風土の文学に及ぼす影響
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The effects of climate on human mind has been recognized in the classical age. Hippocrates and Aristotle had dealt with the effects of environment on human mind and body. The modern theory of climatic influences on literary production may be ascribed to Greek origin. In the sixteenth century Jean Bodin had examined carefully the relation between climatic and geographical conditions, and the morals, manners and customs of the people living under them. He was frequently quoted by Burton in his Anatomy of Melancholy. The theory generally prevailed in the domain of aesthetics in the end of the seventeenth century. And a timely impetus was given to the development of the study of social environment by Sir William Temple in his Essay upon the Ancient and Modern Learning (1690) and Of Poetry (1690). He observes that "among these many Dacays, there is yet one sort of Poetry that seems to have succeeded much better with our Moderns than any of the rest, which is Dramatick, or that sort of the Stage. ... Yet I am deceived if our English has not in some kind excelled both the Modern and the Ancient, which has been by Force of a Vein Natural perhaps to our Country, and which with us is called Humour, a Word peculiar to our Language too, and hard to be expressed in any other. ... Shakespeare was the first that opened this Vein upon our Stage, ... This may proceed from the Native Plenty of our Soyl, the unequalness our Clymat, as well as the Ease of our Government, and the Liberty of Professing Opinions and Factions, which perhaps our Neighbours may have about them, but may come in time to be extinguish 't." (Of Poetry) His homage to the superiority of English drama may well have been influenced by Saint-Evremond, who gave enthusiastic praise to English comedy in his essay 'De la Comedie angloise' (1677). Sir William Temple's theory about the connection between the variable English weather and the odd humour of Englishmen became a trite remark of English criticism. In the eighteenth century we find many critics who enunciated similar views that emphasized the importance of the critic's task to study the the historical environment of a work of art. Some of them thought there was an intimate relationship between genius and climate, and attributed the advancement of learning in Greece and Rome to climatic influences. That poetry flourished best in the South had almost become a fixed idea. But their belief was greatly shaken by the discovery of the northerner Ossian in the second half of the eighteenth century.
- 一般財団法人日本英文学会の論文
- 1961-10-31
一般財団法人日本英文学会 | 論文
- Mats Ryden and Sverker Brorstrom: The Be/Have Variation with Intransitives in English: With Special Reference to the Late Modern Period, Stockholm: Almqvist & Wiksell, 1987, 265pp
- 小野茂著, 『英語史の諸問題』, 南雲堂, 昭和59年, 287pp., \4,000
- 2.Jean de MeunとChaucer-De Consolation Philosophiaeの翻訳(第二室,日本英文学会第52回大会報告)
- Susan Wittig : Stylistic and Narrative Structures in the Middle English Romances, Austin and London (Univ. of Texas Press), 1978., ix+223pp.
- Norman E. Eliason : The Language of Chaucer's Poetry : An Appraisal of the Verse, Style, and Structure. (Anglistica, XVII), Copenhagen (Rosenkilde and Bagger), 1972, 250pp.