Yukio Mishima

Kimitake Hiraoka
Yukio Mishima photograph by Shirou Aoyama 1956.
Born	January 14, 1925 Shinjuku, Tokyo, Japan
Died	November 25, 1970 JSDF headquarters, Tokyo, Japan
Pen name	Yukio Mishima
Occupation	Novelist, Playwriter, Poet, short story writer, Essayist
Nationality	Japanese
Period	1948—1970
Genre	Fiction, Essay

Yukio Mishima (三島 由紀夫, Mishima Yukio) was the public name of Kimitake Hiraoka (平岡 公威, Hiraoka Kimitake, January 14, 1925—November 25, 1970), a Japanese author and playwright, famous for both his highly notable nihilistic post-war writings and the circumstances of his ritual suicide by seppuku.

Early life

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Mishima in his childhood April, 1931.

Mishima was born in the Yotsuya district of Tokyo (now part of Shinjuku). Mishima's early childhood was dominated by the shadow of his grandmother, Natsu, who took the boy and separated him from his immediate family for several years. Natsu was the illegitimate granddaughter of Matsudaira Yoritaka, the daimyo of Shishido in Hitachi province, and had been raised in the household of Prince Arisugawa Taruhito; she maintained considerable aristocratic pretensions even after marrying Mishima's grandfather, a commoner but nevertheless a bureaucrat who had made his fortunes in the newly-opened colonial frontier, and who rose to become Governor-General of Karafuto. She was stubborn, and this was exacerbated by her sciatica. The young Mishima was employed to massage her to help alleviate her pain. She was also prone to violent, even morbid outbursts bordering on madness, which are occasionally alluded to in Mishima's works. It is to Natsu that some biographers have traced Mishima's fascination with death, and to the exorbitant; she read French and German, and had an aristocrat's taste for the Kabuki, Noh and the works of Izumi Kyoka. Natsu famously did not allow Mishima to venture into the sunlight, to engage in any kind of sport, or to play with boys; he spent much of his time alone, or with female cousins and their dolls.

Mishima returned to his immediate family at 12. He entered into a relationship with his mother that some biographers have described as nearly incestuous; it was to his mother that he turned always for reassurance and proofreading. His father, a brutal man with a taste for military discipline, employed such tactics as holding the young boy up to the side of a speeding train; he also raided Mishima's room for evidence of an "effeminate" interest in literature, and ripped up adolescent Mishima's manuscripts wantonly.Mishima is reported to have had no response to these gestures. (One important rejoinder one might add to his oft-fictionized early life is that biographers have often taken certain off-the-cuff remarks and Confessions of a Mask as expressions of autobiography. This is problematic, and has led to the more general issue of Mishima as larger-than-life.)

Schooling and early works

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Young Mishima in school uniform February, 1940.

At 12, Mishima began to write his first stories. He read voraciously the works of Oscar Wilde, Rainer Maria Rilke, and numerous Japanese classics. Although his family was not as affluent as those of the other students of this institution, Natsu insisted that he attend the elite Peers School.

After six miserable years at school, he still was a pale and frail teenager, but he started to do well and became the youngest member of the editorial board in the literary society at the school. Mishima was attracted to the works of Tachihara Michizo, which in turn created an appreciation for the classical poetry form of the waka. Mishima's first published works included waka poetry, before he turned his attention to prose.

Mishima was invited to write a prose short story for the Peers’ School literary magazine and submitted Hanazakari no Mori (The Forest in Full Bloom), a story in which the narrator describes the feeling that his ancestors somehow still live within him, due to a shared love of the sea and the southern sun. Mishima’s teachers were so impressed with the work that they recommended it for the prestigious literary magazine, Bungei-Bunka (Literary Culture) which they helped edit. The story, which makes use of the metaphors and aphorisms which later came to typify Mishima’s writing, was published in book form in 1944, albeit in a limited fashion (4000 copies) due to the wartime shortage of paper. In order to protect Mishima from a backlash from his schoolmates, his teachers coined a pen-name, “Mishima Yukio” for the young Hiraoka Kimitake.

Mishima's story Tabako (The Cigarette) published in 1946, describes some of the scorn and bullying he faced at school when he later confessed to members of the school's rugby club that he belonged to the school’s literary society. This trauma also provided material for the later story Shi o kaku shōnen (The Boy Who Wrote Poetry) in 1954.

