Heinemann 1884, pp. 172–174). There are some indications that, while the idea
and impetus for the translation may have been his own, his cultural proselytizing
met with the approval of powerful members of Japan’s political and cultural elite.
Suematsu dedicated his translation to a ‘Tokugawa of the Third Rank’ (‘Jusammi
Tokoogawa’); correspondence between Suematsu and It ¯o Hirobumi indicates that
half the money for the publication was provided by this unnamed Tokugawa and
the remainder by the Tr ¨

ubner publishing house under the terms of contracts for

works published on commission (Maidment 1973, reel 26 (vol 5) 1, Tamae 1992,
p. 165). While there is some debate as to the identity of the Tokugawa in question,

3

it is clear is that Suematsu needed to lobby for patronage in order to have his
translation published and that he had some difficulty raising the funds.

Regardless of his need for backing for this particular project, it is clear that

Suematsu had similar motivations in translating Genji as in penning The Identity
of the Great Conqueror, although several years on Suematsu’s approach is far more
subtle. Of the reasons for his choice of Genji, Suematsu wrote:

On the whole my principal object is not so much to amuse my readers as to
present them with a study of human nature, and to give them information on

30

Suematsu Kench¯o and Genji monogatari

the history of the social and political condition of my native country nearly
a thousand years ago. They will be able to compare it with the condition of
mediaeval and modern Europe.

(Suematsu 1882, p. xvi)

As G.G. Rowley has noted, Suematsu’s call for a comparison with ‘the condition
of mediaeval . . . Europe’ was no doubt motivated by his confidence that the Heian
court culture depicted in Genji monogatari would compare favorably with what
was then regarded as Europe’s ‘Dark Ages’ (Rowley 2000, p. 63). Genji was also
an ideal work for translation, in that the subject matter – the lives of aristocratic
men and women and the realistic narrative – helped by Suematsu’s methods as
discussed below provided evidence that Japanese and English were possessed of
the same ‘human nature’, aiding Suematsu’s efforts to demonstrate the parity of
Japanese and European civilizations.

Suematsu, it seems likely, also wished to show that Japan was capable of a work

of literature comparable to the European novel, as this would also demonstrate
Japan’s advanced state of civilization. Suematsu himself refers to the work as a
‘romance’, but it was not until some years later that Genji was canonized in Japan
as a forerunner of the novel, so it seems likely it was more as a work of literary
art than as a novel per se that Suematsu chose Genji monogatari for translation
(Suzuki 2008, pp. 244–245). His motivation here seems to be echoed in a later
work, A Fantasy of Far Japan or Summer Dream Dialogues, where he wrote of
Japan’s achievements in visual art:

a nation having an art such as ours, though perhaps not equal to the best arts
of Europe, could not be so savage and wild as many calumniators represent,
and further . . . I [wish] . . . Frenchmen, and indeed Europeans generally, would
study and examine Japan a little more, and cast away their prejudices.

(Suematsu 1905a, p. 63)

By translating a portion of Genji into English, he was using Japanese literature
to provide British and English-reading Europeans with just such an opportunity
through the use of literary rather than visual arts.

Indeed, Suematsu may have decided to translate as far as the Eawase chapter

because it contains a detailed account of the appreciation of Japanese art. There
was widespread European interest in the Japanese arts at this time, and clearly
Suematsu was anxious to provide further evidence that Japan was not ‘so savage
and wild as many calumniators represent’. In The Pictorial Arts of Japan (1886),
William Anderson (1842–1900), the Scottish surgeon who taught at the Impe-
rial Naval Medical College in Tokyo 1873–80, used Suematsu’s translation as
historical evidence for the importance that the visual arts had long had in Japan:

The rank of paintings amongst the elegant accomplishments in vogue during the
tenth century may be implied from the Chapter entitled ´

E Awas´e, in the Genji

monogatari, a romance of the tenth century which gives details of a competition

Rebekah Clements

31

of pictures conducted with great formality before the emperor (who is described
as an accomplished connoisseur of painting and an artist of no small ability).
The relation undoubtedly was prompted by an actual event that took place
within the experience of the author, and goes far towards proving . . . that the
art was then held in great esteem.

(Anderson 1886, p. 24)

It is clear from the tone of these remarks that the Emperor’s accomplishments
and the holding of art in great esteem were viewed as positive aspects of Japanese
civilization by this British author, whose works Suematsu later translated into
Japanese (e.g. Suematsu 1896). Suematsu’s translation of Genji monogatari is a
far more subtle attempt at asserting the superlative qualities of Japanese civiliza-
tion and its similarities to Britain or even Europe than The Identity of the Great
Conqueror, but the motive was the same.

Characteristics of Suematsu’s Genji

The most obvious way in which Suematsu re-formed Genji monogatari for his
British audience was to publish it as a hardcover volume, with beautiful cover
design, a title page, page numbers, and other trappings of a contemporary En-
glish novel in book format. The work was even described as ‘volume the first’–
suggesting, in an era when the three-volume novel or ‘three-decker’ had long held
sway (Eliot 2007, p. 291), further likenesses to contemporary fiction regardless of
whether Suematsu actually intended to translate Genji in its entirety or not. The
fact that (wealthy) English readers could hold in their hands and have in their
homes an English translation of a Japanese ‘novel’ in a medium that matched the
other, European novels in their collections would have been a tangible reminder of
the extent to which Japanese culture was comparable to their own. Nonetheless,
the foreignness of the work is still evident in the calligraphy of the title and the
image of the temple overlooking the moon and Lake Biwa which adorns the front
cover of the first edition. Suematsu, who published the work on commission and
would therefore have had a say in the look of the finished product, clearly did not
want his readers to forget that it was a foreign novel they were reading (Maidment
1973, reel 27 (vol 6) 240). This can also be seen by his choice of title – Genji
monogatari: the most celebrated of the classical Japanese romances. Suematsu did not
translate the title but was content to leave the original name of the work together
with an explanation of its significance and a reminder of its Japaneseness.

Likewise, although the subject matter and setting of Suematsu’s Genji is still

very obviously Japan, the language into which Suematsu rendered it is English
almost to the point of clich´e. His translation is peppered throughout with idioms,
as can be seen in the phrases emphasized in the following extract from the Kiritsubo
chapter.

32

Suematsu Kench¯o and Genji monogatari

But her illness increased day by day; and she had drooped and pined away until
she was now but a shadow of her former self . She made scarcely any response
to the affectionate words and expressions of tenderness which her Royal lover
caressingly bestowed upon her. Her eyes were half-closed: she lay like a fading
flower in the last stage of exhaustion.

