仮名ことばの文学(<特集>言葉との出会い,文学の部,日本文学協会第36回大会報告)

抄録

During the latter half of the ninth century, use of the kana syllabary became widespread, not only for general purposes but for the recording of waka, and, together with kanji, the emerging genre of monogatari. Kana, abstracting the ideographic nature of kanji, is a phonetic system with enormous potential for multivalency. It was this attribute that was to fuel the literary imagination: freed from fixed signification, Kana could attract a variety of concepts. This report will attempt to follow this process in the earliest tale, the Taketori Monogatari, as well as in examples of early Heian waka.