D. Sources of Influence and Transmission

11. Florenz, Karl. Works 1896~1906.

		Japan via Leipzig may not have been as compelling as Japan via Paris, but the Imagists and others in the early years of the century took their Japanese verse where they could find it.

Fletcher twice recalls reading Japanese poetry in German translation in the early years of the century (see BH17 and 22c), and Lowell acknowledges an English translation by Ficke of a German translation from Japanese verse (see BI4a). The likelihood in both cases is that the source would have been Florenz’s anthology Geschichte der japanischen litteratur (Leipzig: Amelang, 1906). Japan via Leipzig may not have been as compelling as Japan via Paris (see especially CC1, D1, 7, 19, 21, and 25), but the Imagists and others in the early years of the century took their Japanese verse where they could find it, and Florenz’s work, which includes translations of the nô Funa Benkei and Takasago (see 3 and BK88d) that are more accurate and better contextualised than contemporary translations available in English, was by far the most accomplished and well-known of the works in German. Before 1906 Florenz had published in Tokyo translations from classical Japanese literature in English, French, and German, original poems of Japan in German and English, and a detailed German-language study of Japanese mythology. His other work from Amelang includes Dichtergrüsse aus dem Osten, Japanische Dichtungen, übertragen (1896, translations from the classical poetry) and Japanische dramen (2 vols., 1901), which includes selections from Chikamatsu (Ap).