(Suematsu 1882, p. 3, emphasis added)

Suematsu’s choice of the idiom ‘shadow of her former self ’ is one step removed
from the original, ‘itau omoyasete’ (Kitamura and Arikawa 2002, p. 11), which
literally means ‘very thin in the face’ (Tyler translates it as ‘terribly thin’) (Ni-
hon kokugo daijiten 1976, Tyler 2003, p. 5). Suematsu chose to use English idiom
rather than an expression that was less clich´ed but closer to the original.

4

The sec-

ond expression, ‘Royal lover’, has no obvious counterpart in Murasaki’s original,
but may be an attempt to reflect the difference in rank expressed by keigo and hon-
orifics in the Japanese. ‘Royal lover’ can be found in English-language novels that
would have been in circulation in Suematsu’s day and adds a touch of dramatic
romance to the scene, European style – the same phrase was used to describe the
French king in the English translation (1858) of Alexander Dumas’ Le Vicomte de
Bragellone (1847–1850) (Dumas 1926, II, p. 545). Furthermore, in using ‘royal’
rather than ‘imperial’ Suematsu chose a term that was more familiar to his En-
glish readers. Finally, with the expression ‘fading flower’, Suematsu again chose
to use English idiom rather than to follow the original ‘itodo nayonayo to wareka no
keshiki’ (Kitamura and Arikawa 2002, p. 11), which Tyler translates as ‘a state of
semiconsciousness’ (2003, p. 5). The expression ‘fading flower’ evokes sections
of the King James translation of the Bible where similar imagery appears (e.g.
Psalm 103: 15–16). It is possible that Suematsu was drawing on this Biblical
imagery or contemporary English expressions that stemmed from such imagery.
In any event, his use of the flower simile removes his translation further from the
original in the direction of Englishness.

The use of idioms continues throughout Suematsu’s translation with the ap-

pearance of phrases such as ‘my good little fellow’, ‘her soft eyes’, ‘the Blue Main’,
all of which are either recognized English idiom or to be found repeated in the
literature of the nineteenth century, or both (Clements 2008b, pp. 44–49). It
is almost as though Murasaki Shikibu had written from the first in elegant, if
somewhat clich´ed, Victorian prose. By presenting Genji to his British readers in a
language that was idiomatically their own, Suematsu was arguably lessening the
sense of Japan’s otherness and making Japan and its people seem less foreign to
English readers.

This is precisely the effect his translation had on the anonymous author of one

English-language review, who wrote:

[m]any of our own household sayings appear, showing that the world in the
tenth century, so far as humanity is concerned, was much the same as at present,

Rebekah Clements

33

no matter in what direction we look. . . . It is certainly astonishing to find in
the production of a Japanese lady of that period so many truisms and such a
knowledge of human nature as are displayed in the romance.

(‘Literature, science &c’ 1882, p. 271)

For this anonymous reviewer writing for the London and China Telegraph, Sue-
matsu’s use of idiom resulted in a sense of closeness felt between the English
reader’s world and the Japanese world described by Murasaki Shikibu (or, rather,
Suematsu speaking on her behalf). The Scotsman also praised his English as ‘pure
and idiomatic’ (‘New books and new editions’ 1882, p. 11).

However, it is interesting to note that Suematsu’s efforts to make Murasaki

Shikibu’s characters seem similar to British ones were too heavy-handed for some.
The author of the St James’s Gazette review remarked that: ‘we may as well say
at once that it has been very considerably revised by an English hand; and in
many places out of all resemblance to the original’ (‘A Japanese novel’, 1882,
p. 6). The Spectator reviewer, too, criticized the manners portrayed in the work as
‘wholly conventional’ (‘Genji Monogatari’ 1882, p. 571). In this case, Suematsu’s
naturalized Genji was not as exotic as some reviewers expected of a foreign work.
Given the current scarcity of research on English translation in the nineteenth
century, it is difficult to locate Suematsu’s translation within the translation norms
of its day; however, what research there is suggests that his domestication of the
language of the Genji was inconsistent with a trend towards deliberately suggesting
cultural difference in the translation of narrative fiction (Hale 2000, p. 71). This
would also account for the disappointment experienced by the Spectator reviewer.

Of course, the question arises as to whether Suematsu chose the idiomatic

phrasing himself or whether the final version was the work of an English editor. In
the introduction to his translation, Suematsu writes ‘the translation is, perhaps,
not always idiomatic, though in this matter I have availed myself of some valuable
assistance’ (1882, p. xvi). Despite this attempt at modesty, though, clearly his
translation is idiomatic, and he gives no further details about the sort of assistance
he received. A comparison of several of the translation’s idioms and Murasaki
Shikibu’s original, however, reveals that the choice of English phrasing is closely
informed by the phrasing in the original, suggesting that they originated either
with the translator or were the result of translator and editor working in close
collaboration (Clements 2008b, pp. 50–51).

Translation of waka poems into English verse

In addition to the use of English idiom, the poems in Suematsu’s translation also
contribute to the Englishness of his Genji. Although Suematsu abbreviates some
passages, particularly towards the latter half of his translation, 121 of the original

34

Suematsu Kench¯o and Genji monogatari

281 waka of the first seventeen chapters are translated laboriously as rhyming
English quatrains and couplets, as in the following example:

‘Since my departure for this dark journey
Makes you so sad and lonely,
Fain would I stay though weak and weary,
And live for your sake only!’

(Suematsu 1882, p. 4)

This is Suematsu’s rhymed version of Kiritsubo’s poem to the Emperor as she
leaves the palace on her way home to die (‘kagiri tote/wakaruru michi no/kanashiki
ni/ikama hoshiki ha/inochi nari keri’: Kitamura and Arikawa 2002, p. 12). Suematsu
has kept much of the sense of the original, but in his version the thirty-one-syllable
Japanese waka has become a piece of English poetry, rhyming in the abab pattern
and with a syllable count creating an alternating rhythm of 4-beat and 3-beat lines.
In Suematsu’s Genji each of his waka translations is rhymed and given syllabic
rhythm in a similar manner. Contrary to Suematsu’s approach, the nineteenth
century in fact saw the beginnings of a move towards allowing the wording and
the syntax of the original poem to influence the translation. Although it was the
era of Edward Fitzgerald’s famous naturalized version of the Persian robˆa‘iyˆat
(Rubaiyat of Omar Khayam, 1859), poetic translators such as Robert Browning
(Agamemnon, 1877) and Richard Burton (Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night,
1885) sought greater ‘literalness’ even at the cost of some awkwardness of English
expression (Weissbort 2000, p. 91). Suematsu however, chose to render Japanese
waka in an English format.

