The short poem “Itoguruma”（"Spinning Wheel,”1910）in Kitahara Hakushū’s collection, Omoide (Memories, 1911), first appeared in the magazine Sōsaku (Creation, 1910). It was the first piece of work in Hakushū’s poetry series, ‘Yōnen-no-hi’(Childhood).

　“Itoguruma”，is not merely a simple and straightforward poem in which Hakushū recaptured his childhood memories, but a symbolist poem expressive of the poet’s distinctive atmospheric and sensuous symbolism.

　Starting from 1906, Hakushū’s poetry began to evolve internally from simple and straightforward lyricism to symbolism. In the spring of 1906, through the recommendation of Yosano Tekkan, Hakushū joined the Shinshisha (New Poetry Society). Ueda Bin's collection of translated poems, Kaichōon (Sound of the Tide) was published in the previous year. Hakushū read Kaichōon devoutly. He withdrew from the Shinshisha at the end of 1907. After that Hakushū succeeded in genuinely embodying and assimilating the influences of Kaichōon.

　My essay expounds how the creation of "Itoguruma" is manifoldly related to two of Ueda Bin’s translated poems, namely, Georges Rodenbach’s “Douceur du soir!” and Emile Verhaeren’s “Les Horloges.” My essay also discusses and analyzes the distinctive rhythm and images of Hakushū’s poem.

　Kitahara Hakushû (1855–1942) est l’un des poètes japonais qui se sont fortement inspirés des images poétiques importées d’Occident à 1’ère Meiji. Nous abordons dans ce mémoire la représentation «Pierrot» en fonction des deux points suivants.

　1. Ce qui nous intéresse premièrement, c’est l’illustration intitulée «Souvenir de Pierrot» qui a été réalisée par le poète lui-même dans son recueil de poèmes Omoide (Souvenirs) en 1911. Nous démontrons que Hakushû s’est basé sur une photographie de Pierrot du livre de Frank Berkeley Smith, How Paris Amuses Itself (1903), et qu'il l'a transposée dans son propre recueil, tout en la déformant.

　2. Nous analysons deuxièmement plusieurs de ses poèmes sur «Pierrot» écrits entre 1910 et 1912. Les affinités profondes qui existent chez Hakushû entre ces images de Pierrot et celles de saltimbanques japonais permettent de comprendre que le choix de l'image du clown par le poète ne relève pas seulement de 1’emprunt direct mais aussi du désir de représenter le monde de la marginalité et de l’«autoportrait travesti» (J. Starobinski).

　In this paper, I have tried to show how the Zen Concept of Affinity influenced Kitahara Hakushu’s “Suzume no Seikatsu”(1920). This long poem in prose, which describes a sparrow's way of living, has something very important to help us understand Hakushu’s writings.

　He says, “I watch a sparrow. This is to watch or observe myself. I can understand what the sparrow is thinking. This is just the same as what I have in mind. The sparrow is me, and I’m the sparrow. All I want to say is that the sparrow and I are of a mind.”

　I examine how his thought developed. When we read the poem, concentrating on the concepts of self and Ego, it is clear that his thought originates in Zen.

　Kitahara Hakushū’s Omoide (June, 1911) originates from the loss of his birthplace which occurred at the end of 1909. The house of the Kitaharas, an old house in Yanagawa, was auctioned together with all the furnishings, which means that Hakushū lost his home, ‘Kyōdo.’ This accident leads him to begin reproducing his ‘life before fifteen years old’. The method and idea of the reproduction is seen in the preface of Omoide，“Waga Oitachi” or “My Childhood” which was first published as “Shihen to Kyōdo”，or “Poems and Kyōdo.”

　In the preface, Hakushū says, “My home town Yanagawa is a riverside town and a quiet ‘Haishi’or ‘a ruined town’ ......... The riverside town Yanagawa is just like a grey coffin floating on the water” But even if Yanagawa is an outdated castle town, the word ‘Haishi’ is an exaggeration. Yanagawa was not ruined at all. ‘Haishi’ is his wish fulfilment. He uses ‘Haishi’ as a place to which he cannot return, and therefore it exists only as an idea in his remembrance.

　Hakushū states that Omoide is ‘Kyōdo Geijutsu.’ ‘Kyōdo Geijutsu’ is a translation of ‘Heimatdichtung,’ a literary movement of Germany at the beginning of the twentieth century. Originally it was a patriotic literary movement by which German and French people hoped to reestablish their own countries. It was introduced into Japan after the Russo-Japanese War. But Hakushū’s ‘Kyōdo Geijutsu’ in Omoide has no relation with such patriotic nationalism; his aim is to reproduce the already lost ‘Kyōdo’ in his remembrance. He uses Bruges-la-Morte by Georges Rodenbach, a Belgian fin-de-siècle poet, as a model. ‘Haishi’seems to be a translation of ‘la-Morte’.

