This paper focuses on Japanese representations of America in the works of Sawako Ariyoshi (1931-1984) in contrast to those of her contemporaries. In the postwar period, it was common for Japanese writers to write about America through the lens of the Occupation. Ariyoshi’s novel, Kiyū no shi, however, appears to diverge from this trend. Later published as the drama, Furu amerika ni sode wa nurasaji (1970), Kiyū no shi first appeared in Bessatsu Bungeishunjū in 1961. This novel recounts the life of the legendary yūjo by the name of Kiyū, who is known to have committed suicide in protest against being sold to an American merchant during the late Edo period. By suggesting that the Kiyū legend was concocted by Jōito, anti-alienists, Ariyoshi dramatically rewrites the existing texts on Kiyū. A comparative investigation of variants of the Kiyū stories, together with Ariyoshi’s essay “As a Herstorian” (1978), sends a critical message about what this rewriting of the old tale means: for Ariyoshi, narratives of national identity cannot be separated from their investment in, and appropriations of, representations of women. In situating this text in the context of postwar discourses on America, I argue that it forces us to rethink how narratives of occupation tell the story of Japanese women as the story of the nation in subordination to foreign occupiers. Juxtaposing Kiyū-no-shi against other contemporary writings of America, this paper rereads this novel as a critical response not only to preceding texts and interpretations of Kiyū but also to contemporary representations of women under Occupation.

　Cette étude traite de l’écrivain Georges Rodenbach (1855-1898) et du peintre Xavier Mellery (1845-1921), et prend en considération les correspondances entre les oeuvres de ces deux symbolistes belges. Bien qu’un rapport direct n'ait jamais été décelé entre ceux-ci, les oeuvres de Mellery montrent une analogie étonnante, comme si elles étaient la paraphrase picturale de la « ville morte grise » que Rodenbach avait si souvent décrite.

　On mettra d’abord en lumière le « mythe nordique » représenté dans les oeuvres littéraires de Rodenbach. Celui-ci est notamment évoqué par l’image de Bruges en tant que la ville morte du Nord; image fort appréciée auprès de ses lecteurs principaux, les parisiens, pour son « exotisme du Nord ».

　Ainsi, on comparera Mellery et Rodenbach en se concentrant sur les similarités de ces deux évocations de l’image nordique. Quand Rodenbach veut souligner la particularité de la culture flamande, il mentionne et loue souvent l'art des primitifs flamands. Toutefois, le monde grisaille et désert de Rodenbach est plus précisément représenté dans L’Âme des choses, la série de dessins clairs-obscurs de Xavier Mellery.

　En outre, L’Âme des choses, qui dépeint des sujets quotidiens de façon réaliste dans le cadre du symbolisme, hérite de la tradition réaliste de la « peinture du Nord » et on peut trouver de nombreux peintres symbolistes montrant pareille inclination artistique dans l’école belge. Rodenbach et Mellery créèrent ainsi une expression analogue au travers de deux disciplines distinctes en se rattachant tous deux au « Nord »; cette tendance commune pent en effet être considérée en tant que l’« esprit du temps » dans le symbolisme belge.

　Au cours du XIXe siècle et au début du XXe, de nombreux artistes étrangers ou originaires d’autres provinces, c’est-à-dire « non breton », s'établissent en Bretagne, où se rassemble une colonie artistique qui s’appellera l’École de Pont- Aven. Mais celle-ci est longtemps ignorée dans le cadre des études régionales, car il n’y existe pas traditionnellement de peinture à l’huile. Dans la situation précédente, Charles Chassé (1883-1965), écrivain et professeur d’anglais, est un précurseur qui a ouvert la voie à l’étude sur Gauguin et la Bretagne. En effet, il a publié en 1921 Gauguin et le groupe de Pont-Aven qui décrivait une figure vivante du peintre avant son départ pour Tahiti.