Suematsu’s method of translating the waka in Genji into English verse cannot

have been easy, yet, while he omits some of the prose, for the most part he does not
appear to have targeted the poems for deletion and usually deletes a poem from
his translation only if the surrounding episode which would have given the poem
its context has been removed or abbreviated (Clements 2008b, pp. 53–67). This
apparent respect for the poetry of the Genji is puzzling given that in his Kagakuron
(Discourse on poetry and music) and Kagaku kaiga yoron (Remaining arguments
on poetry, music and the pictorial arts), a series of editorials written for the T¯oky¯o
nichinichi shinbun, Suematsu was highly critical of waka in general and thought the
entire genre ought to be overhauled along European lines (Suematsu 1884–1885
1885, Mason 1979, pp. 6–20). It is, however, conceivable that Suematsu went to
such pains with the poems in his translation because, in the format he selected,
they contributed to an overall Englishness of impression, drawing Genji and its
Japanese characters closer to the English reader while at the same time displaying
Suematsu’s advanced command of the English language.

In fact several of the reviews of Suematsu’s translation found the poems to

be among the chief charms of the work and evidence of Suematsu’s impressive
English-language abilities. The anonymous reviewer in the Court Journal gushed:

Rebekah Clements

35

To our wonder, we behold a Japanese translator who has vanquished every
difficulty of the English language, and gives us not only correct prose, but
snatches of the most charming poetry with all the ease and grace of the most
accomplished English author.

(‘Literature and Literary Gossip’ 1882, p. 485)

This review is overwhelmingly favorable on every point; however, even the highly
critical Spectator reviewer grudgingly admitted: ‘The best things in the book are
the scraps of verse, which are sometimes really pretty. The translation does credit
to the skill and English scholarship of Mr Kenchio’ (‘Genji Monogatari’ 1882,
p. 571). Thus Suematsu’s Genji can be seen as more than an attempt to demon-
strate the parity of Japanese with European civilization by introducing Japanese
history and culture to an English audience. Suematsu was also trying to demon-
strate that he, and by extension Japan, could write as Englishmen did.

This approach is consistent with Suematsu’s later work, A Fantasy of Far Japan

or Summer Dream Dialogues (1905a). This fictional work opens with Suematsu
throwing himself into an easy-chair and reading Le Journal on a cool summer
afternoon in Paris. He falls asleep, and the book then follows a series of imag-
ined vignettes of elegant society, based upon actual conversations about Japan
that Suematsu had apparently had in various continental salons. In each scene,
Suematsu effortlessly converses with duchesses and other members of polite so-
ciety on topics ranging from women’s rights to ‘President Roosevelt and jujitsu’,
displaying his elegant European manners and impressive command of the English
language. His urbanity and successful use of European manners were not lost on
one reviewer of the Summer Dream Dialogues: ‘In the atmosphere of a Parisian sa-
lon, with the verve and esprit of a Frenchman, the baron talks freely and fluently,
with the attitude of a man of the world, on the notions and ideals of his country’
(B.L. 1906, p. 772). Suematsu’s efforts to show he could speak and act in accord
with the norms of ‘Western’ civilization were as successful with this American
reviewer as with the reviewers of his Genji translation.

Women in Suematsu’s translation

In addition to the register of his translation, Suematsu’s use of ‘the women’s
question’ – contemporary British interest in the rights and position of women –
was an important part of his translation strategy (Clements 2008a). The latter
half of the nineteenth century had seen significant legal and social changes to the
status of women in Britain. In 1882, the year Suematsu’s translation appeared, the
Married Women’s Property Act was passed, allowing women to own and control
their property after marriage; the suffrage movement had not yet reached its
peak but had been campaigning for some years; and the industrial revolution was
causing social changes in the roles of women in both public and private spheres.

Suematsu’s translation picks up on contemporary concern for the rights of

woman and women’s education. His choice of Genji as a subject for translation

36

Suematsu Kench¯o and Genji monogatari

was very likely informed at least in part by the favorable comparison the social
conditions of ‘the authoress’ and women portrayed in the work would enable him
to make with the social condition of ‘mediaeval and modern Europe’. Written by
a woman, and describing the lives of educated women who enjoyed high social
status, Genji matched the interest in women’s rights in Britain and demonstrated
that Japan already had a long history of educated women who were well treated.
Two decades later, in his 1905 work The Risen Sun, a collection of speeches
made throughout Europe during the Russo-Japanese War, Suematsu mentioned
Murasaki Shikibu and Genji as evidence of the extent to which Japan differs from
other ‘Asiatic’ countries in this respect:

The position of woman in Japan has always been different, to a significant
extent, from that of the same sex in other Asiatic countries. Looking back to
the history of Japan over thousands of years, we see many renowned figures of
the fair sex.

(1905b, p. 155)

Among his examples is ‘Murasaki Shikibu, the authoress of the great Genji Mono-
gatari’ (1905b, p. 155). William Aston in his History of Japanese Literature also
touches upon this point, noting that ‘[t]he two greatest works which have come
down to us from [the Heian period] are both by women’, and concluding that
Murasaki Shikibu and Sei Sh ¯onagon were able to create their great works because,
unlike other ‘oriental’ nations, Japan did not oppress its women (Aston 1899, p.
55). Based upon the evidence of its literature, Japan was thus differentiated from
the rest of the ‘Orient’.

Suematsu also portrayed some of the female characters in his translation as

a certain type of idealized Victorian woman. Murasaki no Ue’s name is trans-
lated, incorrectly, as ‘Violet’, a well-established popular name in Britain during
the nineteenth century (Hanks and Hodges 1990, p. 332) with connotations of
shyness and modesty (as in a ‘shrinking violet’). In his introduction, she is de-
scribed as ‘a most modest and gentle woman’ (Suematsu 1882, p. x), and at the
death of Aoi no Ue, Genji’s first wife, Suematsu’s translation contains a sentence
found nowhere in the original – ‘Thus the modest and virtuous Lady Aoi passed
away forever’ (1882, p. 172). No doubt it was possible to infer from the original
Genji that Murasaki and Aoi were indeed modest, virtuous and gentle women, but
Suematsu felt the need to emphasize this fact, bequeathing to his English version
heroines who were very obviously possessed of the characteristics idealized in
Victorian works like Coventry Patmore’s famous Angel in the House (1854), with
its virtuous domestic goddess, which was highly popular in England at the time.

Suematsu also seems to have been especially keen to represent Murasaki Shikibu

as an author concerned with prescribing correct behavior for women – to the
extent that he significantly altered the gist of certain passages in his translation.
In sections relating to the behavior of women, Suematsu repeatedly strengthens
any prescriptions for women that can be implied from the original, and removes

Rebekah Clements

37

any criticism of men, in many cases even reversing the genders of the original to
make his point. The result is a translation in which Murasaki Shikibu seems to
speak clearly and didactically on the way women ought to behave with none of
the original’s sophisticated irony.

