Novel and School: Literature and Education in Nineteenth-Century Britain

2021 Fiscal Year Final Research Report

• Project/Area Number: 17K02523
• Research Category: Grant-in-Aid for Scientific Research (C)
• Allocation Type: Multi-year Fund
• Section: 一般
• Research Field: Literature in English
• Research Institution: Doshisha University
• Principal Investigator: Tamai Fumie 同志社大学, グローバル・コミュニケーション学部, 教授 (20329957)
• Project Period (FY): 2017-04-01 – 2022-03-31
• Keywords: 19世紀イギリス小説 / 教育 / 共感

Outline of Final Research Achievements

This study examined the relationship between literature and education in nineteenth century Britain with special focus on Dickens, Gaskell and Gissing. It investigated what view they had about education, and how they were involved in education in their real life. By reading their works alongside various books and articles on education at the period, this study also analyzed how they represent the act of teaching, learning and growing in their works, and how they advocate the importance of literature, which can offer different kind of education from the one offered at school. Centering on the idea of education of sympathy, it illuminated the process of each author's defining his/her educational role and fashioning his/her identity as a novelist.

Free Research Field

19世紀イギリス文学

Academic Significance and Societal Importance of the Research Achievements

本研究では「共感の教育」という概念を軸に3人の作家たちにおける教育と文学の関りを検証した。Dickensは共感の教育を読者に施すことが小説の役割と定義し、作家としての地位を確立し、Gaskellは階級の違いを超えて共感し合う登場人物を描くことで現実社会の階級対立を解消しようとした。他方、Gissingは労働者階級への安易な共感を否定し、その現実を描写し世に知らしめることが作家の教育的使命と考えた。文学の教育的意義をめぐる作家の姿勢の変遷を辿ることができたことは本研究の意義である。こうした成果は、現代における文学と教育的意義を考察する上でも重要な知見を提供するものである。