イギリスの中世主義 : ウォルポールとモリスの間にあるもの

This paper will examine the diverging conceptions of “medievalism” ofWalpole and Morris through a consideration of the historical background totheir writing, particularly the transition from Orientalism to Medievalism.Orientalism in British Romantic literature is usually traced back to the firstdecade of the eighteenth century and the appearance of the first English translationof The Arabian Nights (1706). Within a few years, a growing taste forChinese exoticism (“chinoiserie”) started a fashion for porcelain, and saw theconstruction of elaborate gardens and exotic buildings such as pagodas aroundthe country.Walpole was initially attracted to Chinese exoticism, but, as we can see inhis Note to The History of the Modern Taste in Gardening, he later came to feeldiscontent with the trend. Moving toward a stronger British national identity,he wrote Anecdotes of Painting in England (1762), and leaned toward theGothic Revival style.After the 1760s, other writers like Percy, Macpherson and Chatterton alsobegan to gravitate toward a more Medievalist stance. In 1764, with the publicationof his The Castle of Otranto, the first Gothic novel, Walpole demonstratedhow the focus of his concern had shifted from the exotic Orient tomedieval Britain, in other words, from Orientalism to a concern with “Englishness”.The late nineteenth century trend for medievalism, on the other hand, wasa different phenomenon, a reaction to the rapid industrialization taking place inBritain. The paper concludes that the picture of the Middle Ages whichWilliam Morris drew in his News from Nowhere (1890), and which could alsobe found in the landscape paintings of John Constable, was a “utopia” of“Englishness” unspoiled by industrialization, an era where English people ofthe 19th century could reaffirm their national identity