This is particularly notable in the famous ‘Rainy Night’s Discussion’ of the

Hahakigi chapter where a group of young men, including Genji, gather together
on a rainy evening and discuss the women they have known. One of the men,
Shikibu no J ¯o, tells of his feelings for a woman who lectured him on correct
behavior and excelled at classical Chinese learning. A comparison of Suematsu’s
translation with Royall Tyler’s is revealing. Closely following the original, Tyler
translates the passage as:

As to making her my dear wife, however, a dunce like me could only have
been embarrassed to have her witness his bumbling efforts. Your lordships
undoubtedly need that sort of conjugal tutelage even less than I did. All this was
foolish of me, I agree, and I should have forgone my involvement with her, but
sometimes destiny just draws you on. I suppose men are really the foolish ones.

(Tyler 2003, pp. 33–34, emphasis added)

Tyler’s translation is consistent with the passage and with the meaning accepted by
the commentaries. In Suematsu’s translation, however, the original’s musai no hito
(‘a dunce like me’) (Kitamura and Arikawa 2002, p. 111) has been interpreted as
referring not to the man Shikibu no J ¯o but to a ‘wife or daughter’ and the passage
becomes a small treatise on women’s education and behavior:

[T]hough it is no doubt true that our wife or daughter should not lack intelligence,
yet, for the life of me, I cannot bring myself to approve of a woman like this. And still
less likely is it that such could be of any use to the wives of high personages like
yourselves. Give me a lovable nature in lieu of sharpness.

(Suematsu 1882, p. 45, emphasis added)

Shikibu no J ¯o’s concern that he might be embarrassed in the company of a woman
of superior education (hazukashiku namu mie haberishi: Kitamura and Arikawa
2002, p. 111) has become a stinging condemnation of the didactic young woman
of superior intelligence (‘for the life of me, I cannot bring myself to approve
of a woman like this’). Suematsu also removes the phrase ‘onoko shimo namu
shisahinaki mono wa hameru’ (Kitamura and Arikawa 2002, p. 111) (Tyler’s ‘I
suppose men are really the foolish ones’) and substitutes a phrase not found in
Murasaki Shikibu’s original calling for women to have ‘a lovable nature in lieu of
sharpness’.

Of course, this passage in the original contains many layers of meaning. Shikibu

no J ¯o’s apparent modesty and self-deprecation in fact do conceal a critique of the
didactic young woman whose unfeminine superiority in matters of Chinese learn-
ing and desire to teach her lover are considered highly undesirable qualities not
only by Shikibu no J ¯o but also by the conventional wisdom of his day. Suematsu’s

38

Suematsu Kench¯o and Genji monogatari

‘translation’ diverges wildly from the original, but a generous interpretation might
conclude that he felt the original’s ironic layer of criticism to be too subtle, and so
brought out the critical undercurrent in Shikibu no J ¯o’s speech in his translation.
If Suematsu has done so, though, it is with an extremely heavy hand.

Furthermore, the author of the tale is herself a woman, and, like the didactic

young woman of Chinese letters criticized by Shikibu no J ¯o, Murasaki Shikibu
was well known for her excellent knowledge of Chinese and was proud enough to
demonstrate it through a myriad of references in Genji monogatari and to mention
it in her diary. It is therefore hardly faithful to the original to turn the subtleties
of the ‘Rainy Night’s Discussion’ into a straightforward treatise on how women
ought to behave – the original is anything but that; however, Suematsu seems to
have been more concerned with making Murasaki Shikibu’s work read like some
kind of conduct book for women.

In turning Genji at least partly into a morality text, Suematsu also drew upon

Biblical imagery, as may be observed in his translation of the Yugao chapter, when
Genji talks about desirable feminine qualities. In Tyler’s translation:

It is frailty that gives a woman her charm, though. I do not care for a woman who
insists on valuing her own wits. I prefer someone compliant, perhaps because
I myself am none too quick or self-assured – someone easy for a man to take
advantage of if she is not careful, but still circumspect and happy enough to do
as her husband wishes. I know I would like such a woman more, the more I
lived with her and formed her to my will.

(Tyler 2003, p. 76)

Although one must be wary of bringing to an interpretation of the Genji ideas
on gender relations particular to one’s own age and society, there is arguably an
ironic tension here between the self-serving wisdom of what Genji is saying and
the way such behavior affects the lives of women in the text (take, for example,
the often unhappy situation of Murasaki, who comes to live with Genji as a
child and is raised precisely according to his will). That a reader cannot accept
Genji’s statement at face value is shown by the fact that he is most certainly
‘quick’ and ‘self-assured’ where women are concerned – the opposite of what he is
claiming here. Suematsu, however, does not appear to have been interested in such
subtleties, but abbreviated and rephrased the original in a language that his English
readers could well identify with, re-forming it into a simple and direct moral
message with Biblical overtones: ‘That retiring and gentle temperament,’ said Genji,
‘gives far greater beauty to women than all beside, for to have no natural pliability
makes women utterly worthless’ (Suematsu 1882, p. 96, emphasis added).

Suematsu’s ‘retiring and gentle temperament’, which makes a woman more

beautiful than anything else is reminiscent of the ‘meek and quiet spirit’ which the
apostle Paul entreats Christian women to rely upon as the source of their beauty,
in lieu of external ornaments (1 Peter 3: 4–5). Suematsu has also removed any
suggestion that men might take advantage of women (hito ni azamukarenubeki,

Rebekah Clements

39

Tyler’s ‘easy for a man to take advantage of ’) (Kitamura and Arikawa 2002,
p. 224). Thus Suematsu puts words into Murasaki Shikibu’s brush, causing her
to appear to have exhorted women to behave with modesty and virtue in terms
familiar to an audience educated in the Judeo-Christian tradition.

The wording Suematsu used to intensify the tone of the translation in those pas-

sages where women’s behavior is discussed echoes contemporary anxiety about
the changing role of women in Britain. The notion of a natural difference be-
tween ‘womanly’ women and ‘manly’ men permeated Victorian society and was
realized in the sexual division of labor (Poovey 1989). Changes to this status quo,
such as the Married Women’s Property Act and the suffrage movement, threatened
established ideas of male and female by ascribing to women rights and responsi-
bilities that had previously been exclusive to men (Shanley 1989). Echoing this,
in the ‘Rainy Night’s Discussion’, a wish that women who write in Chinese (or
‘mana’) characters, the language of politics and government used by men, would
be more ‘gentle/yielding’ (kono hito no tawoyaka naramashikaba: Kitamura and
Arikawa 2002, pp. 115–116) becomes in Suematsu’s translation a lesson on fe-
male pedants:

The Manna style and pedantic phrases were not meant for them; and, if they
use them, the public will only say, ‘would that they would remember that they are
women and not men’, and they would only incur the reproach of being pedants,
as many ladies, especially among the aristocracy do.

