Theoretical and Historical Study of Literary "Correspondence": Reexamining the Nature-Human Relationship

2014 Fiscal Year Final Research Report

• Project/Area Number: 24320059
• Research Category: Grant-in-Aid for Scientific Research (B)
• Allocation Type: Partial Multi-year Fund
• Section: 一般
• Research Field: Literature in English
• Research Institution: Rikkyo University
• Principal Investigator: NODA Kenichi 立教大学, 異文化コミュニケーション研究科, 教授 (60145969)
• Co-Investigator(Kenkyū-buntansha): YAMAZATO Katsunori 名桜大学, 国際学部, 教授 (80101450) ; YUKI Masami 金沢大学, 外国語教育研究センター, 教授 (50303699) ; NAKAGAWA Tomoko 聖心女子大学, 文学部, 教授 (90192666) ; KINA Ikue 琉球大学, 国際沖縄研究所, 教授 (20284945)
• Project Period (FY): 2012-04-01 – 2015-03-31
• Keywords: 交感 / 心的風景論 / 表象 / エコクリティシズム / 自然-人間学

Outline of Final Research Achievements

This research project aims to explore the nature-human relationship by paying attention to a specific literary device: the idea of “correspondence.” This idea, indicating the interrelatedness between the natural and the human, between the material world and the human mind, and between the world and the self, is historically reexamined as one of the most significant literary devices or tropes. In addition, this study attempts to assess whether this particular literary trope/device is still valid in contemporary literature and literary studies by referring to some approaches other than literary one. The idea of “correspondence” was fully formulated by nineteenth-century Romanticism and has been embedded as an implicit premise in many artistic works and genres. This research project has been completed by making explicit the historical and current siginificance of the idea of “correspondence.”

Free Research Field

環境文学・アメリカ文学、英米・英語圏文学