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38-422: It has been speculated that the work was compiled in or shortly after 1170; Donald Keene , citing Isao Takehana , stated that the work was probably written between the eighth month of 1174 and the seventh month of 1175. The author is uncertain, but the most likely candidate is the waka poet Fujiwara no Tametsune ( 藤原為経 ) . The text is in ten volumes, and is told from the point of view of an elderly woman who

76-726: A Bachelor's degree from Columbia University in 1942 and studied under Mark Van Doren , Moses Hadas , Lionel Trilling , and Jacques Barzun . He then studied the Japanese language at the United States Navy Japanese Language School in Boulder, Colorado and in Berkeley, California , and served as an intelligence officer in the Pacific region during World War II. Upon his discharge from

114-602: A liberal arts education . As an undergraduate at Columbia College , Barzun was drama critic for the Columbia Daily Spectator , a prize-winning president of the Philolexian Society , the Columbia literary and debate club, and valedictorian of the class of 1927. He obtained a master's degree in 1928 and a Ph.D. in 1932 from Columbia, and taught history there from 1928 to 1955, becoming

152-521: A sidebar containing a pithy quotation, usually little known, and often surprising or humorous, from some author or historical figure. In 2007, Barzun commented that "Old age is like learning a new profession. And not one of your own choosing." As late as October 2011, one month before his 104th birthday, he reviewed Adam Kirsch 's Why Trilling Matters for the Wall Street Journal . In his philosophy of writing history, Barzun emphasized

190-457: A "distinguished historian, essayist, cultural gadfly and educator who helped establish the modern discipline of cultural history". Naming Edward Gibbon , Jacob Burckhardt and Thomas Babington Macaulay as his intellectual ancestors, and calling him "one of the West's most eminent historians of culture" and "a champion of the liberal arts tradition in higher education," who "deplored what he called

228-452: A PhD from Columbia in 1949. Keene credits Ryūsaku Tsunoda as a mentor during this period. While staying at Cambridge, Keene went to meet Arthur Waley who was best known for his translation work in classical Chinese and Japanese literature. For Keene, Waley's translation of Chinese and Japanese literature was inspiring, even arousing in Keene the thought of becoming a second Waley. Keene

266-761: A Reader's Guide to the Literature of Mystery, Detection, & Related Genres , for which he and his co-author received a Special Edgar Award from the Mystery Writers of America the following year. Barzun was also an advocate of supernatural fiction , and wrote the introduction to The Penguin Encyclopedia of Horror and the Supernatural . Barzun was a proponent of the theatre critic and diarist James Agate , whom he compared in stature to Samuel Pepys . Barzun edited Agate's last two diaries into

304-551: A diplomatic mission to the United States during the First World War (1914–1918), Barzun's father so liked the country he decided that his son should receive an American university education ; thus, the twelve-year-old Jacques Martin attended Lycée Janson-de-Sailly until moving to America, where he graduated from Harrisburg Technical High School in 1923 and then went off to Columbia University , where he obtained

342-660: A group of pilgrims visiting the temples of Yamato Province being approached by an elderly woman who, when asked if she lives in the region, says that she lived in the Capital for one hundred years and then in Yamashiro Province for another fifty, before moving to Yamato. The listeners are astonished at her great age, but she humbly replies by listing several others in China and Japan who had supposedly lived to great age, including her grandfather Yotsugi. She says her name

380-410: A new edition in 1951 and wrote an informative introductory essay, "Agate and His Nine Egos". Jacques Barzun continued to write on education and cultural history after retiring from Columbia. At 84 years of age, he began writing his swan song , to which he devoted the better part of the 1990s. The resulting book of more than 800 pages, From Dawn to Decadence: 500 Years of Western Cultural Life, 1500 to

418-480: A violinist from a prominent Boston family . They had three children: James, Roger, and Isabel. Mariana died in 1979. In 1980, Barzun married Marguerite Lee Davenport. From 1996 the Barzuns lived in her hometown, San Antonio , Texas . His granddaughter Lucy Barzun Donnelly was a producer of the award-winning HBO film Grey Gardens . His grandson, Matthew Barzun , is a businessman who served from 2009 to 2011 as

