著者

Krzysztof Olszewski

出版者

国文学研究資料館

雑誌

国際日本文学研究集会会議録 = PROCEEDINGS OF INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE ON JAPANESE LITERATURE (ISSN:03877280)

巻号頁・発行日

no.26, pp.35-43, 2003-03-01

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In this paper I would like to explain―taking a history of the early Heian period as a background the process of creation of national (i.e. Japanese) culture by the aristocracy who―since the An Lu-Shan's Rebellion―could observe from the Japanese Archipelago the first symptoms of the decline of the Tang dynasty in China.The Japanese of the Heian period, who―from the Chinese perspective―“lived at the frontiers of culture” (see: Umehara Takeshi, 2001) while being almost perfectly bilingual, did not deny Chinese culture, but on the other hand, they adapted from it the best and the most suitable aspects for their artistic images. I would like to show that process of aesthetical adaptation on the basis of an analysis of the part of “The Tosa Diary”, which is called to be a representative literary work in the Japanese literature of the 10th century. At present, most scholars agree that Ki no Tsurayuki was conscious of being avant-garde in the creation of national culture since the very moment he wrote Kanajo (The Japanese preface for the Kokinshu anthology) and since he attended the first poetry contests. But there are still different opinions concerning the appreciation of “The Tosa Diary” and determining its literary genre. I think that the so often mentioned eclecticism of the work was not Ki no Tsurayuki's isamiashi, i.e. literary failure (see: Hagitani Boku, 2000). In this paper I would like to prove that “The Tosa Diary” is a completed and intentionally written literary work (with the most important goal to discuss with the Chinese culture of the Tang dynasty), and its eclecticism was rather a result of groping for new expressions and a new literary genre in the process of creation of national culture.A famous French philosopher, Michel Foucault, wrote that relics of an ancient culture never are a message for the posterity and they can be understood only within the frames of the culture which had created them. So I think that we should stop using literary terminology, based on the Aristotle's “Poetics”, but we should describe the Heian literature using unique signs and aesthetical categories of that culture. Therefore, choosing “the sense of evanescence of the world” (mujôkan) as the most specific idea for the early Heian art and literature, I would like to explain one more enigma of “The Tosa Diary” and propose a new interpretation of the text.