研究発表　廃墟と再生 : 田山花袋の関東大震災

After the Great Kanto Earthquake, critics such as Chiba Kameo and Nakamura Murao sought a literature that engaged with society or the modern age. It is true that following the disaster more externally focused literature, such as that produced by the proletarian literary movement and the Shinkankaku group, was more en vogue than that of the naturalist I-novel. Though this shift toward externality in literature was not solely due to the earthquake, the disaster was certainly one impetus toward the change.Though there was a general trend toward externality after the disaster, it was not true of the entire literary world. In this paper I focus on the post-quake work of Tayama Katai. In Katai’s post-quake I-novel “Burnt Remains” and in his memoir Record of the Tokyo Earthquake, this established author paid little attention to social considerations. Katai’s literary theories, particularly that of heimen byōsha, are centered on the literary ideal centered on the author as an observing subject. Such a view sees literature that explores the suffering of others as deficient because it requires imagination. This idea was also current in the bundan. For example, the bundan considered the I-novel “Burnt Remains” to be literary, but not Katai’s other post-quake writing.Katai, who could not stand by after the disaster, went out into the devastated city as an objective observer and attempted to represent what he saw in accordance with his own literary theories. In “Burnt Remains” he wrote: “Everything was a burnt out field. … I felt I saw in the large ruins of Tokyo the smaller scale personal ruin within myself.” Ultimately, Katai went out to view the ruins and thought not about the suffering of others, but the ruin within himself. But for Katai and his theories, “ruin” was not a negative concept, but foretold the possibility of renewal