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456-462: Is Ayame (iris), which was given to her because of her birth on the fifth day of the fifth month, the same day as the Iris Festival ( 菖蒲の節句 , Ayame no Sekku ) , although she had also been given the nickname Imakagami (the new mirror) by her mistress Murasaki Shikibu, in reference to a poem by Bai Juyi that described the casting of a new mirror on that day. The rest of the work describes

494-498: Is described as a granddaughter of Ōyake no Yotsugi ( 大宅世継 ) , the narrator of the Ōkagami , and as having formerly been in the service of Murasaki Shikibu . It has been suggested that the writer chose a woman as his fictional narrator where the Ōkagami' s author had chosen two men that he wished to focus on more elegant "feminine" topics than military and political affairs. The work contains 140 waka and countless references to Japanese and Chinese literature. The work begins with

532-741: Is one of the thousand most widely held library items according to the OCLC ). Barzun did not disdain popular culture: his varied interests included detective fiction and baseball . His widely quoted statement, "Whoever wants to know the heart and mind of America had better learn baseball." was inscribed on a plaque at the Baseball Hall of Fame . He edited and wrote the introduction to the 1961 anthology, The Delights of Detection , which included stories by G. K. Chesterton , Dorothy L. Sayers , Rex Stout , and others. In 1971, Barzun co-authored (with Wendell Hertig Taylor), A Catalogue of Crime : Being

570-584: The 2011 Tōhoku earthquake and tsunami , he retired from Columbia, moved to Japan permanently, and acquired citizenship under the name Kīn Donarudo ( キーン ドナルド , "Donald Keene" in the Japanese name order) . This was also his poetic pen name ( 雅号 , gagō ) and occasional nickname, spelled in the ateji form 鬼怒鳴門 . Keene was born in 1922 in the Flatbush section of Brooklyn, New York City and attended James Madison High School . He received

608-642: The Legion of Honour . In 2003, he was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom by President George W. Bush . In 1993, his book "An Essay on French Verse: For Readers of English Poetry" won the Poetry Society of America 's Melville Cane Poetry Award. On October 18, 2007, he received the 59th Great Teacher Award of the Society of Columbia Graduates in absentia . On March 2, 2011, Barzun

646-782: The Seth Low Professor of History and a founder of the discipline of cultural history . For years, he and literary critic Lionel Trilling conducted Columbia's famous Great Books course. He was elected Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 1954 and a member of the American Philosophical Society in 1984. From 1955 to 1968, he served as Dean of the Graduate School, Dean of Faculties, and Provost , while also being an Extraordinary Fellow of Churchill College at

684-653: The U.S. Ambassador to Sweden , and from 2013 to 2017 as Ambassador to the United Kingdom . On May 14, 2012, Jacques Barzun attended a symphony performance in his honor at which works by his favorite composer, Hector Berlioz , were performed. He attended in a wheelchair and delivered a brief address to the crowd. Barzun died at his home in San Antonio , Texas on October 25, 2012, aged 104. The New York Times , which compared him with such scholars as Sidney Hook , Daniel Bell , and Lionel Trilling , called him

722-487: The US Navy , he returned to Columbia where he earned a master's degree in 1947. Keene studied for a year at Harvard University before transferring to Cambridge University as a Henry Fellow , where he earned a second master's and became a Fellow of Corpus Christi College , Cambridge from 1948 to 1954, and a University Lecturer from 1949 to 1955. In the interim, in 1953, he also studied at Kyoto University , and earned

760-584: The University of Cambridge . From 1968 until his 1975 retirement, he was University Professor at Columbia. From 1951 to 1963 Barzun was one of the managing editors of The Readers' Subscription Book Club , and its successor the Mid-Century Book Society (the other managing editors being W. H. Auden and Lionel Trilling ), and afterwards was Literary Adviser to Charles Scribner's Sons , 1975 to 1993. In 1936, Barzun married Mariana Lowell,

