B A Chamberlain was a professor of Japanese at the Tokyo Imperial University and was one of the greatest European Japanologists along with Ernest Mason Satow Lafcadio Hearn and William G Ashton He arrived in Japan on the eve of June 1873 left for Geneva in 1911 where he lived until his death in 1935. Published in 2000 The Classical Poetry of the Japanese is a valuable contribution to the field of Asian Studies The Classical Poetry of the Japanesecollection of a myriad of leaves first and longest japanese poetry collection like collection of the wildest translator notes ever my favourite one was where he like yeahhh the first part of this is so pretty im not gonna translate it i m just not gonna do it a close second is damn they talk about flowers a lot sadly there is absolutely no symbolism to this whatsoever i have just decided third and this is actually verbatim he was a very fertile poet the 19th century was a wild time to be this Basil chap trying to understand 4th to 9th century or something like that japanese poetry and giving it shakespearean sonnet airs for no other reason than he felt like it sounded cool n olden timey Basil doesn t care poetry is his delight his own the washing of the manuscript English