Shimazaki was born in the old post town of
Magome-juku,
Nagano Prefecture (now part of
Nakatsugawa,
Gifu Prefecture), as son of
Masaki Shimazaki and his wife Nui. In 1881, he was sent to Tokyo by his father to acquire an education. Masaki, who showed an increasingly eccentric behaviour and suffered from hallucinations, was interned by his family in a self-built cell and died when Shimazaki was only fourteen. Shimazaki's oldest sister Sono Takase also suffered from mental disorders in her late years. Shimazaki was baptised in 1888 while studying at the Christian
Meiji Gakuin University, where he befriended essayists and translators Baba Kochō and Shūkotsu Togawa. He took first steps in writing and contributed to a literary magazine titled
Sumire-gusa, until its publication was prohibited by the university's headmaster
Yoshiharu Iwamoto. After graduating from Meiji Gakuin in 1891, Shimazaki earned a small salary by contributing translations to Iwamoto's
Jogaku zasshi magazine. He began teaching English at the Christian Meiji Women's School (Meiji Jogakkō) the following year, but already left after a few months, partially due to his lack of teaching experience, partially due to his affection for one of his pupils. Around this time, he had his name removed from the register of the Ichibanchō church. He joined a group of writers who founded the literary magazine
Bungakukai, to which he contributed his manuscripts. One of Bungakukai's editors, writer
Tōkoku Kitamura, whom Shimazaki regarded as his mentor, committed suicide in 1894. Shimazaki, who never completely got over this loss, edited two posthumous collections of Kitamura's works. In 1896, Shimazaki moved to
Sendai in northern Japan to accept a teaching position at
Tohoku Gakuin University. His first verse collection, '''' (lit. "Collection of young herbs", 1897) was published while he was in Sendai. Its success launched him on his future career, and he was regarded as one of the creators of the Meiji Romanticism literary movement. He published more poetry collections, but after the turn of the century he turned his talents to prose fiction. In 1899, he married merchant daughter Fuyuko Hata. ==Literary career==