Mishima received a draft notice for the Imperial Japanese Army during World War II. At the time of his medical check up he had a cold and spontaneously lied to the army doctor about having symptoms of tuberculosis and thus was declared unfit for service. Although Mishima was greatly relieved of not having to go to war, he continued to feel guilty for having survived and having missed the chance for a heroic death.

Although his father had forbidden him to write any further stories, Mishima continued to write secretly every night, supported and protected by his mother Shizue, who was always the first to read a new story. After school, his father, who sympathized with the Nazis, wouldn't allow him to pursue a writer's career, but instead forced him to study German law. Attending lectures during the day and writing at night, Mishima graduated from the elite Tokyo University in 1947. He obtained a position as an official in the government's Finance Ministry and was set up for a promising career.

However, Mishima had exhausted himself so much that his father agreed to Mishima's resignation of his position during his first year in order to devote his time to writing.

Post-war literature

Mishima began the short story Misaki nite no monogatari (A Story at the Cape) in 1945, and continued to work on it through the end of World War II. In January 1946, he visited famed writer Kawabata Yasunari in Kamakura, taking with him the manuscripts for Chūsei (The Middle Ages) and Tabako, asking for Kawabata’s advice and assistance. In June 1946, per Kawabata's recommendations, Tabako was published in the new literary magazine Ningen (Humanity).

Also in 1946, Mishima began his first novel, Tōzoku (Thieves), a story about two young members of the aristocracy drawn towards suicide. It was published in 1948, placing Mishima in the ranks of the Second Generation of Postwar Writers. He followed with Kamen no Kokuhaku (Confessions of a Mask), an autobiographical work about a young latent homosexual who must hide behind a mask in order to fit into society. The novel was extremely successful and made Mishima a celebrity at the age of 24.

Around 1949, Mishima published a series of essays in Kindai Bungaku on Kawabata Yasunari, of whom he always had a deep appreciation. Mishima was a disciplined and versatile writer. He wrote not only novels, popular serial novellas, short stories, and literary essays, but also highly-acclaimed plays for the Kabuki theater and modern versions of traditional Noh drama.

His writing gained him international celebrity and a sizable following in Europe and America, as many of his most famous works were translated into English.

Mishima traveled extensively; in 1952 he visited Greece, which had fascinated him since childhood. Elements from his visit appear in Shiosai (The Sound of the Waves), which was published in 1954, and which drew inspiration from the Greek legend of Daphnis and Chloe.

Mishima made use of contemporary events in many of his works. Kinkakuji (The Temple of the Golden Pavilion) in 1956 is a fictionalization of the burning of the famous temple in Kyoto. Utage no Ato (After the Banquet) published in 1960 was based so closely on the events surrounding politician Arita Hachiro's campaign to become governor of Tokyo that Mishima was sued for invasion of privacy. In 1962, Mishima published his most avant-garde work, Utsukushii hoshi (Beautiful Planet), is comes close to science-fiction. Its failure to attract attention came as a discouraging blow to Mishima's pride, and may have been one factor in his drift away from writing and into radical politics.

Mishima was mentioned to get the Nobel Prize for Literature three times, and was the darling of many foreign publications. However, in 1968 his early mentor Kawabata won the Nobel Prize and Mishima realized that the chances of it being given to another Japanese author in the near future were slim. It is also believed that Mishima wanted to leave the prize to the aging Kawabata, out of respect for the man who had first introduced him to the literary circles of Tokyo in the 1940s.

Private life

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Yukio Mishima debating Student Activist Association of the University of Tokyo at the Liberal Arts section of Todai's Komaba campus on May 13, 1969.

After Confessions of a Mask, Mishima tried to leave behind the young man who had lived only inside his head, continuously flirting with death. He tried to tie himself to the real, physical world by taking up stringent physical exercise. In 1955, Mishima took up weight training, and his workout regimen of three sessions per week was not disrupted for the final 15 years of his life. From the most unpromising material he forged an impressive physique, as the photographs he had taken show. In a later essay published in 1968, Taiyō to tetsu (Sun and Steel), Mishima deplores the emphasis given by intellectuals to the mind over the body. Mishima later also became very skillful at kendo (the Japanese martial art of swordfighting).