(Suematsu 1882, p. 47)

By translating the original’s kono hito no tawoyaka naramashikaba as ‘would that
they would remember that they are women and not men’, Suematsu speaks di-
rectly to anxiety associated with threats to the established roles of men and women.
He implies not only that a woman who writes in ‘the Manna style’ using ‘pedantic
phrases’ is unfeminine, which is how Tyler translates it (2003, p. 35), but that her
behavior actively encroaches on male territory and that this is a bad thing. He has
also changed the subject of the passage from the original’s private letters to one
of publicly witnessed pedantry, thus enabling it to be interpreted as a comment
on women, particularly ‘ladies . . . among the aristocracy’ – rather than Tyler’s
‘senior gentlewomen’ (2003, p. 35) who are publicly outspoken in a manner un-
acceptable in a woman. In the context of the 1880s, when Suematsu’s translation
was published, this could quite easily be applied to the growing role of women
in public and political discourse in Britain or to noteworthy examples of women
who argued publicly on these issues.

Thus, in his translation of Genji, Suematsu was very cleverly working two angles

on the ‘women’s question’. On the one hand, he was demonstrating that Japan
had a history of well-educated, socially active women at a time when most Euro-
peans were ‘squatting in their huts’ and in contrast to stereotypes of oppressed
‘oriental’ womanhood (Woolf 1925, p. 53, Rowley 2000, p. 63). On the other,
he has adopted the tone and stance of a patriarchal nineteenth-century moralist,

40

Suematsu Kench¯o and Genji monogatari

prescribing correct female behavior and criticizing women who transgress socially
established boundaries between male and female.

He was also critical of certain aspects of Murasaki Shikibu’s work, ascribing

what he saw as its flaws in part to her gender. While admitting that Genji ‘af-
fords fair ground for criticism’, Suematsu wrote that the praiseworthy aspects
of Murasaki Shikibu’s work ‘are almost marvelous when we consider the sex of the
writer, and the early period when she wrote’ (emphasis added). He criticizes the
Genji’s ‘diffuse’ and ‘disjointed’ storyline, ascribing this fault to Murasaki Shik-
ibu being easily carried away by her imagination and lacking in ‘power of equal
and systematic condensation’, seeming to suggest that she was more emotional
than rational because of her gender. Suematsu does also note that the use of
dialogue is scanty and ‘might have been prolonged to considerable advantage,
if it had been framed on models of modern composition’. In other words, his
main criticisms are that Genji suffers from the flighty imagination of its female
author and a structure which does not compare favorably to ‘modern’ (presum-
ably European) works. It is likely also that Suematsu shrewdly realized that his
praise of Genji would be more acceptable if it was offset by some words of crit-
icism. Attributing those aspects of the work which may have seemed inadequate
to his British audience to the writer’s sex and the early period in which she wrote
would spare the wider realm of modern-day Japanese culture and literature from
responsibility.

However, Suematsu was not only a Japanese apologist in Europe, he was also

a Meiji modernist reformer and this too is reflected in his dismissal of the ‘early’
compositional principles of Genji (Caddeau 2006, pp. 147–154). Likewise the
attitude to women in Suematsu’s translation also reflects the emphasis placed
upon masculinity by the ideologues of the Meiji state who sought thus to distance
Japan from its Asian neighbors and to project an image of Japan as a power worthy
of respect (Low 2003, pp. 81–83). As Takashi Fujitani has argued, in the Meiji
period there was a reinvention of the image of Emperor Meiji as a masculinized,
militarized, and dynamic figure, engaged in direct rule, while the new public image
for women of the imperial household was serving and nurturing, a version of the
ry¯osai kenbo or ‘good wife wise mother’ ideal (Fujitani 1996, pp. 171–94). Belief
in or a desire to project such values was likely involved in Suematsu’s reworking
of Genji’s pronouncements on gender relations, as well as his criticism, in his
introduction, of the Heian period for its ‘effeminacy’ and of Fujiwara interference
with imperial rule (Suematsu 1882, p. xiii).

Indeed, similar concerns are to be found in Suematsu’s Japanese translation

of the novel Dora Thorne by Charlotte M. Braeme (Suematsu and Ninomiya
1887–1890),

5

In the introduction to the revised edition, Suematsu responded

to readerly disappointment at the lack of ‘heroic and wise words’ (y ¯us¯o kikei no
kotoba) in his translation by explaining that this was because the original author
was a woman and her work did not contain such forceful language (1888, p. 1)
– adopting a similar tactic to explain away the work’s perceived shortcomings

Rebekah Clements

41

as he had with Genji. Furthermore, in selecting a morally didactic work such as
Dora Thorne for translation, Suematsu, who was later to write the first Japanese
government-sponsored morality textbook for women (Suematsu 1893) displays
the same preoccupation with female virtue in his translation methods and choice
of text as is observable in his Genji (Clements 2008b, pp. 100–104). Take his han-
dling of the following extract from the concluding passages of Braeme’s original:

Ten years married, they were lovers yet. There was gentle forbearance on one
side, an earnest wish to do right on the other. Lillian Dacre never troubled her
head about ‘women’s rights’; she had no idea of trying to fill her husband’s
place; if her opinion on voting was asked, the chances were that she would
smile and say, ‘Lionel manages all those matters’. Yet in her own kingdom she
reigned supreme.

(Braeme 2009, p. 220)

Many of the themes which are brought out in Suematsu’s Genji translation –

‘proper’ gender roles, women and public life, and so on – are present here. More-
over, in his translation, Suematsu completely removed the suggestion that Lillian,
who throughout the novel has been the wise and gentle partner in the relationship,
had to ‘forbear’ with certain foibles in her husband (Suematsu and Ninomiya
1887–1890, vol. 4, pp. 232–233), just as he removed the implied criticism of men
from his translation of Genji. He has also interpreted ‘never troubled her head’ as
‘never troubled her husband’ (otto no kokoro wo nayamaseshi koto naku: Suematsu
and Ninomiya 1887–1890, vol. 4, p. 233), perhaps due to a misunderstanding of
the English idiom or a desire to read hierarchical gender relations into the text –
the same kind of convenient misreading observed in the difficult parts of Genji
discussed above. There is not space to go into a full examination of Suematsu’s
translation of Dora Thorne here but this small section reveals striking similarities
with his English translation of Genji. Thus, the use of the ‘women’s question’ in
Suematsu’s Genji, in addition to promoting a particularly moral view of the
Japanese past among English readers, was also consistent with certain of Sue-
matsu’s activities back in Japan, and, it seems likely, with his personal opinions
as well.