　After he came back from France, Nagai Kafū tried to create ‘Kyōdo Geijutsu’writings in vain, because he could not find his ideal ‘Kyōdo’in the present ‘Tōkyō’ which had been westernized and completely changed. Kafū, then, set his ‘Kyōdo’not in the present ‘Tōkyō’but in the past ‘Edo,’which exists in his beautiful memory of his own boyhood. He also used Bruges-la-Morte as a model of his mental image.

　For Hakushū and Kafū who tried to portray ‘Kyōdo’it is a world which is already lost and found only in their remembrance. The popularity of Omoide is not only due to its portrayal of a beautiful childhood but to the vivid reproduction of the unique ‘Kyōdo’which is fated to be destroyed by Japanese modernization or westernization.

　Miyazawa Kenji read Emerson’s Essays First and Second Series, which was translated into Japanese by Togawa Shūkotsu in 1911-1912，in his junior high school days. As Ōsawa Masayoshi has pointed out, Miyazawa’s belief in Hokke may have been influenced by Emerson. However, in this essay, I would like to focus my attention on another aspect of Emerson’s influence upon Miyazawa Kenji.

　Miyazawa is considered a unique poet in Japan; especially his poetic theory is said to be unique in the history of Japanese literature. I would like to show that Miyazawa’s poetic theory was influenced by Emerson’s essay “The Poet.”

　The fundamentals of Miyazawa’s theory can be summarized as follows. The main part of the poet’s work is to listen to the voice of nature carefully. The poet is a representative of human beings, for he can describe the truth that nobody has ever discovered. Therefore, a good poem may seem inconsistent and difficult to understand. These characteristics correspond to Emerson's attitude to poetry as described in "The Poet."

　Although Miyazawa insisted that his works were not poems but mental sketches, if we consider the strong influence of Emerson’s poetic theory on him, we should regard his mental sketches as poems and Miyazawa Kenji as a poet. The poet Miyazawa Kenji was born when he read Emerson's essays.

　The translation of “Fujino Sensei” by Takeuchi Yoshimi marks one of the postwar attempts to search for a new interpretation of the story. The reason he started working on a new translation was because he found himself disagreeing with Masuda Wataru and others, who had glorified Lu Xun’s life in Sendai as a foreign student. Takeuchi also disagreed with the interpretation in “Sekibetsu,” a novel by Dazai Osamu.

　Before Takeuchi’s interpretation appeared, previous interpreters valued Lu Xun’s affection for Fujino Sensei to a disproportionate degree. However, Takeuchi did more justice to the dark side which appears throughout Lu Xun's work and to the agonies and despair Lu Xun suffered while in Sendai. Those experiences are implicitly expressed in “Fujino Sensei.” Through his translation, Takeuchi intended to make explicit this dark side and the great writer's agonies. One can clearly see his intention in the translation of the descriptions of the “Gento—jiken.”

　Unreasonable importance had been placed on Fujino Sensei, but Takeuchi treated him as a figure who shows the dark side of the situation surrounding Lu Xun. His intention to emphasize this element can be found in the translations of “性格” in “他的性格是偉大的.” The translation of “Fujino Sensei” by Takeuchi differs from previous interpretations in that his translation,shedding light on the source of Lu Xun's agonies, gives a keener and deeper insight into them. This also indicates that he paved a new way toward the interpretation of "Fujino Sensei."

　Between 1871-81, the years of William D. Howells' editorship, The Atlantic Monthly published monthly reviews of French books and occasional papers on French writers. In the United States, the appreciation of French literature had been slow, because Americans had condemned French literature as corrupt. But Howells and The Atlantic Monthly dared to pay attention to the latest trend in French literature.

　 This unusual editorial attention to French literature was due to two circumstances. First, tms period of the Gilded Age, which was characterized by geographical and psychological dislocation, demanded the “otherness” of foreign cultures. Second, a young trio, including Howells as editor, Henry James as advisor and critic, and Thomas Perry as prolific reviewer, all of whom had lived in Europe and been aspirants for American fiction and students of the new mode of Realism, recognized the importance of the role they would play in the unexplored field of American criticism.

　 The Atlantic Monthly s reviews reflected the contemporary trend of French literature immediately and precisely as a mirror; they denied the obstinate eloquence of Romanticism and appreciated Realism, except for Zola. Though they could not overturn the conservative judgment of people in Boston, theirsteady attention to French writers contributed to the revaluation of French literature at the end of the nineteenth century. We can therefore consider their activities to represent an important turning point in the reception of French literature in the United States.