Minota-Jirō-Tomoduna's death in the third act of Kanhasshū-tsunagi-uma has been often interpreted as suicide for remonstration or death in place of Minamoto-no-Yorihira. But his death seems to be quite different from suicide for remonstration in other plays of Chikamatsu-Monzaemon. If it is a sacrifice for Yorihira, it is unclear why it must be done. But it will make sense to interpret his death as an attempt to petition Minamoto-no-Yorimitsu for Yorihira's life by proving that he was a virtuous master for whom his follower was willing to die. In this sense it can be regarded as a sort of legal defense to appeal for a retrial of Yorihira's case.

The Motoori school of kokugaku had been settled in the Kishū Domain since Motoori-Ōhira moved to Wakayama. There Ōhira adopted Hamada-Uchitō as his son-in-law to make the kyōka poet his successor. Motoori-Uchitō had ambition to establish the public institution of kokugaku to get ahead of other influential scholars in the domain. In his plan he advocated a philological approach to waka poetry based on Shintoism while insisting on his school's educational advantages. Uchitō became the head of the kokugaku office of the Kishū Domain who laid the foundation for modern kokugaku but who was responsible for its esoteric and nationalistic character.

“Ango-shimoda-gaishi” (1954) is an essay which Ango Sakaguchi contributed to the pamphlet of Kurofune, an opera featuring Tôjin Okichi. The essay is written about Townsend Harris, the American consul general whom Okichi was chosen to serve. Compared with its source material, however, it is found that facts are mixed up with fiction in some important parts of the account. This paper explores the author's method of making historical fiction out of facts.

This paper treats the critical power of laughter advocated by Mitsuo Nakamura in “Warai-nosōshitsu” (1948) and Fūzoku-shōsetsu-ron (1950). Nakamura, who criticized Katai Tayama’s “Futon” as the typical instance of modernism as a farce, discovered laughter's potential for epistemological relativism through the work of Henri Bergson. His goal was to become a “critic of farce” who could regard literary history as a chain of parodies. A review of his theory provides an opportunity to reconsider a critical method for analyzing laughter in literature.