「歌語り」の世界(第十九回大会報告・文学の部)

抄録

It is believed that there had been "Utagatari" or the stories about the 31-syllable Japanese poems transmitted orally among the courtiers behind the Tale of Yamato, which is supposed to have been written in 951 or 952 A. D. It was the phenomenon which became remarkable as the result that the 31-syllable Japanese poem had acquired the position as the Court literature depending upon the opportunity of the compilation of the first anthology of poems collected by Imperial command named "Kokinshu" on the basis of the subjective, nationalistic movement which tried to steal out of the cultural domination of China at the end of the ninth century. "Utagatari" played the role of completing the objective, universal stories without losing the concreteness in the act of transmitting lyrically the private circumstances under which the poems were composed from mouth to mouth. Moreover it seems that the intention of laying emphasis on the main points of the stories in the act of transmitting stories orally attached the fictitiousness to the stories. Thus we may conclude that "Utagatari" had played a most important part in fostering the characteristics of the literature of the Heian Era such as the Tale of Genji to describe the world of feelings objectively.