Brightness and Colour: Studies on their Interconnection and Representations in the Literature of Antiquity

2023 Fiscal Year Final Research Report

• Project/Area Number: 17K02608
• Research Category: Grant-in-Aid for Scientific Research (C)
• Allocation Type: Multi-year Fund
• Section: 一般
• Research Field: European literature
• Research Institution: Osaka University (2023); Kyoto Seika University (2017-2022)
• Principal Investigator: Saito Yukiko 大阪大学, 大学院人文学研究科(人文学専攻、芸術学専攻、日本学専攻), 招へい教員 (60411948)
• Project Period (FY): 2017-04-01 – 2024-03-31
• Keywords: 光輝き / ホメロス / （共）感覚 / 古代ギリシア / 景観 / 多彩性 / 芸術的創造性 / 空間の輝き

Outline of Final Research Achievements

This research project attempts to visualise the Homeric epics, pursuing how light and light-related expressions (e.g., sigaloeis, marmareos, aiolos, etc.) could be perceived as moving around, inside, and outside the Homeric narrative, through colour/light-related epistemological investigation. It presents novel concepts which can broaden our thinking about how Homeric bright sceneries could possibly be visualised, in terms of 'texts as kinetic design.' Colour and light connect us all, over time and space. They move constantly, entailing countless gradations. Brightening or darkening the sceneries and context, bright light is also co-involved with divinity, which is unfixed and ambiguous. As a spectator viewing Homeric sceneries, I underline the significance of the poet's aesthetics of colour and evocation of light that enriches our imagination, in correspondence with the sense and recognition of his bright world, which involves awe-inspiring divinity.

Free Research Field

西洋古典学

Academic Significance and Societal Importance of the Research Achievements

従来顧みられることのなかった色彩の上に映える光と輝きの深層を探究し、詩人の采配による景観描写であるという一定の見解を示し、認知科学の知識を取り込むことによって、新たな活路、即ち動きある感覚や感情を踏まえて原典を扱うという発展性のある方向性への前進は、斯界研究に新たな視点を投じた。光と陰影とのシームレスな連関性も重要事項として捉え、「輝いている」ことについて文学的視点から考察し、区別し基準化を促進する傾向に問いを投げかけると同時に、輝く多彩なカラー（個性）の重要性の認識について社会にメッセージを送ったことは、多岐にわたって学術的関心を惹きつけ、学術的にも社会的にも大きな意義があると確信する。