「報徳」言説の語態

Abstract

Most studies on Ninomiya Sontoku (1787-1856) and his thought- known as "Hotoku" thought- have considered what are the substantial contents of "Hotoku" discourse. This paper intends to take up "Ninomiyaou-Yawa" and to reinterpret it from the viewpoint of the actual situation. Sontoku usually spoke to his audience (farmers and pupils) about things and happenings familiar to them. He then used various examples, metaphors, parables and allegorical stories in his speech. His such speeches thus consisted of "Ninomiyaou-Yawa". Hence, I direct my attention to "speaking scene" and use the notion "speaking attitude (gotai)" as the key concept in interpreting this text. I coined this term under the influence of Roman Jakobson (1896-1982), who emphasized the importance not of substantial contents but speaking style (including the speaking scene, sound, shape, context and so on). This paper shows that Sontoku referred to and spoke about daily life as an "image" that brings things and happenings to life. He thought that daily life did not have a fixed, objective and substantial meaning but fluid and polysemous meanings depending on the human context (jindo). He spoke of the diverse versions of daily life on the imaginary horizon in his allegorical stories.