ハーディ ノ コイ ノ レイ ト タニザキ ノ チジン ノ アイ : プラトニズム ノ シュウヘン

Both Thomas Hardy and Tanizaki Jun'ichiro were known to be interested in Platonic Idealism at one time. Hardy's unique novel, The Well-Beloved, is a record of Jocelyn Pierston's obsessive love of Avice Caro: he seeks after his 'Well-Beloved,' an epitomized ideal of woman, which incarnates in various women's bodies. His firm conviction at the age of twenty of the embodiment of his 'Well-Beloved' in Avice the first is carried over to Avice the second (Avice the first's daughter) and then Avice the third (Avice the first's granddaughter) in his forties and in his sixties severally for long twenty years. His inclination strongly resembles Joji's infatuation with Naomi in Chijin no Ai from the viewpoint of Platonic idealism. Joji's intention is to bring up Naomi, a girl of fifteen years old and waitress at a cafe, as an ideal lady with much accomplishments. His intention is to put his ideal of woman into Naomi's white beautiful body ; her face and body look Western or Eurasian. Against his intention, Naomi turns to be merely a silly enchantress. In both cases the most interesting point is that photographs as the record of the past and momentary aspects of faces and fractions of the real faces and bodies work as apt means to conjure up their own ideal woman in their mind. Pierston and Joji most tenaciously seek after their own ideal woman through the incarnated media as Avice the second and the third, and Naomi. And also Tanizaki is known to be a dedicated story-teller, establishing the first person narration in Chijin no Ai, which literary method is compared with Hardy's idea of tale as a story-telling art. A new vista might be opened for appreciating each author's literary inclination by contrasting the works which show Platonic idealism