詩は世界を創るか : 中唐における詩と造物

Abstract

The fourfold perriodization of Tang literature was born of the attribution of an absolute value to High Tang 盛唐 poetry, and consequentiy the middle Tang 中唐 tends to be regarded as a period in which poetry had passed its zenith and falling into decline. But when considered in relation to the literature of the Song and later, the middle Tang displays in various aspects of literature an innovativeness that had a decisive influence on the literature of next age. Here we shall consider the way of thinking that would regard the human act of composing poetry as being equivalent or superior to the creator's act of creating the world. This idea seems to have become quite prevalent in the Song (Kazuyoshi Yamamoto, 山本和義 "The poet and the creator", Academia-Literature and Language 27, Nanzan University, 1979), but it probably first appeared in the middle Tang and may be considered to have coincided with major changes in literature itseif during the Middle Tang. Han Yu 韓愈, Meng Jiao 孟郊, Bo Ju-yi 白居易, Li He 李賀 and other avantgarde poets at the time held the view in regard to their own writings and the poets of other writers of similar inclinations that poetry creates the world by means of words and that in doing so it competes with the creator and deprives him of his appointed task. Since the poet is at odds with the creator and sometimes even destroys the natural order of things, he is punished by Heaven and at times made to suffer in the present world (--this leads to the theories of "fa-fen-zhu-shu" 發憤著書 and "shi-qiong-er-hou-gong" 詩窮而後工), but at the same time Heaven has a need for the poet who creates a world by means of words and will at times send him out into the world with his mission as a poet. The reason for this interpretation of the act of composing poetry was probably that the established forms of literature had collapsed and writing poetry had come to be looked upon as the lonely and creative undertaking of the individual poet. The poet was liberated from the norms of the psyche and in the midst of chaos he would confront the world with language as his only resource. The birth of the concept of 'ku-yin' 苦吟 or "laborious composition" during this period is also connected with this state of affairs. An example of this idea reflected in actual composition may be seen in Han Yu's "Nan-shan shi" 南山詩, which represents a tenacious attempt to produce by means of language an entity on a par with the mountain Zhong-nan-shan 終南山 created by the creator. While, some poets attempt to describe what is invisible in the real world. It also derives from this new concept on poetry. (Based on the English summary of "Transactions of the International conference of Orientalists in Japan No. xxxvi 1991")