Readership and reception of Suematsu’s translation

But who read Suematsu’s Genji, and what impact did it have? According to the
accounts of the Tr ¨

ubner publishing house, the initial printing ran to 500 copies

(Maidment 1973, reel 27 (vol 6) 240). It was a time when many novels saw
print runs of 500–1000 copies and a best-seller might reach 100,000 copies over
a period of five years or more (Eliot 2007, pp. 291–302). The print-run for
Suematsu’s translation was thus comparatively small. The sales figures were also
low: a total of only 242 copies were sold between 1882 and 1892, the period
for which the Tr ¨

ubner records are available today (Maidment 1973). However,

42

Suematsu Kench¯o and Genji monogatari

in addition to the copies sold, the publisher’s record indicates that seventy-eight
complimentary copies were distributed, making a total of 320 copies in circulation
(Maidment 1973, reel 27 (vol 6) 240). Taken together, the small print run and
the percentage of complimentary copies (nearly one quarter of all the copies in
circulation) confirm that Suematsu’s translation of the Genji was an exercise in
public relations rather than commerce, and that few people would have owned
a copy. Of the approximately eighty extant copies of the first edition which are
known today, all are contained in (mostly university) libraries, in countries ranging
from Japan and the United Kingdom to France and Germany, although some,
such as the copy in the library of the Institut Catholique de Paris, seem to have
originally been owned by private individuals.

6

In addition to the small print run, the volume was also comparatively expensive.

The price of seven shillings and sixpence placed it in the most expensive and
smallest percentile-bracket for books published in the 1880s (Eliot 1994, p. 68).
At a time when only the very rich could afford their own library of beautifully
bound books (St Clair 2004, pp. 192–193), this first edition of the work has
a hard cover, with embossed detailing and silver highlights for the moon and
its light reflected across the surface of Lake Biwa. Nor was it serialized in the
periodical form that was common for translations of ‘popular’ novels at the time,
and is unlikely to have been suitable for such a format (Hale 2000, pp. 68–69).
Given that it appears Suematsu wished to change perceptions of Japan through his
Genji translation, and that his efforts to do so may be contextualized within wider
Japanese efforts to bring about treaty revision, it makes sense that his translation
was aimed at the kind of wealthy and influential people who might be in a position
to bring about political and diplomatic change. A targeted campaign of this nature
would also explain the small number of volumes printed and the high percentage
of complimentary copies sent out.

Nevertheless, one did not need to own a copy of Suematsu’s translation in order

to read it nor did one need to read it in order to appreciate that Japan had a na-
tional culture that compared favorably with that of Europe. The publicity which
surrounded the publication of Suematsu’s translation may also have enhanced
Japan’s image and helped to change certain stereotypes. To date, no advertise-
ments have come to light, but there are known to be at least six newspaper re-
views of Suematsu’s translation by English papers at the time, namely: ‘Literature,
science, &c,’ 1882 (The London and China Telegraph); ‘New books and new edi-
tions,’ 1882 (The Scotsman); ‘New books,’ 1882 (The London Figaro); ‘Literature
and literary gossip,’ 1882 (The Court Journal); ‘Genji Monogatari,’ 1882 (The
Spectator); ‘A Japanese novel,’ 1882 (St James’s Gazette). A list of these reviews,
plus translated extracts, is to be found in the introduction Suematsu wrote
to Masuda Yukinobu’s Shinpen shishi (A New Version of Murasaki’s Romance,
1888–1894).

7

With the exception of The Scotsman and The London Figaro, the newspapers

in which reviews of Suematsu’s translation appeared were relatively expensive
publications. Given its specialized nature as a translation of a classical Japanese

Rebekah Clements

43

text, this is perhaps not surprising, but it may also be that Suematsu and the
publisher publicized the translation among the kinds of papers which were bought
by wealthier readers. If this is the case, then it is consistent with the pricing of
the book and suggests that Suematsu’s target audience was persons of wealth and
influence (Clements 2008c).

The St James’s Gazette piece is particularly interesting. Although anonymous,

as was usual for reviews in the period, a number of factors point to the Japanese
scholar William Aston (1841–1911) as the likely author (Clements 2008c). The
longest review of all, it is a lengthy and authoritative overview of Genji’s place in
Japanese history and literature, which appears to have been truncated abruptly by
the editor. Almost identical phrases are to be found in a paper given by Aston to the
Japanese chapter of the Asiatic Society, Tokyo in 1875, and later in his A History
of Japanese Literature (1875, pp. 121–130, 1899, pp. 45–54). The timing of the
review is also suggestive. It appeared in June – much later than the others – and this
date is consistent with a copy of Suematsu’s book being sent to Japan where Aston
was then living and a review being sent back (Clements 2008c, pp. 170–173).
These factors point to Aston as the probable author. Despite Suematsu’s claim in
his introduction that Genji monogatari ‘is mentioned or alluded to in almost every
European work relating to our country’, to date no such references have surfaced.
Aston’s review of Suematsu’s translation may well be the first notice paid to Genji
by a European-language scholar in print.

Conclusion

On closer inspection, Suematsu’s translation proves to be a sophisticated piece
of public relations, largely of his own initiative. As R.H.P Mason noted in his
investigation of Suematsu’s later activities in the areas of poetry and theater re-
form, Suematsu’s ‘personal dynamism’ not only extended to his bureaucratic and
political career, but also manifested itself in ‘the autonomy and self-direction of
the scholar’ (Mason 1979, p. 50). That Suematsu was acting with a considerable
degree of independence while in Britain is also indicated by his regular criticisms
of the Japanese government in letters he sent home and in speeches to Japanese
colleagues in England (e.g. Tamae 1992, pp. 117–119). On more than one oc-
casion this activity nearly lead to him being recalled to Japan in disgrace (Tamae
1985, pp. 75–79, 1992, pp. 119–127, Mehl 1993, pp. 171–179).

It would seem that the same sense of initiative underlay his translation of Genji

monogatari. One must be wary of interpreting Suematsu’s work in the light of the
expectation that he would naturally be acting as a propagandist of sorts. Yet his
translation clearly fits into a life-long project, beginning with The Identity of the
Great Conqueror, and continuing after the Genji translation with The Risen Sun and
Summer Dream Dialogues, in which he used literature – both fiction and non-fiction
– as a means of reaching audiences with the message that Japan and Europe were
natural allies and on an equal footing in the ‘hierarchy’ of civilizations. The mirror-
image of this is what R.H.P Mason has noted: Suematsu also attempted to change

44

Suematsu Kench¯o and Genji monogatari

certain ways of thinking in Japan by enthusiastically communicating, especially
to the upper levels of society, elements of European civilization and scholarship
(Mason 1979, p. 4). It would seem mistaken, therefore, to interpret his cultural
proselytizing in Europe in too cynical a light. Whether his translation had any
significant political impact is as yet unproven but it represents the beginnings of
Genji reception in Britain and was connected to Arthur Waley’s own interest in
the tale, though the question of whether Suematsu’s Genji had any impact on
Waley’s translation is yet to be investigated. To use Waley’s phrase, Suematsu’s
work is surely ‘deserving of resurrection’ by scholars for what it can tell us about
the early history of Japanese literature in Europe, and the role of Japanese scholar
diplomats abroad during the Meiji period.

