The Image of the Ancient World in Akinari Ueda's Kinsu

Abstract

The ancient world which Akinari Ueda depicted in Kinsu, his annotation book for Manyo-shu, refers to the Nanba area of his age rather than to Asuka-kyo or Heijo-kyo. Indeed, when he was working on the annotation, the riverfront of Nanba had been completely changed by the drastic development. Thus his nostalgic feeling for the past image of the city of water trasport entered the description of the ancient times. The anachronistic representation is, however, not only nostalgic but also shows his critical attitude towards his own age in which lots of old landscapes were destroyed in the name of modernity. To Akinari, the act of looking backward was also that of responding to the present.