| Co-Investigator(Kenkyū-buntansha) |
HUGHES G.E.H Univ.of Tokyo, Graduate School o f Humanities & Sociology, Visiting Professor, 大学院・人文社会系研究科, 客員教授 (10281700)
OHASHI Youichi Univ.of Tokyo, Graduate School of Humanities & Sociology, Associate Professor, 大学院・人文社会系研究科, 助教授 (20126014)
TAKAHASHI Kazuhisa Univ.of Tokyo, Graduate School o f Humanities & Sociology, Professor, 大学院・人文社会系研究科, 教授 (10108102)
HUGHES G.E.H 東京大学, 大学院・人文社会系研究科, 客員教授
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| Budget Amount *help |
¥7,100,000 (Direct Cost: ¥7,100,000)
Fiscal Year 1998: ¥600,000 (Direct Cost: ¥600,000)
Fiscal Year 1997: ¥1,400,000 (Direct Cost: ¥1,400,000)
Fiscal Year 1996: ¥5,100,000 (Direct Cost: ¥5,100,000)
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| Research Abstract |
Romanticism is a vague idea as far as English literature is concerned and attempts to demarcate it have mainly been done in the field of early nineteenth-century poetry. In this research we have focused not on poetry but on prose, and expand the period down through the Victorian age to the end of the century. Significantly, Bronte sisters, in their most important works such as Jane Eyre and Wuthering Heights, employ quite an unusual device of narration, presenting strange narrators, who try to texualise her/his seif-dramatisation itself, are found, for instance, to have been interested in the Noctes Ambrosianae, a series of articles published in the Blackwood's Magazine, one of the main organs for propagating the spirit of Romanticism in the early nineteenth century, between 1822 and 1835, which took the form of imaginary conversations among fictitious participants, who were, actually, real figures in various masks. The extravagant use of mask is found in Oscar Wild, one of the most famous fin de siecle writers in Britain. The fact that he introduced the idea of romanticism when he criticised Zola's realist/naturalist novels reveals the sprit of romanticism to have been amazingly active thorought the nineteenth century. Considering that the nineteenth century was the century of imperialism, we can also show the contiguity of the romantic spirit with that of imperialism. In fact, it can be pointed out that the Victorian theater was furnished with mechanical devices and spectacular scenes by making use of the 'aesthetics of wonder', which was a cultural/artistic/ideological heritage of early romanticism. This is a paradoxical theatricality, in which the audience, prevented from being immersed in the world of a play, are forced to aware that they are looking at the stage as a world. This perspective is subtly connected with the imperialist subjectivity which tries to conquer the world by its power of gaze.
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