大江健三郎「新しい人よ眼ざめよ」において再創造されるウィリアム・ブレイク

抄録

　It is well known that OE Kenzaburo (1935- ) drew inspiration from the poems and paintings of William Blake and that he often provided misleading interpretations of Blake’s texts.

　The narrator (‘I’) in ‘Rouse Up O Young Men of the New Age!’ is an enthusiastic reader of Blake and a father of a brain-damaged son. He mentions The Book of Thel in which Blake describes a soul who refuses to be born into the world of Experience and returns to Innocence. The narrator, however, does not mention her flight and quotes the third stanza from ‘To Tirzah’, a poem about the sorrow of birth in Songs of Innocence and of Experience, as though it were part of The Book of Thel.

　Similarly, the narrator introduces the reader to the design of plate 76 in Jerusalem, presenting the text in plate 96 as though it were a dialogue between Jesus and Albion drawn on plate 76. The narrator describes the struggle of an innocent soul (his son) in this world, comparing himself to the aged Jesus and his son to young Albion.

　The narrator reads Blake, not in Blake’s context but in the context of his own personal life and consequently presents Blake as a poet of social protest rather than a religious poet who explored the notion of selfhood and self-annihilation. He re-creates Blake for his profound story of a father, his disabled son, family and society.