A quiet notice V2Melody closes at midnight on , Spanish time.

Closes

A note from Richard

V2Melody will close at midnight on 20 January 2028

This site has been a retirement project in musical poetry: poems chosen with care and set to music, offered freely for as long as it felt right to keep the garden open.

After the death of my mother, the work no longer holds the place it once did in my life. I have gone as far with it as I wish to go. Like a sand mandala, it was made to be completed and then released. I am not attached to its permanence, and I do not believe any of it needs to last beyond the time it was given.

My wife and I are simplifying our days. The server, the monitoring, and the residual obligations that come with keeping a site alive no longer fit the quieter life we want.

From 4 November 2026 I will not be adding new poems or musical poems to the site.

Until midnight on 20 January 2028, Spanish time, everything remains available exactly as it is. That is when my VPS server contract comes to an end, and it will not be renewed. After that, the server will be switched off and the site will disappear.

Thank you to anyone who found a poem, a track, or a quiet moment here.

The pleasure was in the making.

Richard

Home › Glossary › Letter M

Meiji Restoration

Historical And Literary Periods
Pronunciation

Understanding ARPABET Pronunciation

Want to hear it? Click the Listen button to hear the browser speak the word using text-to-speech!

The pronunciation guide uses the ARPABET phonetic system—the same system used in speech recognition and text-to-speech applications.

Vowel Examples:
AE1 = cat, bat
EH1 = bed, head
IY1 = see, me
OW1 = go, boat
UW1 = boot, do
Stress Numbers:
0 = no stress (unstressed)
1 = primary stress (loud)
2 = secondary stress (medium)
Example:
AH0 TH IY1 N AH0
= a-THEE-na (Athena)

The stressed syllable (marked with 1) is pronounced louder and clearer than others.

Quick Definition

The 1868 restoration of imperial rule in Japan following the fall of the Shogunate, marked by rapid modernization, Westernization, and industrial development. Fundamentally transformed Japanese society and culture.

Detailed Definition
The Meiji Restoration inspired Japanese poetry engaging with modernization, Westernization, and cultural transformation. Poets grappled with traditional and modern sensibilities. This period appears in poetry through tensions between tradition and modernity, engagement with Japanese identity amid Westernization, incorporation of Western poetic forms, exploration of technology and progress, and establishment of modern Japanese poetry, representing crucial moment in understanding Japanese literary modernity.
Example
Example in poetry:
A poem that contrasts traditional Japanese aesthetic values and historical forms with the influx of Western technology, dress, and political ideas during the Meiji Restoration; A work that uses traditional forms (like the waka or haiku) but focuses on modern, industrial, or military subjects; A narrative poem detailing the rapid and often unsettling social change in Tokyo or other major cities; A lyrical piece expressing the conflict between the new national identity and the weight of the past.
Additional Notes
The Meiji Restoration (1868–1912) in Japan modernised society and revived national culture. Poets blended Western forms with traditional aesthetics like haiku, shaping modern Japanese literature.
Also Known As
Meiji Era Meiji Period
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