Yosano Akiko and the Poetry of Kimono

Abstract

In her extensive corpus of essays, tanka and prose poems, Yosano Akiko clearly articulates her interest in Heian literature and ancient and modern feminine voices. To consolidate these tropes, Yosano repeatedly used modernity and a certain wit pertaining to her own embodied experience of life.
In the intricate web of these multimodal and multi-layered works, which interweave past and present, interiority and sociality, the kimono emerges as a particularly eloquent motif. It is repeatedly present throughout her career, from her seminal volume of poems Midaregami to the Hyakusenkai exhibition pamphlets published by Takashimaya Department Store. By following these kimono threads, we can see that Akiko delicately yet potently delineates the complexity of the intimate and social meanings of the garment, both for her, the narrator in her poems and her readership.
This article explicates the many references Akiko makes to kimono, through an analysis of specific pieces that effectively combine sentimental and physical experiences, formulating the conceptions of somewhat classic allusive beauty and more modern individuality, of Akiko herself as well as of the subjects she describes. Through this analysis, the importance of fashion, reality effect, comparative analysis and literary dress in the construction and expression of Meiji, Taishō, and early Shōwa femininity is revealed and contextualized.