Although he visited gay bars in Japan, Mishima reportedly remained an observer, and reportedly had affairs with men only when he traveled abroad. Mishima's sexual orientation remains a matter of debate. After briefly considering an alliance with Michiko Shoda—she later became the wife of Emperor Akihito—he married Yoko Sugiyama in 1958. Over the next three years, the couple had a daughter and a son.

In 1967, Mishima enlisted in the Ground Self Defense Force (GSDF) and underwent basic training. A year later, he formed the Tatenokai (Shield Society), a private army composed primarily of young patriotic students who studied martial principles and physical discipline and who were trained through the GSDF under Mishima's tutelage, and who swore to protect the emperor. However, under Mishima's ideology, the emperor was not necessarily the reigning emperor, but rather the abstract essence of Japan. In Eirei no koe (Voices of the Heroic Dead) Mishima actually denounces Emperor Hirohito for renouncing his divinity at the end of World War II, as this dishonored the memory of the kamikaze fliers who gave up their lives for him.

In the last ten years of his life, Mishima wrote several full length plays, acted in several movies and co-directed an adaptation of one of his stories, Patriotism, the Rite of Love and Death. He also continued work on his final tetralogy, Hōjō no Umi (Sea of Fertility), which appeared in monthly serialized format starting in September 1965.

Ritual suicide

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Mishima, giving his final speech on the balcony of JSDF headquarters in Tokyo November 25, 1970.

On November 25, 1970, Mishima and four members of the Tatenokai under a pretext visited the commandant of the Ichigaya Camp - the Tokyo headquarters of the Eastern Command of Japan's Self-Defense Forces. Once inside, they proceeded to barricade the office and tied the commandant to his chair. With a prepared manifesto and banner listing their demands, Mishima stepped onto the balcony to address the gathered soldiers below. His speech was intended to inspire them to stage a coup d'etat and restore the Emperor to his rightful place. He succeeded only in irritating them and was mocked and jeered. As he was unable to make himself heard, he finished his planned speech after only a few minutes. He stepped back into the commandant's office and committed seppuku. The customary kaishakunin duty at the end of this ritual had been assigned to Tatenokai member Masakatsu Morita. But Morita, who was rumored to have been Mishima's lover, was unable to perform this task properly: after several failed attempts, he allowed another Tatenokai member, Hiroyasu Koga, to finish the job. Morita then attempted seppuku and was also beheaded by Koga.

Another traditional element of the suicide ritual was the composition of jisei (death poems), before their entry into the headquarters.

Mishima prepared his suicide meticulously for at least a year and no one outside the group of hand-picked Tatenokai members had any indication of what he was planning. Mishima must have known that his coup plot would never succeed and his biographer, translator, and former friend John Nathan suggests that the scenario was only a pretext for the ritual suicide of which Mishima had long dreamed. Mishima made sure his affairs were in order and even had the foresight to leave money for the defense at trial of the three surviving Tatenokai members.

Aftermath

Much speculation has surrounded Mishima's suicide. At the time of his death he had just completed the final book in his The Sea of Fertility tetralogy. He was recognized as one of the most important post-war stylists of the Japanese language.

Mishima wrote 40 novels, 18 plays, 20 books of short stories, and at least 20 books of essays as well as one libretto. A large portion of this oeuvre comprises books written quickly for profit, but even if these are disregarded, a substantial body of work remains.

Mishima espoused a very individual brand of 'nationalism' towards the end of his life (and in death). While he was hated by leftists (particularly students), in particular for his outspoken and, in their view, anachronistic commitment to the bushido code of the samurai, he was also hated by mainstream nationalists for his contention, in Bunka Boeiron (A Defense of Culture), that Emperor Hirohito should have abdicated and taken responsibility for the war dead.

Awards

• Shincho Prize from Shinchosha Publishing, 1954, for The Sound of Waves.
• Kishida Prize for Drama from Shinchosha Publishing, 1955.
• Yomiuri Prize from Yomiuri Newspaper Co., for best novel, 1957, The Temple of the Golden Pavilion.
• Yomiuri Prize from Yomiuri Newspaper Co., for best drama, 1961, Toka no Kiku.

