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Reginald Horace Blyth (December 3, 1898 - October 28, 1964), English devotee of Japanese culture.
Born in Essex, England, the son of a railway clerk, Reginald Horace Blyth grew up to be a strong and idealistic young man. In 1916, at the height of World War I, he was imprisoned at Wormwood Scrubs as a conscientious objector and a pacifist. After the war, he attended London University, which he graduated from in 1923, with honors.
Blyth was a multi-talented man. He played the flute, made musical instruments, and had taught himself to speak numerous European languages. In 1924, he got his teaching certificate from London Day Training College. The same year, he married Annie Bercovitch and they went off to India, where he taught for a while.
In 1925, the Blyths moved to Korea, where Blyth became Assistant Professor of English at Keijo University in Seoul. While in Korea, Blyth began to learn Japanese and Chinese, and studied Zen under Kayama Taizi Roshi of Myoshinji Betsuin. In 1933, the couple adopted a young Korean boy, but they were divorced shortly thereafter, in 1935.
Blyth remarried in 1937, to Japanese Tomiko Blyth, with whom he later had two daughters, named Nana and Harumi. He moved to Kanazawa in Japan, and took a job as English teacher at a local high school.
When the Second World War started, Blyth was interned as an enemy alien. Although he expressed his sympathy for Japan and sought Japanese citizenship, this was denied. During his internment, his home, with its extensive library, was destroyed by a bombing raid.
After the war, Blyth worked diligently with the authorities, both Japanese and American, to ease the transition to peace. Blyth functioned as liaison to the Imperial Household, and his close friend, Harold G. Henderson, was on General Douglas MacArthur's staff. Together, they helped draft the declaration Ningen Sengen, by which the Emperor Hirohito declared himself to be a human being, and not divine.
By 1946 Blyth had become Professor of English at Gakushuin University, and tutored Crown Prince (later emperor) Akihito in English. He did much to popularize Zen philosophy and Japanese poetry (particularly haiku) in the West. In 1956, he was awarded a doctorate in literature from Tokyo University, and in 1957, he received the Zuihosho (Order of Merit) Fourth Grade.
Reginald Horace Blyth died in 1964 of a brain tumor and complications from pneumonia, in the Seiroka Hospital in Tokyo. He was buried in the cemetery of the Shokozan Tokeiji Soji Zenji in Kamakura, next to his old friend, D. T. Suzuki.
References
Selected works by R.H. Blyth: - Haiku, 1949-1952
- Japanese Life and Character in Senryu, 1959
- Oriental Humor , 1959
- Edo Satirical Verse Anthology , 1961
About R.H. Blyth:
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