In contrast to his relative obscurity in Britain and America, Lafcadio Hearn remains an important figure of considerable cultural significance in Japan because of his role as a bridge between the cultures. Hearn was willing to come into different cultural worlds without the common Western prejudices of his day. In Japan, Hearn retold Japanese old stories in order to inform Western readers of traditional Japan at the same time he was a dedicated educator introducing English and American literature to Japanese students. His contribution to Japan's development in such fields was great.
What made Hearn as a person behave in such a way? To understand Hearn's life, it is necessary to follow his literary pilgrimage. Hearn was a writer all through his life. In this thesis, I analyzed his works from the viewpoints of "aestheticism" and "recollection." In the first and the second chapters, I followed his life with the keyword of "wanderer," and discussed his attitude toward "writing." In the core of this theses, I tried to find the causes of negative evaluations of Hearn by mentioning Hearn's anti-Christian attitudes in his writings. In addition, Hearn's understanding of Japanese women in his works was described. In the final chapter, it became clear that Hearn witnessed the profound influence of Chinese on Japanese culture through his works completed in Japan.
Hearn was not only a rootless wanderer but also a forerunner of the writers working in what, to them, would be the "Diaspora." His rootless situation delivered him from an ethnocentric consciousness, and provided him with the eyes open to different cultures though he was physically handicapped by poor eyesight.
本論文は、ラフカディオ･ハーン(Lafcadio Hearn, 1850-1904) が"wandering"(放浪)と共に培ってきた彼独自の文学修行の行程を明らかにし、彼の文学の特徴を再検証するものである。居住場所を変えるごとに、新たなジャンルに挑戦したハーンは、社会派のジャーナリストから、フランス文学の翻訳家、そして地方色の強い小説を経て、異文化の作品の語り直しを中心にする、彼独自の文学のジャンルを形成するに至った。ハーンの文学は、いわば多国籍の文学であり、国家や地域の壁を超え、人間感情の普遍性を訴える文学である。異文化の受容から始まり、それをもとに独自の作品を仕上げる手法は、一世紀も早く文学におけるグローバル化を予見するものであった。