　Cet article analyse l’intention de l’écrivain de mettre cet école artistique dans le contexte de l’art breton. En premier lieu, il rappelle ses divers ouvrages dont le caractère académique est moins accentué : Les visages de la Bretagne (1941) et En parcourant la Bretagne (1951). Ces guides touristiques présentent l’ensemble de l’art local au sens le plus large. Aprés avoir exposé comment élargir la défintion de l’art breton, Chassé montre le processus par lequel l’École de Pont-Aven s’inscrit dans les études bretonnes. Il a donc servi d’intermédiaire dans les échanges entre l’histoire de l’art français et le régionalisme breton.

　Cette étude aborde la relation entre l’élaboration du point de vue du discours narratif dans L’Ile de la mort (Shi-no-shima) de Takehiko Fukunaga et celle d'André Gide dans les Faux-Monnayeurs, à travers une comparaison des deux textes.

　Les caractéristiques de l’élaboration de ce point de vue dans L’Ile de la mort sont les deux suivantes. D’abord, ce roman est formé du point de vue de plusieurs narrateurs. Ensuite, l’auteur utilise un romancier qui prépare le même roman que lui, et qui relativise son roman. Ces techniques ressemblent à la méthode du point de vue que Gide expérimente dans Les Faux-Monnayeurs. Cette ressemblance est considérée comme le résultat de la réception consciente de Gide par Fukunaga, parce que ce dernier confie qu’il a pris conscience du « roman » de Gide, particulièrement de la méthode du regard pluriel dans L’Ile de la mort.

　Cependant, le thème que chaque auteur poursuit à l’aide de cette méthode semble différent. En relativisant la réalité grâce à l’utilisation de la méthode du kalëidoscope, Gide poursuit « la liberté » en se délivrant de valeurs toutes faites. De son côté, l’auteur japonais utilise cette méthode comme une façon de retrouver le temps perdu ―thème principal de son roman― en reliant des « passés » divers au sein d’une réalité synthétique. Il est ainsi possible d’affirmer que Fukunaga adapte la méthode de Gide à son propre sujet : la reconstruction du passé perdu.

　Although Lu Xun said in his Introduction for The Selection of Beardsley's Illustrations that he took “passages from the articles of Arthur Symons and Holbrook Jackson as the explanation for the characteristics of Beardsley”, his Introduction has generally been considered as his original work.

　This paper first introduces how Lu Xun and the Chinese accepted Beardsley's illustrations in the 1920s. Second, on comparing Lu’s Introduction with Jackson’s The Eighteen Nineties and Symons’s Introduction for The Art of Aubrey Beardsley in detail, this paper concludes that Lu’s Introduction is a collection of passages from the essays of Symons and Jackson.

　One of the reasons Lu chose these two essays from many studies about Beardsley is that he regarded Hisao Honma as one of the most reliable scholars of English Literature in Japan. Honma stressed the developmental side of the Decadent. Therefore it was natural for Lu to be influenced by Honma's opinion even if Lu disliked the Decadent as was generally believed.

　On the other hand, The Selection of Beardsley’s Illustrations is Lu’s collaboration with his brother Zhou Zuo-ren. This is drawn from two facts : (1) Lu did not have Jackson’s book, but Zuo-ren did and(2) Zuo-ren was associated with the Shirakaba group that introduced Beardsley’s illustration to Japan, and it is possible that Lu, in the beginning, had been affected by Beardsley along with Zuo-ren.

　What is the significance of demons and ghosts in the modern age? This paper will examine the interest Zhou Zuoren and Yanagita Kunio had in the use of supernatural beings in literature and folklore. It will discuss the views these thinkers held and the quite different conclusions they came to.

　Zhou Zuoren (1885-1962) believed demons and ghosts were products of human fear and felt that studying them would lead to a deeper understanding of the Chinese people and their culture. His conclusion, however, was that people's fear was ultimately unhealthy. A prolific translator of Greek literature, Zhou Zouren advocated the introduction of Greek mythology with its more human, less fearful, and more beautiful gods.

