Kitamura Tōkoku (1868-1894), as is well known, adapted Manfred in his Hōrai kyoku [Mt Hōrai: A Play] (1891.5). There have been, however, few studies that tried to prove the influence of Manfred upon Tōkoku’s critical essays. The purpose of this study is to examine the meaning of the reception of Manfred in Tōkoku’s essay ‘Shinki-myōhen wo ronzu’ [An Essay on the Changing Mind] (1892.9); an essay in which Tōkoku can be said to have revealed how he himself became a Christian.
This essay of Tōkoku’s discussed how Mongaku, a Buddhist of the medieval period, changed his mind. Tōkoku adapted some images from Manfred and used them to represent Mongaku's changing mind. Firstly, Tōkoku absorbed from Manfred the image of the internal conflict between ‘deity’ and ‘dust’ and developed it into a necessary condition of the changing mind. Secondly, Tōkoku applied almost directly the image of Manfred to Mongaku before he had changed his mind. Thirdly, Tōkoku intentionally presented the image of Mongaku after changing his mind as an inverse image of Manfred, in which Tōkoku probably implied the image of the repenting Christian.
These results lead us to the conclusion that in this religious essay of Tōkoku’s, he intended to describe the drastic change from Byronism to anti-Byronism as another instance of the changing mind, as represented by Manfred’s conversion or Mongaku’s repentance. We can say that Tōkoku’s reception of Manfred in this essay would indicate his love-hate relationship with Byronism.
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