“A poem of the scope and range of My Rubaiyat is never complete.” — Sadakichi Hartmann | V2Melody

“A poem of the scope and range of My Rubaiyat is never complete.”

Treating a long poem as a living, unfinished form · Instead of a Preface, My Rubaiyat

Sadakichi Hartmann

About Sadakichi Hartmann

Sadakichi Hartmann

8 November 1867–22 November 1944

Carl Sadakichi Hartmann was born on 8 November 1867 on the artificial island of Dejima in Nagasaki Harbor, a narrow strip of land that for generations had been Japan’s only window onto the West. His father, Carl Herman Oskar Hartmann, was a Prussian merchant trading in that tightly regulated enclave; his mother…

More by Sadakichi Hartmann

Poems by Sadakichi Hartmann

Tanka I Listen

More remarks by Sadakichi Hartmann

“Like the composers of the day I believe not in the old ideals but in new methods of expression.”

Aligning verse with modernist experiment · Instead of a Preface, My Rubaiyat

“To make rhymeless lines read like a poem is the most laborious task a songsmith can set himself.”

Defending technical difficulty as artistic choice · Instead of a Preface, My Rubaiyat

“Studio visits are valuable because they are the only way to get at a man's individuality.”

Preferring the person behind the picture · Art criticism essays