Suzuki, Shigetake (鈴 木 重 威 )(1903-76)
Karibe Tunenori
Professor Emeritus of Niigata UniversityProf. Shigetake Suzuki was born in Tokyo, Akasaka in 1903. He waseducated at Tokyo Furitsu Dai Ichi Chugakko, Tokyo Dai Ichi Kotogakko, andgraduated from the Faculty of English Literature of Tokyo University. In 1953
he became a Professor of English Literature at Tokyo Metropolitan University
after holding a professorship at Dai Ichi Kotogakko, Rikkyo University(1946-51), and Chiba University (1951-53). In 1967 he retired from Tokyo
Metropolitan University and became a professor emeritus. In the same year
he took up another professorship at Dokkyo University. In 1975 he received
the Third Order of Merit (Kun Santo Kyokujitsu Chu Jusho), but tragicallydied from lung cancer the following year at St. Luke’s International Hospital.
His main works of translation include Ōstberg’s Appellatives in English as『 人 名 の 普 通 名 詞 化 』 (Kenkyusha, 1934), C. L. Brook’s A History of English

Dialects as『 英 語 の 方 言 』 (Senjo, 1976), and selected Old English poetry as 『 古代 英 詩 』 (Gloria Press, 1978). His greatest contributions to the study of Old
English in Japan are the trilogy of editions of Old English Poetry in paralleltexts with a Modern English translation on facing pages, which included
copious notes 『: 古 代 英 詩 哀 歌 』( Old English Poetry: Elegy (Kenkyusha, 1967),『 古 代 英 詩 	  ベ オ ウ ル フ 』 ( Old English Poetry: Beowulf) (Kenkyusha, 1969),
and『 古 代 英 詩 	  宗 教 詩 』 ( Old English Poetry: Religious Poetry ) (Kenkyusha,1972). These books have been very helpful in enabling students to enter thewonderful world of Old English poetry. It is worth mentioning that thesebooks have few misprints. He was known for carefully proofreading all of hisworks in the quiet hours of the early morning.
He also contributed to the study of Early Middle English in Japan. In 1958
he won a Fulbright Scholarship to Michigan University, where he studied

Ancrene Wisse for one year under the supervision of Professor Kuhn byreading the microfiche of the MS before the EETS publication of Tolkien’s

Ancrene Wisse in 1962. As a result of his study of this work Professor Suzuki
published

The Language of The Ancrene Wisse (Tokyo MetropolitanUniversity, 1967). The contents of the book consist of five parts: Part I
Phonology, Part II Accidence and Syntax, Part III Pronouns, Part IV Verbs,and Part V Negation. The book treats all the linguistic aspects of themanuscript of Ancrene Wisse from the historical viewpoint of the transition
from Old English to Early Middle English. This study deserves to be called an
original and pioneering work. Especially the descriptions and explanations ofsyntax were highly valued. During his stay in Michigan University he often
contributed some examples from Ancrene Wisse to Professors Kurath andKuhn, the then editors of Middle English Dictionary .
In his thirties he joined the compilation of 『 研 究 社 	  英 語 学 辞 典 』 ( TheKenkyusha

DictionaryofEnglish

Philology )(Kenkyusha,1940).

His

assistance was indispensable to Dr. Sanki Ichikawa, the chief editor of thislarge one-volume dictionary, who had also been Professor Suzuki’s teacher
when he was a student at Tokyo University.
From 1954 Professor Suzuki concentrated on the study of Old and Middle
English and published English papers on various themes of that genre in

Studies in English Language and Literature and The Journal of Social2Sciences and Humanities , both journals of Tokyo Metropolitan University,
Anglica of Kansai University and in the monthly periodical「 英 語 青 年 」 ( TheRising Generation ). The following is a list of his papers during this period‘A Note on the Style of Beowulf ’, Studies in English Language andLiterature, III (Tokyo Metropolitan University, 1955).
‘Cædmon’s Hymn’, Anglica , II, 4 (Kansai University, 1956).
‘ Ancrene Riwle ’, Studies in English Language and Literature, V (TokyoMetropolitan University, 1957).
‘Biblical Latin quotations in Ancrene Wisse ’, Studies in English Languageand Literature, VIII (Tokyo Metropolitan University, 1960).
‘The Language of the Ancrene Wisse ― Introduction’, The Journal of Social

Sciences and Humanities , 28 (Tokyo Metropolitan University, 1962).
‘Old English Elegies― Deor and The Ruin’, The Journal of Social Sciencesand Humanities , 46 (Tokyo Metropolitan University, 1965).
‘On Wulf and Eadwacer’, The Rising Generation , CXII, 9 (1966).
In his classes of the graduate course at Tokyo Metropolitan, Aoyama
Gakuin, and Dokkyo Universities he used 市 川 三 喜 著 『 古 代 中 世 英 語 初 歩 』 ( A

