『ウォールデン』における神話的モチーフ
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概要
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Thoreau started the study of myth in the summer of 1841 when he moved to a hut of his own building on the north shore of Walden Pond. When Walden was finally published in 1854, it proved to be a work of a highly mythology-minded person, with its numerous references to the ancient mythology both in the East and the West. It is only natural, therefore, that Sherman Paul take the work mainly as a fable of the renewal of life, or a book of metamorphoses, and that Charles R. Anderson find in its structure "the archetypal monomyth of the hero's retreat from society, his initiation, and final return." However, it is not only in the whole structure of Walden, but in each description of the hero's seemingly casual thoughts and actions at the Pond that we can often detect the mythical motifs of vital importance. Thoreau in Walden lives in two different categories of time--'the eternal Present' and 'the cycle of cosmic time' both of which reject the Jewish-Christian time concept as well as the modern interpretation of the historical past, present, and future. In the cycle of cosmic time, spring and morning are of the most remarkable significance, for they are the time of the creation of 'Cosmos' from 'Chaos,' or the point from which the most memorable actions of human beings date. In contrast, winter and night are closely connected with death (of both body and mind), chaos, and evil. In terms of space, Walden Pond is located in the center of the world. It is symbolically called "sky water," because of its intermediate position between land and sky, and of its reflection of absolute reality above. Thoreau immerses his body and soul in the sacred water and cleanses them away. Bathing in the Pond is, therefore, an important religious exercise for him, a purification rite. Not far away from the Pond is quite a different sphere-a village where people lead "lives of quiet desparation," pursuing ephemeral materialistic pleasures. People often get lost on the road from the village to the Pond on dark nights; but Thoreau never does, even in the pitch-dark woods, because it is the road to his own true self. Constructing a hut on the Pond is another symbolic action imitating that of the people in the Golden Age. Chimney building, among other things, will be compared in its ritual significance with the construction of 'garhapatya' in Vedic rite. It enables the resident of the house to send his pious wishes to heaven in the form of smoke through that vertical construction. The husbandry of the bean field is a sacred art for Thoreau, for it was so in ancient poetry and mythology. He cherishes beans and hoes the field as "a trope for a parablemaker," or as a festival and ceremony by which he is reminded of the sacred origin of the calling. In Walden, the limits between the various realms of life are surmountable as in any mythical stories of metamorphoses. The spheres of men and animals and plants are often mingled with each other without causing any confusion, and Thoreau comes and goes "with a strange liberty in Nature, a part of herself. " Finally, Walden was constructed upon the belief that "the great God Pan is not dead, as was rumored." This book was in fact a bold attempt to revive the time and space of Pan in the modern industrialized civilization.
- 信州大学教養部の論文
- 1974-03-15
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- 『ウォールデン』における神話的モチーフ