著者

林 茂子

出版者

東京女子大学

雑誌

英米文学評論 (ISSN:04227808)

巻号頁・発行日

vol.8, no.1, pp.83-101, 1960

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Hopkins' so-called "terrible sonnets" are utterly different from his earlier pieces, especially the poems of nature, in point of tone and imagery. Instead of brightness, happiness and harmony, here are darkness, desolation, a sense of disconnectedness, and a biting agony. Hopkins' nature poems describe beautiful things of nature, and at the back of them there is a firm sense of relation with God; in the terrible sonnets that sense is totally lacking, and the poet desperately seeks for it. The tension that gives beauty to the poems of nature is a natural, exhilarating kind of tension that springs out when a creature expresses its "self" to the full in conformity with the Creator's aim; the tension we find in the terrible sonnets is a terrible, twisted, unnatural, but no less beautiful, kind of tension that arises when the sorrow and anguish of man's self separated from God is opposed by the Christian faith and the energy of recovery. The poet, who is extremely sensitive to individuation or 'selving,' now in these sonnets painfully tastes the bitter taste of his own self, and the spiritual world the poet lives in is a fearful, dark night that seems to be endless. What these sonnets so vividly present before us is the tragedy of man's absolute self that takes place when the self is cut off from God and is left by itself. He can feel nothing but his own self with the sureness of the senses, and that self is as bitter as gall with the curse which is self-existent within it. Man, cut off from God, is in itself curse and sin, and the sorrow and anguish he suffers is a scourge for it. Individuation is good when it is in relation to God, but individuation without such a relation-to be 'selved' absolutely-is a damnation. Thus compelled to face the sin, worthlessness, and helplessness of his absolute self, the poet eventually learns to give up the pursuit of self with which he has been obsessed; he knows he is powerless and that he can do nothing but rely on God. He gradually learns the virtue of patience, a virtue that requires selflessness and the firm faith to obey God. The concluding parts of the sonnets, "Patience, hard thing..." and "My own heart let me more have pity on," suggest that the poet is beginning to perceive a light, a hope that he might get out of the terrible world and recover the sense of relation with God. Now Hopkins, even when he is in the depth of desolation and agony, never doubts the existence and righteousness of God. The trouble with him is not that he does not believe in God, but that he does believe in God and cannot feel the relation with Him with all his senses. The terrible sonnets are in a sense the poet's desperate effort to seek for the confirmation of this relationship. It is because of his faith that he suffers, and it is because of his faith, too, that he recovers. The terrible sonnets of Hopkins are beyond doubt a touching experience of a Christian soul that is extraordinarily sensetive. These, however, are also appealing, considered as an experience of a modern man who acutely feels a sense of uncertainty and disconnectedness in this world and looks for certainty and a solid relationship. The terrible sonnets are more directly the poems of personal experience than other works of his, as the style indicates; they are strongly emotional, at times even sentimental and almost hysterical. Nevertheless, they are excellent, creative works of art, and we must remember that it is only after writing these sonnets that the poet could compose "That Nature is a Heraclitean Fire and of the comfort of the Resurrection," a poem of an objective, inclusive vision and an intense but calm feeling.

著者

小林 茂子

出版者

日本国際理解教育学会

雑誌

国際理解教育 (ISSN:13437194)

巻号頁・発行日

vol.18, pp.24-32, 2012-06

著者

小林 茂子

出版者

国際日本文化研究センター

雑誌

日本研究 (ISSN:09150900)

巻号頁・発行日

vol.50, pp.235-257, 2014-09

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本稿は、開戦前後すなわち、日米開戦をはさんだ一九三〇年代後半から一九四〇年代初頭におけるマニラ日本人学校の教育活動の内容を検討する。マニラ日本人学校は、戦前期フィリピンの日本人学校十八校のうち(在外指定を受けたのは十六校)、いちばん早い一九一七年に設立され、また、南洋における日本人学校の中で最も現地理解教育に力を入れた学校といわれていた。このマニラ日本人学校では開戦をはさんで、日本軍の占領後、軍政下に至る過程においてどのような変容が見られたか。現存する資料『フィリッピン読本』(一九三八年四月)、『比律賓小学歴史』(一九四〇年三月)、『比律賓小学地理』(一九四〇年五月)、『とくべつ児童文集』(一九四二年八月)を手がかりに同校の教育活動を明らかにすることが本稿の目的である。 この四点の出版物はみな、「発行所 在外指定マニラ日本人小学校」「代表者 河野辰二」となっており、これらの出版物はどんな内容で、またどのような意図で編纂されたのかを、時代背景を吟味しつつ辿ることで、同校の教育活動の変容を探ることができるのではないかと思われる。すなわち、『フィリッピン読本』からは、一九三〇年代後半にマニラ日本人学校が現地理解に基づく教育活動を行っていたことを具体的に知ることができる。その後外国人学校への統制が徐々に強まる中、一九四〇年に入っても現地尊重の姿勢を保とうとする努力をしつつ、『比律賓小学歴史』『比律賓小学地理』が発行されている。しかし開戦後、一九四二年一月三日から軍政が始まると、同校は軍政府に協力的な中心校としての役割を担わざるを得なかった。『とくべつ児童文集』には、「学校ごよみ」が掲載されており、同校の開戦後の教育活動が記録されている。また児童の作文からはその時の心情を窺うことができる。 戦前期の占領地における日本人学校は日米開戦後、軍政府の統制のもと教育活動の大幅な変容を余儀なくされ、最後は戦局悪化とともに閉鎖へとつながっていった。戦争へと進む歴史的動きを追いつつ、在外日本人学校の辿った経緯を、マニラ日本人学校の事例をもとに現存する資料の分析とその背景を通して具体的に考察を進める。

著者

林 茂子

出版者

東京女子大学

雑誌

英米文学評論 (ISSN:04227808)

巻号頁・発行日

vol.6, no.2, pp.93-127, 1959

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Hopkins' poetry strikes us with the beauty and strength of the unique tension with which it overflows. In this essay the writer attempts to consider the nature of this tension in connection with the poet's notion of "self" and his sense of beauty. The poems of nature of the 1870's in which Hopkins admiringly describes beautiful individual things of nature impress the reader with the beauty and strength of tension and give him a feeling of vitality and animation. The present writer considers this tension to spring out when each one of God's creatures expresses its beautiful "self" to the full, unconsciously giving glory to the Creator. The beauty of the tension of self-expression is also perceived in "Harry Ploughman" in which the subject is not nature but a human being. Such is the basic form of Hopkinsian beauty. However, when human beings and therefore consciousness and will are involved, there can be a still higher kind of beauty, the most perfect and ideal of which is seen in Christ's character-unselfish love, magnanimity, tenderness, and the sternness which enabled him to go through the Passion, sacrificing himself for the sake of mankind. It is, in other words, the beauty of the tension of self-exhaustion or self-sacrifice, and this kind of beauty is what most strongly appeals both to the poet's soul and to the poet's senses. The former kind of beauty is, so to say, a beauty at saturation-natural, exhilarating, free, and at ease; while the latter is a beauty beyond saturation, intensely strained, spiritual, often "dangerous," laborious, and pathetic. At the end of this essay, "The Windhover" is referred to as a work in which these two kinds of beauty are contrasted and the poet's aspiration after the highest beauty is most touchingly presented.