Epics in British Literature in the Romantic Period: A Study of Poetical Works by Scott and Hogg

2023 Fiscal Year Final Research Report

• Project/Area Number: 17K02498
• Research Category: Grant-in-Aid for Scientific Research (C)
• Allocation Type: Multi-year Fund
• Section: 一般
• Research Field: Literature in English
• Research Institution: Tokyo Woman's Christian University (2020-2023); Mie University (2017-2019)
• Principal Investigator: Yoshino Yuki 東京女子大学, 現代教養学部, 准教授 (90707291)
• Project Period (FY): 2017-04-01 – 2024-03-31
• Keywords: ロマン派 / 叙事詩 / Walter Scott / James Hogg / ジャンル実験

Outline of Final Research Achievements

Two of the major achievements of this research are:
(1)It pointed out that Hogg's The Shepherd's Calendar echoes Edmund Spenser's The Shepheardes Calender, an eclogue written as a preparation for writing his epic The Faerie Queene. Interpreting the Spenserian epic as an attempt to rewrite and restructure the genealogy of classic and contemporary literatures, myths,and popular culture with the Elizabethan England as its central stage, it argued that by emulating Spenser in writing an eclogue before writing his epic, Hogg attempted to rewrite and restructure the genealogies of Western classics and British literature, while considering the place of Scottish literature and oral tradition in them.
(2)It argued that the motifs of landscape and woods in Scott's The Lay of the Last Minstrel and Ivanhoe echo the typical rhetoric in the genre epic while embodying his responses to the contemporary discourses of picturesque and the changes in nature and environment, which took place in his time.

Free Research Field

イギリス文学・文化

Academic Significance and Societal Importance of the Research Achievements

本研究はイギリス・ロマン期文学における叙事詩の意義の再考を試み、ロマン派期に展開したジャンル実験上、叙事詩がいかなる態様でどのような役割を果たしたかを、スコットとホッグによる叙事詩様作品群を対象に検証した。自身の創作上、ジャンルへの問題意識が比較的強いとされ、複数のジャンル間を自在に横断し実験的な創作活動を行った両者がいかに同ジャンルを捉え、先行作品や同時代の言説を交錯させつつ、独自の叙事詩様作品を創造したかを考察した。両者の実験的な叙事詩様作品は、西洋古典や英国の文学の系譜を捉えなおし、同系譜上のスコットランドの位置を模索する側面を持ち、複合国家としての英国形成を理解する上でも有用であろう。