　Yanagita Kunio (1875-1962) was a Japanese contemporary of Zhou Zuoren. Often called the “father of Japanese native ethnology,” Kunio believed that through studying the strange, mysterious and fantastic elements of folklore one could better understand the mindset and character of the common people. Unlike Zhou Zuoren, however, he did not try to reform Japanese culture by introducing foreign elements. His desire was quite the opposite ――to uncover the ancient beliefs of the Japanese people.

　This paper discusses these two intellectuals, their views on demons and ghosts, and discusses the reasons behind their opposing conclusions.

　Chinese writer and artist Feng Zikai (1898-1975) is well known for his cartoons and essays. As a cartoonist, he was much influenced by the Japanese painter and poet Takehisa Yumeji. As an essayist, he was greatly influenced by Natsume Sōseki. Sōseki’s presence can especially be found in his early shorter works. In this paper, I will examine the influences from Sōseki’s “Kaki” (1909) on Feng’s “Huazhan de Riji” (1927 “Diary of Huazhan”).

　“Kaki” is a short story about two little children, Kichan and Yokichi. Kichan's father is a bank clerk, Kichan’s family looks down on Yokichi's. Yokichi’s father is a carpenter, and they live in a terraced house just behind Kichan’s house. Kichan and Yokichi are on bad terms. They often quarrel over the hedge. The author portrayed the confrontation between these two families.

　In the first chapter of “Huazhan de Riji” Feng also describes two children. Huazhan is a young boy, and Zheng Deling is the daughter of a neighbour. The two children are on friendly terms with each other. Nevertheless, Huazhan has doubts about the divisions between families, and about the distance between children and adults. However, the theme of “Huazhan de Riji” is similar to that of “Kaki”. Apart from the contrasting portrayals of the relationships between the neighbours, both works feature the motifs of “laughter” and “crying”.

　In the second chapter, the author sketches, from Huazhan’s point of view, the scene of a haircut session in his house. This “barber” is a similar motif to the “female hairdresser” in “Kaki”. And the distance between children and adults is also the subject matter.

　“Huazhan de Riji” bears a striking resemblance to the technique and the theme of “Kaki”. This short piece of Feng is strongly influenced by Sōseki. In adopting the subject and the technique of a predecessor, Feng recreates his own story from his own experiences. This is an important characteristics of his literature.

　In the 1910s in Japan, attempts were made to perform European operas by translating their lyrics into Japanese. One of the leaders of the movement, Kobayashi Aiyû (1881–1945) translated 15 librettos for grand and comic operas during the decade. Although some of the pieces from those works were widely sung in prewar Japan, there have been few studies about Kobayashi’s translation.

　In this paper, we will discuss the libretto of Franz von Suppé’s comic opera Boccaccio, translated by Kobayashi in 1915 at its Japan premier, to understand how Kobayashi rendered lyrics with meters and rhymes into non-accentual Japanese language.

　Although a song from the work, “Beatori nêchan” (“Holde Schöne, hör diese Töne”), is still known today, we find that the lyrics of the piece in Kobayashi’s libretto are more dignified than today’s colloquial version.

　Prosodic analysis suggests that Kobayashi used the English translation of the libretto (1880, by Dexter Smith) as a direct source, rather than its original text written in German (1879). Therefore, Kobayashi’s lyrics have the same alteration of versification from the German libretto as the English version. Moreover, Kobayashi sometimes seems to have ignored the syllable number required by Suppé’s score. Accordingly, his lyrics presented some difficulty in singing so that singers might have to alter the wordings.

　Despite all these problems, Kobayashi was good at songs about love or nostalgia. Therefore, “Koi wa yasashii nobe no hanayo” (“Hab’ ich nur deine Liebe”) from the same work has been sung in his original lyrics until today.