Un (1917) written by Ryûnosuke Akutagawa (1892-1927) is a short story, in which a young and an old man of the Heian era have a talk about the destiny and happiness of man in connection with an episode of a contemporary poor woman who comes to be blessed with wealth. This episode has its source in A Tale of a Poor Woman, one of the brief narratives contained in The Konjaku-monogatari-shû (今昔物語集) (1108 ?). Up to this day Un has been studied from the standpoint of its literary characteristics, pertaining only to this narrative in The Konjaku-monogatari-shû. But the narrative itself is only made use of by Akutagawa as a sheer subject-matter for his story. From this point of view, it is wrong to consider that the elucidation of A Tale of a Poor Woman is a sole key to the appreciation of Un in a literary way.
The theme of Un, which presents its peculiar outlook on life in relation to the destiny and happiness of man, has a considerable resemblance to the thought of Maurice Maeterlinck (1862-1949). The composition of this work, chiefly made up of talks between a young and an old man, is, moreover, learned and adopted from the method of composition of Senzamani (1912), a short story by Maksim Gorjkij (1868-1936). In writing Un, Akutagawa was subject to the influence of Maeterlinck and Gorjkij, and Ôgai Mori (1862-1922) is considered to have acted as transmitter for Akutagawa.
Akutagawa was affected in this manner by various literary arts of all ages and countries, and subjoined his own original ideas to it. Thus he succeeded in writing fine and superb historical novels and novelettes.
The paper is composed of four chapters in the aggregate, that is, (I) The World of Un and The Konjaku-monogatari-shû , (2) The Theme of Un and Maeterlinck, ⑶ The Composition of Un and Gorjikij — Ôgai Mori and Ryûnosuke Akutagawa —, and (4) Ryûnosuke Akutagawa’s Method in Historical Novels. In the current issue, however, only the first half of the whole (the first chapter) is printed. The second half (the remaining three chapters) is to be printed in the following issue.
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