韓愈「孟東野を送る序」について : 「不平」概念の分析を中心として

Abstract

Han Yu 韓愈, one of the most famous scholars of the mid-Tang Dynasty in China, has a writing titled "Song Meng Dong-ye xu" 送孟東野序, which is one of the most well-known works in his writings. There appears a word "Buping" 不平 in this work. The meaning of this word is, in general, accepted as discontent, dissatisfaction, or complaint. However, it seems that this word has several meanings. Regarding the interpretation of the word "Bu-ping", no commonly accepted opinion has been established for ages. The purpose of this paper is to clarify the concept of this word. In the past research, two interpretations can be found about the word "Buping". One is that the word is interpreted as a meaning of "discontent", which is related to Meng Jiao's 孟郊 sorrow for not taking a high position. This thought is based on a notion of the "Fa fen zhu shu" 發憤著書. The other interpretation is that the word is used to mean "pleasure" as well as discontent, judging from the context. This interpretation was pointed out by Qian Zhong-shu 錢鍾書. Considering those two interpretations of the word "Bu-ping" and their problems, I have reached my new theory in order to understand the word correctly. In short, at the beginning Han Yu used the word to mean "discontent" relating to Meng Jiao's sorrow for not taking a high position. However, he intentionally extended the meaning of the word later, adding the meaning of "pleasure" in order to encourage him. In the past, in the history of literary criticism, it has been common to link Han Yu with the idea of "Fa fen zhu shu". However, we will have to think about this again.