| Budget Amount *help |
¥1,600,000 (Direct Cost: ¥1,600,000)
Fiscal Year 2003: ¥500,000 (Direct Cost: ¥500,000)
Fiscal Year 2002: ¥1,100,000 (Direct Cost: ¥1,100,000)
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| Research Abstract |
The purpose of this study has been to reinterpret the poetry and poetics of a modernist American poet, Hart Crane, in the light of the discourses concerning "abstraction" in his time. In particular, I have attempted (1)to reconfirm the "constructive" nature of his abstraction, (2)to compare his abstraction with an artistic attempt by Joseph Stella, Crane's contemporary, and (3)to elucidate the relationship between his abstract poetic language and his homosexual orientation. To carry out these assignments, I analyzed Crane's texts anew, examined Stella's thoughts about abstraction behind his paintings, did a research at the Rare Book & Manuscript Library of Columbia University and Whitney Museum of American Art, and exchanged views with modernist scholars at the annual convention of Japan Ezra Pound Society.
Concerning the nature of Crane's abstraction, this study has shown (1)that in addition to the Poundian "constructive" abstraction, he attempted strategically another kind of abstraction to be characterized as "the loss of representation," (2)that this abstraction was a means, or a result, of his pursuit of transcendence, and (3)that his depiction of homosexual love and its concomitant pains are a kind of ritual for achieving transcendence and his verbal abstraction is linked with this ritual.
A report was written based on the achievements of this study, which include a Japanese translation of Crane's poems excluding The Bridge. It should be reminded that part of the achievements will be presented orally at a future conference and published in the form of a scholarly article separately.
Future study plans in relation to this study include a comprehensive study on American modernist poetry and abstraction, which will combine the achievements of the present study, the studies on abstraction in Stevens, Stein and Pound, as well as other modernist poets in the U.S.
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