Primer of Old and Middle English edited by Sanki Ichikawa), Sweet-Onions’An Anglo-Saxon Reader in Prose and Verse , Mossé-Walker’s A Handbook ofMiddle English, Sisam’s Fourteenth Century Verse and Prose , Wrenn’s
Beowulf , Pearl , Troilus and Criseyde , etc. and trained his students with aclose reading of original Old and Middle English using

these textbooks andinsisting on precise translations. After the severe teaching in classes he often
treated his students to a cup of coffee at the campus cafés, and devoted time totheir personal development through pleasant chats. He often offered them his3

advice on future plans of study suitable to the interest and inclination of eachof them. Several students of his class became specialists of their own fields asa result of Professor Suzuki’s suggestions.
Hitoshi Kodama began to study Frisian and later published『 フ リ ジ ア 語 文法 』( A Frisian Grammar ) (Daigakushorin, 1992). He single-handedly compiled

A Frisian-Japanese Dictionary (Daigakushorin, 2004) and A Japanese-FrisianDictionary (2015).
Hidetaka Mohri studied various morphosyntactic aspects of Old English
and published many high quality articles in the journal of his department ofAoyama Gakuin University, Thought Currents in English Literature .
Tadakatsu Miyazaki wrote many papers on the poetic dictions of Old
English poetry, and also published『 こ と ば か ら 観 た 文 化 の 歴 史 ― ア ン グ ロ ・ サ
ク ソ ン の 到 来 か ら ノ ル マ ン の 征 服 ま で 』 ( Cultural History as Seen from theLanguage, from the Coming of the Anglo-Saxons to Norman Conquest )(Seagull Books, Yokohama City University, 2001).
Tsunenori Karibe studied the phonology of Old English, especiallypalatalization, and published some papers on this subject. As a result of thecontinued study of Beowulf

he published an edition entitled 『 古 英 語 叙 事 詩 	 ベ ー オ ウ ル フ 	 対 訳 版 』 ( The Old English Epic Beowulf: A Bilingual Edition )(Kenkyusha, 2007) with the collaboration of Ryoichi Koyama, who was his
student, and a collected papers『 「 ベ ー オ ウ ル フ の 物 語 世 界 』 ( The NarrativeWorld of Beowulf) (Shohakusha, 2006).
Noriko Matsui continued her study of Sir Gawain and Green Knight , which
resulted in a doctoral dissertation entitled “Realistic Detail in Poetry of theAlliterative Revival” (2011).

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Keiko Ikegami became a specialist of the study of Ancrene Wisse MSS andjoined the editorship of parallel texts published as Ancrene Wisse: AFour-Manuscript Parallel Text (Studies in English Medieval Language andLiterature, 2003) and The Katherine Group: A Three Manuscript Parallel

Text (Studies in English Medieval Language and Literature, 2011).
Hisaaki Sasagawa presented his master’s thesis on concord of number inthe Anglo-Saxon Chronicle under the supervision of Professor Suzuki.
Afterwards he became a Chaucerian and published papers on Chaucer’sEnglish, focusing on such items as word order and stylistic techniques.
Atsushi Ajiro concentrated on the textual criticism or comparative study ofvarious editions of Beowulf based on its manuscript study and publishedmanypaperson

itinhisdepartment

journal,Daitobunkadaigaku

Eibeibungaku Ronso .
Yoshiharu Ida and Yoshiko Ohta were Professor Suzuki’s first students in
the graduate course at Tokyo Metropolitan University. The former wasawarded Toyota Prize for his long-running contributions to 日 本 英 学 史 学 会(Historical Society of English Studies in Japan), and the latter published abook of English grammar at a young age and later became one of the editors ofthe parallel texts mentioned above in reference to Keiko Ikegami.
As suggested earlier, it can readily be seen from the contributions ofProfessor Suzuki’s disciples that he was eminent as both a teacher and ascholar.
Professor Suzuki was a member of Japan Society of Medieval English
Studies until his death. He did not take up any office of this society because of
his advanced age. However, he often attended the general meetings and freely

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gave advice to the young scholars who were there to present their papers.
Prof. Suzuki’s wife, Motoko, attended his class at Aoyama Gakuin
University to study Old English in her old age. A few years later incollaboration with her husband she completed the translation of theabove-mentioned trilogy of Old English poetry in refined and vigorous literary
Japanese as『 古 代 英 詩 』 ( Old English Poetry ) (Gloria Press, 1978) . This bookrepresents a work of love from their marital collaboration.
Obituaries for Professor Suzuki were written in Japanese by Hitoshi
Kodama in Dokkyo University Newspaper , 3 December 1976 and by Tsunenori
Karibe in「 は し が き 」 (Afterword) of the above-mentioned book『 古 代 英 詩 』
published after the death of Professor Suzuki.
Professor Suzuki had a companionship with such foreign scholars as Prof.
Norman Davis of Oxford University, Prof. Peter Clemoes of Cambridge
University, and Prof. Martin Lehnert of the Humboldt University of Berlin.
The correspondence between Professor Davis and him began when he sent
some comments on Sweet’s Anglo-Saxon Primer , which Professor Davis had
newly revised in 1953. In 1975 he attended the International Shakespeare
Association’s World Congress in New York to meet Professor Lehnert, but it
was there that Professor Suzuki’s health began to decline, and after returninghome he was taken to hospital for treatment for cancer. When Professor
Clemoes visited Japan to give lectures on Old English Literature in 1977, heread aloud a passage from Beowulf before the portrait of the deceased
Professor Suzuki in memory of him. This moving scene continues to beremembered even today by those who were there to witness it.

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