2001 Fiscal Year Final Research Report Summary
A Biographical Study of Lafcadio Hearn's Letters to Joseph Tunison
| Project/Area Number |
12610578
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| Research Category |
Grant-in-Aid for Scientific Research (C)
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| Allocation Type | Single-year Grants |
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| Section | 一般 |
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| Research Field |
文学一般(含文学論・比較文学)・西洋古典
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| Research Institution | College of International Relations, Nihon University |
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Principal Investigator |
UMEMOTO Junko College of International Relations, Nihon University, Professor, 国際関係学部, 教授 (40180799)
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| Project Period (FY) |
2000 – 2001
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| Keywords | Lafcadio Hearn / Joseph Tunison / Henry Krehbiel / alexander HILL / Elizabeth Bisland / George Gould / Henry Watkin |
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| Research Abstract |
I have received unpublished letters of Joseph Tunison, Henry Krehbiel, Alexander Hill, Elizabeth Bisland Wetmore, George Gould, Henry Watkin and so on in addition to Lafcadio Hearn's. Using these letters, I traced the struggl between Hearn's friends, who competed against each other in order to be the first in the field of Hearn's biography. They were Watkin (represented by Milton Bronner), Gould and Bisland. Bisland won the position as Hearn's official biographer, and published. The Life and Letters of Lafcadio Heam in 1906. However, Watkin published Letters from the Raven consisting of Hearn's letters he got, and Gould followed Watkin with Concerning Lafcadio Hearn, First of all, I compared Bisland's biography with Watkin's, and discussed why and how Bisland was elected in such a severe struggle, how the other people felt toward her work, and how they contributed to her work by using the letters written by Hearn's friends, and clarified why Tunison and Krehbiel were so afraid of having Watkin's book circulated. In the next stage, I traced the process of Gould's completing his biography by analyzing the letters exchanged between Gould and such acquaintances of Hearn as Tunison and Alexander Hill, the latter of which had been a good adviser to Hearn's friends when they sought information and materials related to Hearn during his years in Cincinnati. Gould's work caused a heated controversy among Hearn's ojd friends, due to the clinical and critical way he treated Hearn's character.
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