798-519: The "A History of Japanese Literature" series nihon bungakushi kinseihen nihon tono deai nihon bungaku sanpo nihonsaiken Third book in the "A History of Japanese Literature" series Fourth book in the "A History of Japanese Literature" series koten no tanoshimi Later published by 宝島社,　2000. hyakudai no kakaku: nikkini miru nihonjin Later published by Asahi, 2011 and 2012. [?trans of revised edition] noh, bunraku, kabuki First book in

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836-1365: The "A History of Japanese Literature" series Reworking of the 1990–1992 Japanese newspaper column. kono hitosuji ni tsunagarite Later published by Columbia University Press, 1999 [?revised edition] Japanese edition published first. aoi me no taroukaja English and Japanese bilingual text meiji tennou Also published in 4 volumes, 2007. omoide no sakkatachi: Tanizaki, Kawabata, Mishima, Abe, Shiba Yoshimasa to ginkakuji Watanabe Kazan watashi to 20 seiki no kuronikaru Later published as ドナルド・キーン自伝 (中公公論新社, 2011). Jp trans. 角地幸男 Un Occidental En Japon (Nocturna Ediciones, 2011). Es trans. José Pazó Espinosa nihonjin no sensou: sakka no nikki wo yomu Masaoka Shiki nihonbungaku nihon no sakka hangekiteki ningen . In conversation with Kobo Abe higashi to nishi no haza made . In conversation with Ooka Shouhei Donarudo Kiin no nihonbungaku sanpo Later published as わたしの好きなレコード watashi no sukina rekoodo nihonbungaku wo yomu nihongo no miryoku . A collection of conversation. nihon wo rikaisuru made nihonbungaku no nakahe ongaku no deai to yorokobi Later published by 中央公論社 1992. tsuisaki no utagoe Jacques Barzun Jacques Martin Barzun ( / ˈ b ɑːr z ən / ; November 30, 1907 – October 25, 2012)

874-489: The 'gangrene of specialism'", The Daily Telegraph remarked, "The sheer scope of his knowledge was extraordinary. Barzun's eye roamed over the full spectrum of Western music, art, literature and philosophy." Essayist Joseph Epstein , remembering him in the Wall Street Journal as a "flawless and magisterial" writer who tackled " Darwin , Marx , Wagner , Berlioz , William James , French verse , English prose composition, university teaching, detective fiction , [and]

912-658: The Donald Keene Foundation for Japanese Culture. Keene was awarded the Order of Culture by the Japanese government in 2008, one of the highest honors bestowed by the Imperial Family in the country, becoming the first non-Japanese to receive the award. Soon after the 2011 Tōhoku earthquake and tsunami , Keene retired from Columbia and moved to Japan with the intention of living out the remainder of his life there. He acquired Japanese citizenship, adopting

950-524: The Present , revealed a vast erudition and brilliance undimmed by advanced age. Historians, literary critics, and popular reviewers all lauded From Dawn to Decadence as a sweeping and powerful survey of modern Western history, and it became a New York Times bestseller. With this work he gained an international reputation. Reviewing it in the New York Times , historian William Everdell called

988-416: The book "a great achievement" by a scholar "undiminished in his scholarship, research and polymathic interests," while also scrutinizing Barzun's scant treatment of figures like Walt Whitman and Karl Marx . The book introduces several novel typographic devices that aid an unusually rich system of cross-referencing and help keep many strands of thought in the book under organized control. Most pages feature

1026-960: The legal name Kīn Donarudo ( キーン ドナルド ) . This required him to relinquish his American citizenship , as Japan does not permit dual citizenship . Keene was well known and respected in Japan and his relocation there following the earthquake was widely lauded. In 2013 Keene adopted shamisen player Seiki Uehara as a son. Keene was not married. Keene died of cardiac arrest in Tokyo on February 24, 2019, aged 96. In an overview of writings by and about Keene, OCLC / WorldCat lists roughly 600+ works in 1,400+ publications in 16 languages and 39,000+ library holdings. nihonjin no seiyou hakken 日本人の西洋発見 (中公叢書, 1968). Jp trans. 芳賀徹訳 [?trans of 2nd ed] ikiteiru nihon Revised edition published as 果てしなく美しい日本 (講談社学術文庫, 2002). Jp trans. 足立康改 [?mistake. ?Separate work] bunraku kinou no senchi kara Second book in