Major works

Japanese Title	English Title	Year	English translation, year	ISBN
仮面の告白 Kamen no Kokuhaku	Confessions of a Mask	1948	Meredith Weatherby, 1958	ISBN 0-8112-0118-X
愛の渇き Ai no Kawaki	Thirst for Love	1950	Alfred H. Marks, 1969	ISBN 4-10-105003-1
禁色 Kinjiki	Forbidden Colors	1953	Alfred H. Marks, 1968-1974	ISBN 0-375-70516-3
潮騒 Shiosai	The Sound of Waves	1954	Meredith Weatherby, 1956	ISBN 0-679-75268-4
金閣寺 Kinkaku-ji*	The Temple of the Golden Pavilion	1956	Ivan Morris, 1959	ISBN 0-679-75270-6
鏡子の家 Kyōko no ie	Kyoko's House	1959		ISBN
宴のあと Utage no Ato	After the Banquet	1960	Donald Keene, 1963	ISBN 0-399-50486-9
午後の曳航 Gogo no Eikō	The Sailor Who Fell from Grace with the Sea	1963	John Nathan, 1965	ISBN 0-679-75015-0
絹と明察 Kinu to Meisatsu	Silk and Insight	1964	Hiroaki Sato, 1998	ISBN 0-7656-0299-7
三熊野詣 Mikumano Mode (short story)	Acts of Worship	1965	John Bester, 1995	ISBN 0-87011-824-2
サド侯爵夫人 Sado Kōshaku Fujin (play)	Madame de Sade	1965	Donald Keene, 1967	ISBN 0-394-17304-X
憂国 Yukoku (short story)	Patriotism	1966	Geoffrey W. Sargent, 1966	ISBN 0-8112-1312-9
真夏の死 Manatsu no Shi	Death in Midsummer and other stories	1966	Edward G. Seidensticker, Ivan Morris, Donald Keene, Geoffrey W. Sargent, 1966	ISBN 0-8112-0117-1
葉隠入門 Hagakure Nyūmon	The Way of the Samurai: Yukio Mishima on Hagakure in modern life	1967	Kathryn Sparling, 1977	ISBN 0-465-09089-3
わが友ヒットラー Waga Tomo Hittora (play)	My Friend Hitler and other plays	1968	Hiroaki Sato, 2002	ISBN 0-231-12633-6
太陽と鉄 Taiyō to Tetsu	Sun and Steel	1970	John Bester	ISBN 4-7700-2903-9
豊穣の海 Hōjō no Umi	The Sea of Fertility tetralogy:	1964- 1970		ISBN 0-677-14960-3
Part one: 春の雪 Haru no Yuki	Spring Snow	1968	Michael Gallagher, 1972	ISBN 0-394-44239-3
Part two: 奔馬 Honba	Runaway Horses	1969	Michael Gallagher, 1973	ISBN 0-394-46618-7
Part three: 暁の寺 Akatsuki no Tera	The Temple of Dawn	1970	E. Dale Saunders and Cecilia S. Seigle, 1973	ISBN 0-394-46614-4
Part four: 天人五衰 Tennin Gosui	The Decay of the Angel	1970	Edward Seidensticker, 1974	ISBN 0-394-46613-6

• For the Kinkaku-ji temple, see: Kinkaku-ji

Plays for the classical Japanese theatre

In addition to contemporary style plays such as Madame de Sade, Mishima wrote for two of the three genres of classical Japanese theatre: Noh and Kabuki. (But not for the Bunraku: as a proud Tokyoite he would not even attend the puppet theatre, always associated with Osaka and the provinces).

Though Mishima took themes, titles and characters from the Noh canon, his twists and modern settings such as hospitals and ballrooms startle audiences accustomed to the long-settled originals.

Donald Keene translated Five Modern Noh Plays (Tuttle, 1981; ISBN 0-8048-1380-9). Many of Mishima's other classical plays remain untranslated (as with much of these genres). Some lack even a clear consistent English title; these may best be referenced using the Romanized title.