Acknowledgments

This research was made possible by a Japanese government Monbush¯o scholarship.
I would like to thank Jinno Hidenori and my colleagues at Waseda University for
their guidance during the research stage of this article, and Gaye Rowley, Peter
Kornicki, and the Japan Forum reviewers for their comments on the draft.

Notes

1. It is tempting to describe Suematsu’s translation as the first into any language, but there were

vernacular Japanese versions of Genji monogatari produced during the Edo period which may be
described as ‘translations’, such as the series published by Bai ¯o from 1707 to 1710, and Shibun
ama no saezuri (Murasaki’s writings in the gibberish of fisherfolk, 1723) by Taga Hanshichi.

2. Uchida’s translation was republished the same year (2nd edn), three times in 1886 (4th, 5th and

6th edns), and also in 1900.

3. Kawakatsu Mari (2005) suggests it may have been Tokugawa Akitake (1853–1910). Margaret

Mehl, on the other hand, believes it to be Tokugawa Yoshinori (1863–1908) (Mehl 1993,
pp. 187–188). However, neither of these seems likely given that Akitake spent most of his time
in France and the US, only briefly visiting Britain while Suematsu was there, while Yoshinori
visited between 1884 and 1887, after Suematsu’s translation had been published, and Suematsu
would not have known either of them, at least in Britain. I am indebted to Mr Noboru Koyama
of the Cambridge University Library for pointing out that it was most likely Tokugawa Iesato
(1863–1940), who studied in Britain between 1877 and 1882 and held the third rank from 1868
to 1884. Iesato’s stay overlaps with Suematsu’s time in Britain and Mr Koyama surmises that
Suematsu was employed to assist him. He also points out that, having held the third rank for
so long, it would not be unusual for Iesato to be the Tokugawa who was known by that title,
regardless of the other members of his family who might have held that rank at the same time. As
the sixteenth head of the Tokugawa family, Iesato also seems a more likely addressee of a preface
which refers to the Tokugawa household as ‘your house’ (Suematsu 1882, p. v), and would have
been in a position to fund the translation.

4. It is as yet unknown which edition of Genji monogatari Suematsu used as the basis for his

translation. However, it seems likely that it was Kitamura Kigin’s Genji monogatari kogetsush¯o,
since this was the most widely available printed edition until the first modern printed edition of
1890 (see Rowley 2000, pp. 54–55).

Rebekah Clements

45

5. Suematsu’s co-translator – Ninomiya Kumajir ¯o – is only listed for the first volume, and his name

is often omitted from the later editions. The introductory notes and the remaining volumes were
by Suematsu, and he seems to have been the driving force behind the project.

6. This copy was one of a collection of books about Japan and Korea donated to the library in 1923.

It was most likely purchased in Japan and contains what appears to be the Japanese bookseller’s
notation.

7. Other reviews include ‘A Japanese romance’ (The New York Times Saturday Review of Books and

Art, 18 April 1898, p. 257), which deals with the American reception of the edition printed later
in Yokohama (noted by De Gruchy 2003, p. 123).

References

Anderson, William, 1886. The pictorial arts of Japan: with a brief historical sketch of the associated arts,

and some remarks upon the pictorial art of the Chinese and Koreans. London: L. Lowe, Marston,
Searle & Rivington.

Aston, William George, 1875. An ancient Japanese classic: the Tosa Nikki or Tosa diary. Transactions

of the Asiatic Society of Japan, 3 (2), 121–30. Reprinted in W.G. Aston, 1997. Collected works of
William George Aston, Vol. 1, Collected papers. Bristol: Ganesha, 45–54.

Aston, William George, 1899. A history of Japanese literature. London: Heinemann.
Balfour, Arthur, 1910. Parliamentary debates (Commons), 17 (5), 1142-11-3.
B.L., 1906. A fantasy of far Japan; or, Summer dream dialogues by Baron Suyematsu. Bulletin of

the American Geographical Society, 38 (12), 772–774.

Braeme, Charlotte M., 2009. Dora Thorne. Teddington, Middlesex: Echo Library.
Caddeau, Patrick W., 2006. Appraising Genji: literary criticism and cultural anxiety in the age of the last

samurai. Albany, NY: State University of New York Press.

Clements, Rebekah, 2008a. Suematsu Kench ¯o yaku Genji monogatari ni okeru josei. Heianch¯o

bungaku kenky ¯u, 16, 60–70.

Clements, Rebekah, 2008b. Suematsu Kench¯o to Genji monogatari: eiyaku to sono juy¯o wo megutte.

Thesis (MA). Waseda University Graduate School of Arts, Letters and Sciences.

Clements, Rebekah, 2008c. Y ¯oroppa ga hajimete Genji monogatari ni deatta toki. In: Jinno Hidenori

and Yokomizu Hiroshi, eds. Heian bungaku no koch ¯ushaku to juy¯o, Vol. 1. Tokyo: Musashino
Shoin, 161–178.

De Gruchy, John Walter, 2003. Orienting Arthur Waley: Japonism, Orientalism and the creation of

Japanese literature in English. Honolulu: University of Hawai’i Press.

Dumas, Alexandre, 1926. The Vicomte de Bragellone. London: J.M. Dent.
Eliot, Simon, 1994. Some patterns and trends in British publishing, 1800–1919. London: Bibliograph-

ical Society.

Eliot, Simon, 2007. From few and expensive to many and cheap: the British book market

1800–1890. In: Simon Eliot and Jonathan Rose, eds. A companion to the history of the book.
Oxford: Oxford University Press, 291–302.

Fujitani, Takashi, 1996. Splendid monarchy: power and pageantry in modern Japan. Berkeley: Univer-

sity of California Press.

‘Genji Monogatari’, 1882. The Spectator, 29 April, p. 571.
Hale, Terry, 2000. Romanticism and the Victorian age. In: Peter France, ed. The Oxford guide to

literature in English translation. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 64–72.

Hanks, Patrick and Hodges, Flavia, 1990. A dictionary of first names. Oxford: Oxford University

Press.

Heinemann, William, 1884. Nicholas Tr ¨

ubner. The Bibliographer, 5, 172–174.

46

Suematsu Kench¯o and Genji monogatari

It ¯o, Tetsuya and Kamura, Setsuko, 2007. Suematsu Kench ¯o ga eiyaku Genji de karikonda mono:

hon’yakusarenakatta by ¯osha to wakiyakutachi. Nihon bungaku kenky ¯u jaanaru, 1, 126–147.

‘A Japanese novel’, 1882. St James’s Gazette, 7 June, pp. 6–7.
Kawakatsu, Mari, 2005. Suematsu Kench ¯o Genji monogatari kank ¯o no ji ni miru shuppan jij ¯o:

igirisu ni taisuru bunka imeeji sosa to Tokugawa Akitake. Nihon kindai bungaku, 73, 1–15.

