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Tanabe Kaho(Tanabe Ryuuko, Tanabe Tatsu, or Miyake Kaho (Married name), 1868-1944) was the first woman writer of the Meiji era to publish under a major publishing house. While overshadowed by Higuchi Ichiyo, another female writer from the period, Kaho was the catalyst that opened the gates for other women writers in the period. It was the success of her first story, Yabu no uguisu (Warbler in the Grove),published in 1888 for an impressive amount of money, that inspired Higuchi Ichiyo to begin writing fiction. Due to Kaho being overshadowed and forgotten throughout literary history, not much information is available about the details of her life today. Much of it has been passed down from scholar to scholar making some information hard to verify. A lot of the information available is based on an essay Kaho wrote just before her death at seventy-six.

Life
Born Tanabe Tatsu, Kaho entered world as the Tokugawa Era was coming to an end. Her actual date of birth is unknown. On her family registry it was listed as October 5, 1868. Kaho herself believed the date was closer to December 23rd. She was raised in a well to do upperclass family that suffered with the shift to the Meiji Era. Her father, Tanabe Taichi, was a Confucian scholar who had been an official in the Shogun’s government. After the war and the start of the Meiji regime, her father chose to cooperate with the new government but he did so at the insult to his honor. This resulted in her father's irresponsible spending as compensation which affected her family’s financial situation greatly and is ultimately what turned her towards writing fiction as a form of income. It was the women of the family, Tanabe and her mother, who then supported and kept the family stable.

Kaho's family was well educated which afforded her a great education. Her father was an accomplished scholar and her mother, while was never formally educated beyond Confucian and Japanese poetry, was always supportive in Kaho continuing her education, especially in later pushing Kaho to study English. She was enrolled in a finishing school called the Atomi School for Women as a young girl. The school's headmistress instilled in Kaho a sense of independence and freedom. It is from this headmistress that Kaho eventually took one of the characters of her pen name ("Ka"as in flower). After her families financial downfall, Kaho was forced to leave Atomi and ended up studying classical music and poetry. Her family sent her Nakajima Utako's waka school Haginoya where, incidentally, Kaho met Higuchi Ichiyo. After her brother's death, her father fell into a more licentious life style and Kaho turned to literature and eventually enrolled in the Kanritsu Joshi Shihan Gakko (Government Normal School for Girls, presently known as Ochanomizu University). There her English progressed and she was further brought into the Westernization of the Meiji Era through school's participation in western-style balls held at the Rokumeikan. The Rokumeikan was a new western building that hosted lavish western parties which dignitaries hoped would show foreign diplomats how "civilized" Japan had become. In 1888, she published Warbler in the Grove which brought her acclaim and criticism. Later, in 1892, she married a Japanese philosopher, Miyake Setsuri. It is believed that she probably had numerous proposals from "bourgeois suitors" but, keeping in with her personality and distaste for the nouveau riche, scholars finding it fitting that she married an antisocial intellectual. Even after marriage and children, Kaho continued writing, continuing her career until her death at seventy-six in 1944.

Influence on her Writing
Her life informed much of her writing. Her father's relations with prostitutes and concubines was a disgrace to her family that distressed Kaho. Her mother's passivity in the situation was also hard for her to watch. As a result, her writing often included young women in dire financial situations that had to turn to concubinage. She also wrote on the opposite side of the spectrum, as the wife who had been replaced by another woman. This can be seen in her second major piece, Yaezakura, which details the life of Yae, a daughter from a wealthy household, whose family has fallen into destitution and how Yae eventually becomes the concubine of a rich man to help support them and herself.

Her education also informed her writing. It was while overhearing a conversation at her mother was having that she was inspired to write her first novella, Warbler in the Grove,which was set in a school similar to her own.

Her family's tie to the Meiji government also brought Kaho face to face with the Westernization of Japan: at four years old, she was being dressed in western style clothing and her family's mansion was redecorated with western furnishings.(Copeland 56) The Westernization of Japan and the Enlightenment of the Meiji era would go on to also reflect heavily in her writing as can be seen in Warbler in the Grove.

Publishing History & Reception
Her novella, Warbler in the Grove, was published when she was 20 and a student at an all girls secondary school in Tokyo (the previously mentioned Ochanomizu University). Her family had connections to Tsubouchi Shooyoo, an influential writer and critic, who was first shown the manuscript. Shoyo recommended it to Kinkodo Publishing House where it was then subsequently published through. The novella received positive reviews but was also plagued by rumors indicative of the time which claimed that the novella had been published as a favor and heavily edited by Shoyo. The piece was in fact, as Tanabe confirmed, inspired by a piece by Shoyo (Tosei shosei katagi [Characters of Modern Students, 1885]). 3 The novella was also ill-received by critics not because of the writing itself or her overall narrative (which rewarded the female character most fitting in with Meiji ideals for what a woman should be) but because it contained conversations amongst servants which was considered lowly and base. This was inspired by her actual writing process during which she had gone to the servants in her home for information. Kaho eventually redeemed herself as a writer by “successfully creat[ing] the separate feminine sphere her critics expected,” in other stories.

Kaho continued writing and published several successful pieces in various literary magazines of the time including Jogakku Zasshi and Miyakonohana (Flower of the Capital). This included Yaezakura ('Double-Petaled Cherry Blossoms') in April 1890 and Hagikikyo ("A Buschclover and Bell-flower") based on a story by Adelaide Procter. In 1892, she even published a collection of short stories, an impressive feat for a female writer of the time. She continued writing until her death though much of her later works were essays and memoirs.

Reflection of the Meiji Era
Kaho engaged the shifting time period of Japan in her works. The Meiji Era was the scene of great cultural shifts in Japan. The opening of Japan by American brought with it an influx of western culture, from fashion to political theories. Japan’s upper class became determined to show the Western world how truly civilized it had become. This was seen in its architecture as well as “western-style balls” discussed above. In Warbler, the story opens up at a western-style ball and highlights the Meiji notions of Enlightenment. Warbler in the Grove not only engaged in these aspects but also functions as a literary battle between traditional ideals and the fascination with "new" and "Western" modernization that had taken over Japan. Kaho actively engages these notions in the appearance and characterization of her two heroines.

Kaho and Feminist Leanings
In Warbler, Tanabe’s heroine overhears her classmates discussing hopes of independent careers or even the chance of agency in their marriages. These are reflections of the Enlightenment thinking and government policies that aimed to provide higher education for women. The novella compares two characters representing the traditional Japanese woman versus the Enlightened modern woman. In the end of the story, the traditional character, Hideko, is shown to be successful over the modern Hamako. This being said, Hideko was a Meiji era heroine, depicting many traits unseen in previous eras such as an independent and resourceful mind and lacking many of the traits that typified the Tokugawa woman: passivity, ignorance, and dependence. The story, especially part six, seemed to highlight the benefits of education for women.