1993 Fiscal Year Final Research Report Summary
THE REEVALUATION OF BEN JONSON : FOR THE RESTORATION OF THE ART OF HUMANISM
| Project/Area Number |
03610242
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| Research Category |
Grant-in-Aid for General Scientific Research (C)
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| Allocation Type | Single-year Grants |
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| Research Field |
英語・英文学(アメリカ語･アメリカ文学)
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| Research Institution | OSAKA CITY UNIVERSITY |
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Principal Investigator |
YAMADA Yumiko OSAKA CITY,UNIV., FACULTY OF LETTERS, ASSOCIATE PROF., 文学部, 助教授 (50200754)
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| Project Period (FY) |
1991 – 1993
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| Keywords | BEN JONSON / HUMANISM / SHAKESPEARE / ART / HISTORY / IDEAS / ARISTOTLE / HORACE |
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| Research Abstract |
The purpose of this research is to reevaluate Ben Jonson from the humanistic point of view. Jonson, who had been regarded as the paragon of Engligh literature among the learned people in his own time, fell from grace to be replaced by Shakespeare a century later, the rise of German Romanticism made a decisive push toward shifts in values, from the humanistic to the romantic. Since then the anti-humanistic tendency has been prevalent in literary criticism, and the study of Jonson has not been free from the "romantic" prejudice, when it depends mainly on specialists of Shakespeare who read and study Jonson in their spare time. As a means of normalizing Jonsonian study, the investigator has attempted a reconstruction of the meaning of humanism, which has been irretrievably worn out during these two centuries, by putting it back into the original context where it was shared as "common property" among men of letters throughout Europe. The reconsideration of the humanistic value in Jonson has been done by reexamining how it makes the core of his literary canon in his works, in relation to three other fields of science, i.e., art, history and ideas. The conclusions investigator has drawn from the three-year-research are as follows :
1. Jonson regarded no other arts, be it painting, architecture, or music, as hostile to his own, but estimated works of each genre according to the degree they satisfy his humanistic standard.
2. His poetical realism is closely connected with the attitude peculiar to humanists, who used to extract universal lessons from each particular historical events.
3. His idea of humanism stemmed from Aristotelian-Horatian tradition with its view of literature as practical philosophy, whose ultimate end is to establish a well-ordered commonwealth through the education of the citizen.
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