蟬の詩に見る詩の轉變

Abstract

The cicada, with its delicate figure, short life, and mysterious molting, finds itself in a number of literary motifs. They were employed as early as the pre-Qin era. In Chinese classical poetry, the meanings of the cicada were practically limited to the following two : either its singing indicates the season of autumn, or its sustenance of life by nothing but dew represents moral cleanliness. Although the usage of such literary motifs was fixed in early times, the poems in which they appear were to change. In the Jian-an (建安) period, there was the genre of the prose poem, "fu" (賦), in which the poet's own circumstances were projected in the pure but poor cicada, reflecting the growing consciousness of Shidafu (士大夫). In Southern Dynasties, cicadas were one of the subject matters in the "object poetry." (詠物詩) While such poetry was only a game played in the court there, in Northern Dynasties the motif was featured in more serious poems, in which cicadas were metaphors of the poet in sorrowful exile. The court literature of early Tang basically continued that of the Southern Dynasties, and at first glance the cicada poems of this time resemble the "object poetry" of the prior period. The poets, however, are now comparing themselves as court officials to cicadas. And the poem by the imprisoned Luo Bin-wang (駱賓王), which expresses his emotional despare, is full of pathos, reflecting one characteristic of the poetry of this period. In Tang poetry also, the cicada represents the season of autumn, but Du Fu (杜甫) takes a step further, and uses it in a symbolic manner, rather than for a mere descriptive purpose. In the poem of Li Shang-yin (李商隱), the cicada again metaphorically signifies the poet. The idea is expressed, however, not with self-righteous as in the Luo Bin-wang poem, but with self-awareness, which is comingled with self-ridicule. The cicada motif itself remains the same, but the poems in which it appears go through various changes.