The Revival of Great Literary Figures ：Bringing Back Ryunosuke Akutagawa

LEE, Minhee

doi:2020.11.1.167

The Journal of Japanese Language Literature Studies > Volume 11(1); 2020 > Article

Special Issue

Border Crossings: The Journal of Japanese-Language Literature Studies 2020;11(1): 167-184.
doi: https://doi.org/10.22628/bcjjl.2020.11.1.167

The Revival of Great Literary Figures ：Bringing Back Ryunosuke Akutagawa

Minhee LEE

Research Professor of the Korea University BK21 Four China-Japan Education Research Group

呼び出される｢Ryunosuke｣と甦る｢文豪たち｣

李敏姬

(韓国)高麗大学校BK21中日敎育硏究団硏究敎授。日本近代文学。

Correspondence Minhee LEE ,Email: minhee72@korea.ac.kr

Published online: 30 December 2020.

This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial License ( http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

ABSTRACT

After the 2011 Great East Japan Earthquake, the life and work of modern Japanese writer Ryunosuke Akutagawa was referenced in British writer David Peace’s 2012 essay After Tragedy, Before Tragedy, part of a collection titled Nonetheless March Again published simultaneously in Japan, the US, and the UK in commemoration of the first anniversary of the Great East Japan Earthquake. The consideration of Ryunosuke did not stop there, as Peace engaged in a lengthier exploration in After Ryunosuke, Before Ryunosuke in 2014, followed by Patient X：The Case-Book of Ryunosuke Akutagawa in 2019. This study examines the significance of the form of modern literature that has recently become current in Japan, focusing on the way that Akutagawa’s oeuvre has been revived as a form of “disaster literature.”

Keywords: Akutagawa Ryunosuke, Translation, Parody, Disaster Literature, World Literature

キ―ワ―ド: 芥川竜之介, 翻訳, パロディー, 災難文学, 世界文学