《英国風物論》の誕生とその系譜

岡倉の “Realien” 研究からの水脈を探って

抄録

It is said that Japanese people showed interest in things foreign, in particular things occidental, with the introduction of guns by the Portuguese in 1543 and of Christianity by St. Francis Xavier in 1549. We understand the advent of these two novelties in Japan as culture shock from the Western world, the former as material culture shock and the latter as spiritual culture shock, in terms of metaphor in my interpretation. Since that time a lot of things Western have flowed into Japan along with much knowledge of and information about Western culture and customs.
There was a time of seclusion from the rest of world during the Edo period; however, Japanese people were rather avid for Western culture and civilization as they glimpsed it through the small window of Dejima (a tiny reclaimed island) in Nagasaki, where only the Dutch were allowed to step foot and to trade with the Japanese. Through this window flowed much information and knowledge about the Western world, and Japanese scholars began to write and publish essays on Western people and culture, customs and habits, material civilization and so on, with the help of Chinese translations of books on the Western world. By the end of Edo period, a large amount of knowledge and information about the Western world had been introduced into Japan in spite of the “Sakoku-policies” of Bakukhu.
With the birth of the Great Empire in Britain during the 19th century, propelled by the Industrial Revolution, Japanese people in the Meiji era paid much attention to that country, particularly in terms of acquiring its language and culture. English language was just spreading to the the rest of the world and starting to become the lingua franca. Okakura Yoshisaburo, a scholar of English linguistics and teaching methodology, put emphasis on cultural background with regard to language acquisition. He learned this importance of cultural background in terms of language acquisition when he was studying English teaching methodology in Germany during the Meiji era, where he came across the subject called “Realien” in which English culture and customs were taught to English learners.
After returning to Japan he began to give lectures in which he emphasized the importance of teaching cultural background to the students. This importance was acknowledged by many of the English teachers and scholars so rapidly and prevailingly that, following this trend, many essays and a series of books on British culture and customs were published thereafter.
This paper deals with the genealogical study of such books with some explanation of the unique situation of English learning conditions in relation to Japanese people at that time.