日本に於ける杜甫

Abstract

It was towards the end of the Heian Period or the beginning of the 12 th century that the works of Tu Fu for the first time attracted the attention of Japanese men of letters. Later, at the end of the Kamakura Period or the opening of the 14 th century, when Japanese priests of the Zen Sect began to travel frequently to China, the works of Tu Fu suddenly became widely read and studied among Zen priests, who were under the influence of prevailing Chinese literary fashions. As that time, as many as three different editions of the works of Tu Fu were printed in Japan, each differing slightly from the other. Anything as lengthy as the complete works of Tu Fu must have been rather difficult to print at that stage in the development of typography in Japan, and we can see from this very fact how great was the demand for the poet's works in those times. In this period, the priest Kokan 虎關, who was famous for his learning, made, in one of his works, some remarks on Tu Fu's poems which, though only framentary, show an understanding that is admirable even when viewed from later times. There were also some priests who wrote commentaries in Japanese on Tu Fu's poems. From the end of the Kamakura Period to the end of the Muromachi Period, that is, to the end of the 16 th century, the works of Tu Fu were held in great respect as one of the most important classics of Chinese literature in Japan. In the Edo Period, the study and appreciation of Chinese literature gradually spread throughout the general public, and with increased facility in the writing of Chinese, it became the vogue to compose Chinese poems in imitation of the originals brought from the mainland. This occasioned a new development. The poems of Tu Fu, though still honored as classics, began to go out of fashion because they were too difficult to be imitated successfully. Japanese readers preferred the works of later Chinese poets, which could be more readily understood and imitated. As the time of the Meiji Restoration and thereafter, however, the situation again changed. Tu Fu has once again come to be highly respected and earnestly studied in Japanese learned and literary worlds. The man who took the lead in this revival was Mori Kainan 森槐南, who left an excellent commentary in Japanese on the works of Tu Fu. In 1899, Sasagawa Rimpû 笹川臨風 published a full length biography of Tu Fu which may perhaps be regarded as the first book in the world on Tu Fu's life witten in accordance with the principles of modern critical scholarship.