This paper analyzes Genji-monogatari-uta-kakinuki in the library of Leiden University in the Netherlands from the viewpoint of editorial philology, a new discipline developed in Europe and America. The theory of performative transcription in editorial philology reveals that Genji-monogatari has been incessantly reworked by plural agents in diverse contexts since it was written by the author. It is a polyphonic text which consists of conflicted meanings historically multilayered through the acts of transcription and compilation.

“Tabi-ni-yande-yume-ha-kareno-wo-kakemeguru” was Matsuo-Bashō's last haiku poem written four days before his death. It has been often interpreted as a farewell poem he left to sum up his life on the road. According to Oi-nikki, however, he composed it not on his deathbed but just on his sickbed. Then with no intention of making it the last word for his wandering life, the poet must have worked on it while imagining himself vigorously crossing Kuragari-tōge. By examining the works Bashō had created since his arrival in Osaka, this paper will show the possibility that he wrote the poem as a greeting song to Kawachino or Osaka.

The aim of this paper is to make it clear how Yukio Mishima's critical view of sexology was reflected in his 1949 novel Kamen-no-kokuhaku. In the novel the author exposed the limitations of sexology in understanding homosexuality while referring to discourses concerning its innate or acquired nature, the medical treatment of it, and so on. Through the coming out of the narrator “I” the novel represented homosexuality as something irreducible to any medical definition against the grain of the contemporary hegemony of sexology.