Year	Japanese Title	English Title	Genre
1950	邯鄲 Kantan		Noh
1952	卒塔婆小町 Sotoba Komachi	Komachi at the Stupa (or Komachi at the Gravepost)	Noh
1954	鰯賣戀曳網 Iwashi Uri Koi no Hikiami		Kabuki
1955	綾の鼓 Aya no tsuzumi	The Damask Drum	Noh
1955	芙蓉露大内実記 Fuyō no Tsuyu Ōuchi Jikki	The Ōuchi Clan (oversimplified, not standard)	Kabuki
1956	班女 Hanjo		Noh
1956	葵の上 Aoi no Ue	The Lady Aoi	Noh
1965	弱法師 Yoroboshi	The Blind Young Man	Noh

Films

Year	Title	USA Release Title	Character	Director
1951	純白の夜 Jumpaku no Yoru	unreleased in the U.S.		Hideo Ohba
1959	不道徳教育講座 Fudōtoku Kyōikukōza	unreleased in the U.S.	himself	Katsumi Nishikawa
1960	からっ風野郎 Karakkaze Yarō	Afraid to Die	Takeo Asahina	Yasuzo Masumura
1966	憂国 Yūkoku	Patriotism, The Rite of Love and Death	Shinji Takeyama	Domoto Masaki, Yukio Mishima
1968	黒蜥蝪 Kurotokage	Black Lizard	Human Statue	Kinji Fukasaku
1969	人斬り Hitokiri	Tenchu!	Shimbei Tanaka	Hideo Gosha
1985	Mishima: A Life in Four Chapters (bio-pic)	Mishima		Paul Schrader Music by Philip Glass
	Yukio Mishima: Samurai writer (BBC documentary)	Yukio Mishima: Samurai writer		Michael Macintyre

Works about Mishima

• Ba-ra-kei: Ordeal by Roses by Eikoh Hosoe and Mishima (photoerotic collection of images of Mishima, with his own commentary) (Aperture 2002 ISBN 0-89381-169-6)
• Deadly Dialectics: Sex, Violence, and Nihilism in the World of Yukio Mishima by Roy Starrs (University of Hawaii Press, 1994, ISBN 0-8248-1630-7 and ISBN 0-8248-1630-7)
• Escape from the Wasteland: Romanticism and Realism in the Fiction of Mishima Yukio and Oe Kenzaburo (Harvard-Yenching Institute Monograph Series, No 33) by Susan J. Napier (Harvard University Press, 1995 ISBN 0-674-26181-X)
• Mishima: A Biography by John Nathan (Boston, Little, Brown and Company 1974, ISBN 0-316-59844-5)
• Mishima ou la vison du vide (Mishima : A Vision of the Void), essay by Marguerite Yourcenar trans. by Alberto Manguel 2001 ISBN 0-226-96532-5)
• Rogue Messiahs: Tales of Self-Proclaimed Saviors by Colin Wilson (Mishima profiled in context of phenomenon of various "outsider" Messiah types), (Hampton Roads Publishing Company 2000 ISBN 1-57174-175-5)
• The Life and Death of Yukio Mishima, by Henry Scott Stokes London : Owen, 1975 ISBN 0-7206-0123-1)
• The Madness and Perversion of Yukio Mishima by Jerry S. Piven. (Westport, Connecticut, Praeger Publishers, 2004 ISBN 0-275-97985-7)
• Yukio Mishima by Peter Wolfe ("reviews Mishima's life and times, discusses, his major works, and looks at important themes in his novels," 1989, ISBN 0-8264-0443-X)
• Yukio Mishima, Terror and Postmodern Japan by Richard Appignanesi (2002, ISBN 1-84046-371-6)
• Mishima's Sword - Travels in Search of a Samurai Legend by Christopher Ross (2006, ISBN 0-00-713508-4)
• Mishima: A Life in Four Chapters (1985), a film directed by Paul Schrader [1]

External links

• The Mishima Yukio Cyber Museum
• Web page devoted to Yukio Mishima
• Yukio Mishima: A 20th Century Samurai
• Books and Writers bio
• Short bio with photo
• Entry from "CLASSIC GAY LITERATI" page
• Sacred Visions of Splendor, essay on the meaning of Yukio Mishima's suicide
• Mishima chronology, with links
• YUKIO MISHIMA: The Harmony of Pen and Sword Ceremony commemorating his 70th Birthday Anniversary
• Blood and Flowers: Purity of Action in The Sea of Fertility
• "I Cut Off the Head of Yukio Mishima"
• Article focusing on Mishima's homosexuality
• Film review of Yukoku (Patriotism)
• Article about ritual suicide (Seppuku) (archived at the WaybackMachine)
• Short interview clip from Yukio Mishima: Samurai writer BBC documentary
• Mishima is interviewed in English on a range of subjects From a 1980s BBC documentary
• Mishima is interviewed in English on the subject of Japanese Nationalism From Canadian Television