『武功夜話』の文芸的研究

Abstract

In Japan the first constitutional government modeled after that of China was established in the seventh century, and the writing system using Chinese characters was widespread among the court aristocrats. In this respect Japan was comparatively behind other nations in the history of the world. Once the Japanese had acquired the proper writing system, the creative writing of poetry with a marked individuality and other rich forms of self expression using prose such as stories, novels, diaries, essays, etc. flourished, which has continued through the twentieth century. In the history of world literature it is a distinctive phenomenon that a creative literature of expressing personal behavior and psychology flourished in the early stage of a nation's development. In the Japanese history of literature, this personalism seems to have temporarily disappeared during the turbulent period which lasted from the fifteenth to the sixteenth century. However, Buko-yawa (The Night Tales of Military Exploits) published recently proves that the existence of this personalism is such a deeply rooted, long-continuing tradition of Japanese literature.