Contained in:
Book Chapter

幻の春の声. 近現代日本文学における「亀鳴く」/ The illusory voice of the spring: the motif of ‘crying turtle’ in modern and contemporary Japanese literarure

  • Diego Cucinelli

The turtle (kame) is of great importance in East Asian culture and it is seen as a supernatural creature. In Japanese literature, we can find examples of the turtle in works dating back to the Nara period, such as Tangokuni fudoki and Nihonshoki. Just like the crane, the turtle is a symbol of longevity. However, from the Kamakura period a new and unique interpretation of the turtle as the “singing/crying turtle” makes its appearance. Of this topos, known as kame naku, we can find only very few examples in literature until the Meiji era and the most known are the waka anthologies Shinsen waka rokujō and Fuboku wakashō, and Kyokutei Bakin’s kigo collection Haikai saijiki shiorigusa. However, from the beginning of the modern age, kame naku has been used by many poets as a kigo connected to spring and its frequency has hugely increased. After the war, it began to appear not only in poetry but also in novels and essays. The best known examples of this being Mishima Yukio’s short novel Chūsei, Uchida Hyakken’s essay Kame naku ya, Kawakami Hiromi’s work Oboreru. Using kame naku as a keyword, in this paper we will analyze the attitudes and approaches of modern and contemporary poets and novelists toward the topos.

  • Keywords:
  • season word (kigo); fantastic; turtle; modern and contemporary Japanese literature,
+ Show More

Diego Cucinelli

University of Florence, Italy - ORCID: 0000-0002-3773-2921

PDF
  • Publication Year: 2020
  • Pages: 29-50
  • Content License: CC BY 4.0
  • © 2020 Author(s)

XML
  • Publication Year: 2020
  • Content License: CC BY 4.0
  • © 2020 Author(s)

Chapter Information

Chapter Title

幻の春の声. 近現代日本文学における「亀鳴く」/ The illusory voice of the spring: the motif of ‘crying turtle’ in modern and contemporary Japanese literarure

Authors

Diego Cucinelli

Language

Japanese

DOI

10.36253/978-88-5518-260-7.02

Peer Reviewed

Publication Year

2020

Copyright Information

© 2020 Author(s)

Content License

CC BY 4.0

Metadata License

CC0 1.0

Bibliographic Information

Book Title

Tracing Pathways 雲路

Book Subtitle

Interdisciplinary Studies on Modern and Contemporary East Asia

Editors

Diego Cucinelli, Andrea Scibetta

Peer Reviewed

Number of Pages

156

Publication Year

2020

Copyright Information

© 2020 Author(s)

Content License

CC BY 4.0

Metadata License

CC0 1.0

Publisher Name

Firenze University Press

DOI

10.36253/978-88-5518-260-7

ISBN Print

978-88-5518-259-1

eISBN (pdf)

978-88-5518-260-7

Series Title

Studi e saggi

Series ISSN

2704-6478

Series E-ISSN

2704-5919

516

Fulltext
downloads

267

Views

Export Citation

1,297

Open Access Books

in the Catalogue

1,746

Book Chapters

3,070,547

Fulltext
downloads

3,973

Authors

from 817 Research Institutions

of 63 Nations

61

scientific boards

from 334 Research Institutions

of 42 Nations

1,139

Referees

from 343 Research Institutions

of 36 Nations