1064-474: The old lady's recollections of the past. It describes the period of roughly 150 years from 1025 to 1170. and is primarily focused on an account of the imperial family and the Fujiwara and Murakami-Genji clans. The work is classified as one of the four "mirrors" of history along with the Ōkagami , Mizukagami and Masukagami . It is considered to be a direct continuation of the Ōkagami . Although it

1102-669: The role of storytelling over the use of academic jargon and detached analysis. He concluded in From Dawn to Decadence that "history cannot be a science; it is the very opposite, in that its interest resides in the particulars". In 1968, Barzun received the St. Louis Literary Award from the Saint Louis University Library Associates. Barzun was appointed a Chevalier of the National Order of

1140-497: The state of intellectual life", described Barzun as a tall, handsome man with an understated elegance, thoroughly Americanized, but retaining an air of old-world culture, cosmopolitan in an elegant way rare for intellectuals". Over seven decades, Barzun wrote and edited more than forty books touching on an unusually broad range of subjects, including science and medicine , psychiatry from Robert Burton through William James to modern methods, and art , and classical music ; he

1178-463: Was a Japanologist who published about 25 books in English on Japanese topics, including both studies of Japanese literature and culture and translations of Japanese classical and modern literature, including a four-volume history of Japanese literature which has become a standard work. Keene also published about 30 books in Japanese, some of which have been translated from English. He was president of

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1216-525: Was a French-born American historian known for his studies of the history of ideas and cultural history . He wrote about a wide range of subjects, including baseball, mystery novels, and classical music, and was also known as a philosopher of education . In the book Teacher in America (1945), Barzun influenced the training of schoolteachers in the United States. A professor of history at Columbia College for many years, he published more than forty books,

1254-585: Was a member of the Abbaye de Créteil group of artists and writers, and also worked in the French Ministry of Labor . His parents' Paris home was frequented by many modernist artists of Belle Époque France, such as the poet Guillaume Apollinaire , the Cubist painters Albert Gleizes and Marcel Duchamp , the composer Edgard Varèse , and the writers Richard Aldington and Stefan Zweig . While on

1292-586: Was awarded the 2010 National Humanities Medal by President Barack Obama , although he was not expected to be in attendance. On April 16, 2011, he received the Philolexian Award for Distinguished Literary Achievement in absentia . The American Philosophical Society honors Barzun with its Jacques Barzun Prize in Cultural History, awarded annually since 1993 to the author of a recent distinguished work of cultural history. He also received

1330-753: Was awarded the American Presidential Medal of Freedom , and was designated a knight of the French Legion of Honor . The historical retrospective From Dawn to Decadence: 500 Years of Western Cultural Life, 1500 to the Present (2000), widely considered his magnum opus , was published when he was 93 years old. Jacques Martin Barzun was born in Créteil , France, to Henri-Martin Barzun  [ fr ] and Anna-Rose Barzun, and spent his childhood in Paris and Grenoble . His father

1368-475: Was in first draft at the author's death, and editing (with the help of six other people), the first edition (published 1966) of Follett's Modern American Usage . Barzun was also the author of books on literary style ( Simple and Direct , 1975), on the crafts of editing and publishing ( On Writing, Editing, and Publishing , 1971), and on research methods in history and the other humanities ( The Modern Researcher , which has seen at least six editions, and

1406-431: Was one of the all-time authorities on Hector Berlioz . Some of his books—particularly Teacher in America and The House of Intellect —enjoyed a substantial lay readership and influenced debate about culture and education far beyond the realm of academic history. Barzun had a strong interest in the tools and mechanics of writing and research . He undertook the task of completing, from a manuscript almost two-thirds of which

1444-583: Was written during the period of rule by the Taira military clan ( Japanese Misplaced Pages article ), its focus is on waka poetry and the affairs of nobles at court. Donald Keene Donald Lawrence Keene (June 18, 1922 – February 24, 2019) was an American-born Japanese scholar, historian, teacher, writer and translator of Japanese literature . Keene was University Professor emeritus and Shincho Professor Emeritus of Japanese Literature at Columbia University , where he taught for over fifty years. Soon after

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