The goal of the project is to offer a comprehensive account in English of the history, extent and depth of Japanese engagement with Irish literature. Our initial aim was to cover the entire range of the Japanese critical and creative reception of Irish literature up to the present day: the major figures, Yeats, Joyce, Beckett and Heaney, and the key figure of Lafcadio Hearn(小泉八雲); and the major literary forms: the novel, drama, and poetry. By the end of the first period of research(March 2025) we planned to have compiled a working bibliography of materials published on Irish literature by Japanese writers, scholars and critics from the Meiji period to the Showa period. We also wanted to establish a network of contacts with scholars from abroad, and invite to Japan Michael Cronin, a key figure in translation studies in Ireland and in contemporary studies of the transnational and islandness, both important strands within our investigation.

　In our preliminary research we discovered so much material within the initial period of engagement with Ireland, in the Meiji, Taisho and early Showa periods, and so many significant Japanese literary figures whose work was influenced by their encounter with Irish writing that we decided to limit the temporal scope of the project, while maintaining our goal of offering a comprehensive account of the Japanese reception of Irish literature. A figure such as Sei Ito(伊藤整), for example, emerged as significant within our research in the way his work engaged with James Joyce as one of Joyce’s early translators, and also the way Joyce’s work informed Ito’s ideas about modernizing the Japanese novel.

　The goal of the research project is now to offer a comprehensive account in English of Japanese critical and creative engagement with the literature of writers from the island of Ireland in the period 1885 to 1939. The reception of Irish literature in Japan will be used as a lens through which to re-assess how, at a time of intense modernization and national reconfiguring in Japan, translation in its various forms and with its differing agendas; textual/linguistic, as well as theatrical and literary transposition and adaptation, bowdlerization, abridging and editing and anthologizing, within the transnational context of colonialism and anti-colonialism, nationalism and nation-building, informed the shaping of a modern Japanese literary identity. In their engagement with such Irish writers such as W.B. Yeats, Lady Gregory, J.M. Synge, James Joyce and Maria Edgeworth, among others, we will examine the work and influence of key figures such as Lafcadio Hearn, Bansui Doi(土井晩翠), Kan Kikuchi(菊池寛), Mineko Matsumura(松村みね子), Sei Ito and Ryunosuke Akutagawa(芥川龍之介).

【研究代表者】

・アンドルー・フィッツサイモンズ　：学習院大学文学部英語英米文化学科・教授

【所員】

・吉野　由利　：学習院大学文学部英語英米文化学科・教授

【客員所員】

・真鍋　晶子　：滋賀大学経済学部・教授

・下楠　昌哉　：同志社大学文学部・教授

・後藤　千宏　：学習院大学文学部英語英米文化学科・助教

【研究補助者】

・草野　元斗　：学習院大学大学院英語英米文学専攻・博士後期課程3年

・河野　桜子　：学習院大学大学院英語英米文学専攻・博士後期課程1年

・諸坂　宮果　：学習院大学大学院英語英米文学専攻・博士後期課程1年

2024年度：オンライン・ミーティング2回を実施した。さらに1回を実施予定である。海外調査1件を行った。8月、IASIL 2024 Conference（国際アイルランド文学協会2024年度年次大会）を開催・運営し、20以上の国と地域から出席者があり活発な意見交換が行われた。（詳細は『学習院大学人文科学研究所所報』2024年度版に掲載されています）

次年度以降に掲載いたします。