著者

松葉 友惟

出版者

日本近世文学会

雑誌

近世文藝 (ISSN:03873412)

巻号頁・発行日

vol.114, pp.31-43, 2021

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Many Chinese poems were written about the big earthquake in Edo which occurred on October 2, 1885 or the second year of the Ansei Period. This fad for earthquake poetry was more widespread than has ever been thought before. This paper examines what it was through the bibliographical and textual analysis of <i>Kafuku-shū</i>, the collection of earthquake poems in the Gakken Library of the National Diet Library. As the collection shows, most of those poems were protestation against the government made by poets who fell victim to the earthquake. It tells us that the act of writing in Chinese verse was an important means of expressing one's political consciousness. The frequent use of the title "Jisin-kō" refers back to the earthquake songs in the Qing dynasty or those written about the Iga earthquake in 1884 which must have triggered the popularity of earthquake poetry in 1885.