著者

岩田 美喜

出版者

東北大学

雑誌

基盤研究(C)

巻号頁・発行日

2010-04-01

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本研究は、18世紀のイギリス演劇に描かれる「非標準的な英語」を喋る人物たちに焦点を当て、ことばを通じた地理的/政治的/社会(階級)などによる〈他者化〉の現象を探るものである。18世紀は英語の標準化が進んだ時期であり、演劇という文芸ジャンルはそれ以外の英語を用いる者を「周縁」として前景化するはたらきを持っていた。だが、本研究ではさらに一歩踏み込んで、周縁的存在とされるアイルランド人劇作家たちが自ら差異化のシステムを助長するような作品を書いたケースを分析し、また日本における言語を通じた差別化の問題を比較文化的に論じるなど、一枚岩的には成り得ない「言葉と差別」の実相を明らかにした。

著者

岩田美喜 竹内拓史編

出版者

東北大学出版会

巻号頁・発行日

2008

著者

岩田 美喜

出版者

一般財団法人 日本英文学会

雑誌

英文学研究 支部統合号 (ISSN:18837115)

巻号頁・発行日

vol.3, pp.99-112, 2011

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Oliver Goldsmith's The Good Natur'd Man (1768) has mainly been interpreted as an abortive piece of laughing comedy and often contrasted with False Delicacy (1768), a sentimental comedy by Hugh Kelly. Modern scholars point out that, though critics contemporary with Goldsmith upbraided the former as "low and vulgar" and praised the latter as "refined and sentimental," the two plays actually share the same ambivalent views about sentimentalism. Nevertheless, The Good Natur'd Man greatly differs from False Delicacy in that Goldsmith's play tries to highlight the commercialism latent in sentimental comedy rather than to conceal it. As Sir William Thornhill in The Vicar of Wakefield (1766) does, Honeywood in The Good Natur'd Man suffers from "a sickly sensibility" and his excessive benevolence makes his fortune decay. Thus, Honeywood's distress is always connected with his economic discomfort, especially in Act 3, where he is placed under house arrest for his debts and has to meet his beloved, Miss Richland, who comes to rescue him, in this humiliating situation. Though he tries to disguise a bailiff and his follower as respectable gentlemen, they misinterpret the couple's conversation about the London literary taste as the literal "taste," i.e., food prices in London, making Honeywood feel even more humiliated. In the final scene, Honeywood, remonstrated by his uncle and Miss Richland, vows that he would henceforth bestow charity only for those who deserve it and the play ends in expectation of the marriage between Honeywood and Miss Richland. Even in this conventional ending, the surname of the heroine, whose first name is unknown throughout the play, reminds the audience that his mental happiness is concurrent with his financial success. The Good Natur'd Man exposes the commercialist drive, which is existent but usually concealed in the virtue-in-distress strategy of sentimental comedy. However, at the same time, the fantasy ending of the comedy does admit the utilitarian exercise of sensibility, which seems the last thing the author of The Traveller (1764) and The Deserted Village (1770) would do. Richard Cumberland, in his memoirs, recollects with compassion that Goldsmith even in his final years laboured to write scribbles according to the demand of publishers, resignedly commenting that "Paternoster-Row is not Parnassus." The phrase may also be true of the divided attitude towards the economy of sensibility in The Good Natur'd Man.