Poetics of Laughter and Requiem: Noh/Kyogen and Ireland〜W.B. Yeats, Lafcadio Hearn and Ezra Pound

2023 Fiscal Year Final Research Report

• Project/Area Number: 20K00520
• Research Category: Grant-in-Aid for Scientific Research (C)
• Allocation Type: Multi-year Fund
• Section: 一般
• Review Section: Basic Section 02050:Literature in general-related
• Research Institution: Shiga University
• Principal Investigator: Manabe Akiko 滋賀大学, 経済学系, 教授 (80283547)
• Project Period (FY): 2020-04-01 – 2024-03-31
• Keywords: W.B.イェイツ / エズラ・パウンド / ラフカディオ・ハーン / 能狂言 / 詩学 / 笑い / 鎮魂 / 境界

Outline of Final Research Achievements

This study explores the following three points. 1 How in the works of W.B.Yeats and Pound two different principles that dominate Japanese traditional comedy of kyogen and tragedy of Noh exist simultaneously: “laughter” in kyogen and “praying for repose of the dead soul” in Noh, with Yeats’s tragic joy and Pound’s paradiso terresre as key concepts. 2 Yeats’s plays have been regarded to be hard to be put on stage while there has been almost no previous study on Pound’s “kyogen.” The possibility to perform their plays has been explored through the collaboration with Noh and kyogen actors. 3 Contemporaneity and universality of their works have been confirmed by proving how they cross the two existent borders; distinction of dramatic genres of tragedy, comedy and tragi-comedy on one hand and boundary between the Western world and Japan on the other. Here Hearn’s insightful observation into the Japanese and Irish notion of the other world gives a fresh point of view.

Free Research Field

英米アイルランド文学研究

Academic Significance and Societal Importance of the Research Achievements

既存研究のないイェイツとパウンドへの狂言の影響を研究し、新視点を加えた代表者の研究を発展させ、イェイツの演劇とパウンドの詩に能狂言から得たものの共存を発見、さらに既存研究がほぼないパウンドの「狂言」を分析した。内外で論文発表し、両研究に新たな知見を開いた。その過程で能楽師に聞き取り、実演困難とされるイェイツの演劇、およびパウンドの「狂言」実演の可能性を探った。コロナ禍のため新作上演はできなかったが、『猫と月』の連続再演が実現し、狂言師・主催者・観客と意見交換し、日愛の出逢いで生まれた演劇の社会的意義を確認した。米教育テレビ番組や国際イェイツ協会にインタビューを受け、社会に還元した。