収縮、幻想化、理想化する自然 : 大正期日本文学における自然意識

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  • シュウシュク ゲンソウカ リソウカスル シゼン タイショウキ ニホン ブンガク
  • NATURE MINIMIZED, IMAGINED, AND IDEALIZED : The Representation of Nature in Taisho Literature

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Succeeding the late Meiji literary tendency to artificialize and internalize nature, representation of nature in Taisho literature tends to reflect the authors' lives in various ways. Hakushu Kitahara's Memories and Kansuke Naka's Silver Spoon, both of which vividly recall sensations and fantasies of their respective childhoods, represent nature in minimal detail and transfigure it into mystic images. Haruo Sato describes his rustic life in Melancholy of Countryside. Nevertheless, far from Doppo's objective observation of nature in Musashino, Sato transforms nature through his imagination into metaphoric images of his mental condition. Sakutaro Hagiwara's poems are characterized by the same kind of imagination. Junichiro Tanizaki's Golden Death is a story of an eccentric artist who tries to create an artificial paradise in Hakone. This story, as does Sato's Melancholy of Countryside, reflects Taisho urban utopianism (e.g. Takarazuka Amusement Park, Denenchofu Garden City). Takeo Arishima, representative of Taisho idealism and cosmopolitism, presents his utopian vision of the harmony between nature and man in Labyrinth. But his masterpiece A Certain Woman declares that this vision is an unattainable illusion in actual Japanese society. As for the naturalist "Watakushi-shosetsu" literature, descriptions of nature are for the most part scant. But, some of the "Watakushi-shosetsu" or "Shinkyo-Shosetsu" literature, as in Naoya Shiga's At Kinosaki, contain many images of small creatures such as bees and mice that are metaphors of human life. In conclusion, we can say that nature in Taisho literature is represented as mental sketches of the writer's mind.

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