Kawakatsu, Mari, 2008. Meiji kara Sh¯owa ni okeru Genji monogatari no juy¯o: kindai Nihon no bunka

s¯oz¯o to koten. Tokyo: Izumi Shoin.

Kitamura, Kigin and Arikawa, Toshihiko, eds, 2002. Genji monogatari kogetsush¯o: z¯och ¯u. Tokyo:

K ¯odansha.

‘Literature and Literary Gossip’, 1882. The Court Journal, 29 April, p. 485.
‘Literature, Science, &c’, 1882. The London and China Telegraph, 28 March, p. 271.
Low, Morris, 2003. The Emperor’s sons go to war: competing masculinities in modern Japan. In:

Kam Loui and Morris Low, eds. Asian masculinities: the meaning and practice of manhood in China
and Japan. London: Routledge, 81–99.

Maidment, Brian, ed., 1973. Kegan, Paul, Trench, Trubner & Henry S. King, 1853–1912. Bishops

Stortford: Cadwyck-Healy, microform.

Married Women’s Property Act 1882 (United Kingdom), c.75, Vict 45 & 46.
Mason, R.H.P., 1979. Suematsu Kench ¯o and patterns of Japanese cultural and political change in

the 1880s. Papers on Far Eastern History, 20, 20–40.

Masuda, Yukinobu, 1888–1894. Shinpen shishi. Tokyo: Seishid ¯o.
Matsumura, Tadayoshi, 1987. P¯otsumasu e no michi: ¯okaron to y¯oroppa no Suematsu Kench¯o. Tokyo:

Hara Shob ¯o.

Mehl, Margaret, 1993. Suematsu Kencho in Britain, 1878–1886. Japan Forum, 5 (2), 173–193.
‘New Books’, 1882. The London Figaro, 19 April, p. 11.
‘New Books and New Editions’, 1882. The Scotsman, 8 April, p. 11.
Nihon kokugo daijiten, 1976. Tokyo: Sh ¯ogakukan.
Oka, Hideo, 2005. Yoshitsune wa Jingisukan ni natta! Sono muttsu no konkyo. Tokyo: Aabanpuro

Shuppan Sentaa.

Patmore, Coventry Kersey Dighton, 1854. Angel in the House. London: John W. Parker.
Poovey, Mary, 1989. Uneven developments: the ideological work of gender in mid-Victorian England.

London: Virago.

Rowley, G.G., 1997. Literary canon and national identity: The Tale of Genji in Meiji Japan. Japan

Forum, 9 (1), 1–15.

Rowley, G.G., 2000. Yosano Akiko and the Tale of Genji. Ann Arbor: Center for Japanese Studies,

University of Michigan.

Said, Edward, 1995. Orientalism. London: Penguin.
Sasaki, Katsuz ¯o, Yokota, Sh ¯oji, and ¯

Omachi, Kitaz ¯o, 2000. Minamono no Yoshitsune to Jingisukan

no nazo: Koromogawa gisen! Yoshitsune wa ikite kita e. Tokyo: Keibunsha.

Shanley, Mary Lyndon, 1989. Feminism, Marriage and Law in Victorian England 1850–1985.

London: I.B. Tauris.

St Clair, William, 2004. The reading nation in the Romantic period. Cambridge: Cambridge University

Press.

Suematsu, Kench ¯o, 1879. The identity of the great conqueror Genghis Khan with the Japanese hero

Yoshitsun´e: an historical thesis. London: Collingridge.

Suematsu, Kench ¯o, 1882. Genji monogatari: the most celebrated of the classical Japanese romances.

London: Tr ¨

ubner.

Suematsu, Kench ¯o, 1884–1885. Kagakuron. T¯oky¯o nichinichi shinbun, 3828, 6, 3829, 6, 3845, 5,

3939, 3, 3941, 3, 3945, 3, 3948, 3, 3950, 3.

Suematsu, Kench ¯o, 1885. Kagaku kaiga yoron. T¯oky¯o nichinichi shinbun, 3951, 3, 3952, 3, 3953, 3,

3954, 3.

Rebekah Clements

47

Suematsu, Kench ¯o, 1893. Sh ¯ushin jokun. Tokyo: Seikasha.
Suematsu, Kench ¯o, trans., 1896. Nihon bijutsu zensho. Tokyo: Yao Shoten.
Suematsu, Kench ¯o, 1905a. A fantasy of far Japan; or, Summer dream dialogues. London: Archibald

Constable.

Suematsu, Kench ¯o, 1905b. The risen sun. London: Archibald Constable.
Suematsu, Kench ¯o, 1911–1921. B¯och¯o kaitenshi. Tokyo: Suematsu Kench ¯o.
Suematsu, Kench ¯o and Ninomiya, Kumajir ¯o, trans., 1887–1890. Tanima no himeyuri, 4 vols. Tokyo:

Kink ¯od ¯o.

Suzuki, Tomi, 2008. The Tale of Genji, national literature, language, and modernism. In: Haruo

Shirane, ed. Envisioning the Tale of Genji: media, gender, and cultural production. New York:
Columbia University Press, 243–287.

Tamae, Hikotar ¯o, 1985. Seihy¯o/Suematsu Kench¯o no sh¯ogai. Fukuoka: Ashi Shob ¯o.
Tamae, Hikotar ¯o, 1992. Wakakihi no Suematsu Kench¯o: zaiei ts ¯ushin. Fukuoka: Kaich ¯osha.
Tyler, Royall, trans., 2003. The tale of Genji. New York: Penguin.
Uchida, Yahachi, trans., 1885. Yoshitsune saik¯oki. Tokyo: Uchida Yahachi.
Waley, Arthur, 1921. An introspective romance. The New Statesman, 10 December, pp. 286–287.
Weissbort, Daniel, 2001. Poetry. In: Peter France, ed. The Oxford guide to literature in English

translation. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 89–96.

Woolf, Virginia. 1925. The Tale of Genji: The First Volume of Mr Arthur Waley’s translation of a

great Japanese novel by the Lady Murasaki. Vogue, 66 (2), pp. 53, 80.

Rebekah Clements

graduated with an LLB and an honors degree in Asian Studies (Japanese),

with University Medal, from the Australian National University in 2004, after which she obtained a
Masters in pre-modern Japanese literature from Waseda University (2008) and worked as a research
assistant for Professor Jinno Hidenori at the Waseda University Faculty of Arts, Letters and Sciences
(2008). She is currently researching the history of translation in Japan as part of her PhD studies
at the Cambridge University Faculty of Asian and Middle Eastern Studies and has been awarded a
three year post-doctoral research associateship at this faculty, beginning in October 2011. She can
be contacted at: [e-mail].

Copyright of Japan Forum is the property of Routledge and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple

sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print,

download, or email articles for individual use.