SOURCE: "Yosano Akiko on War: To Give One's Life or Not—A Question of Which War," in Journal of the Association of Teachers of Japanese, Vol. 25, No. 1, April, 1991, pp. 45–74.

In the following essay Rabson compares Akiko's "Brother, Do Not Give Your Life" to her later poems and essays on war in order to reevalute her reputation as an antiwar poet.

No Japanese poem denouncing war has gained wider renown or been subjected to more varied uses and explications than "Brother, Do Not Give Your Life" ("Kimi shinitamô koto nakare"). Yosano Akiko first published this 40-line shintaishi in the September, 1904 issue of Myôjô magazine, after having sent it with a letter as an impassioned plea to her younger brother Chûzaburô, then serving with the Imperial Army in the Russo-Japanese War at Port Arthur. Japanese soldiers were rumored to be volunteering for suicide missions in the protracted assault...