ソローとフロスト : 死生観をめぐって(岸英司名誉教授追悼記念号)

概要

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Henry David Thoreau and Robert Frost pursued the meaning of life by living close to nature throughout their lives. It is the purpose of this paper to discuss their views of life and death by analyzing their works. Thoreau's view on life and death is ambiguous. He considers death trivial and insignificant, but at the same time regards it as an expressive pause in the music. Witnessing some dead bodies on the rocks in Cape Cod, however, gave him serious thought about the life and death of men. Sorrow caught him and made him think the spirit remains without suffering after it parts from the body. Frost considers death nothing but an event in life. He does not find any special meaning in dying as is clear from his poems, "The Death of the Hired Man," "Out, Out," and "Home Burial." Man has to meet his death alone, and after his death people around him turn to their daily affairs without particular sentiment. To both Thoreau and Frost, living is the most important thing. Doing the work conscientiously entrusted to each individual man provides him with peaceful death. Both of these men devoted their lives to fulfil their callings and concluded their mortal careers satisfactorily.