佐久間 みかよ

This paper aims to reconsider the establishment and ultimate demise of the Transcendentalist Club in terms of the period's political background and burgeoning journalism. In particular, it focuses on one of Emerson's lectures, "The Young American," and its subsequent publication to consider the contradiction inherent in American thoughts and transformation of 19th century American journalism. Emerson delivered a lecture titled "The Young American" in 1844. The original lecture indicates that his understanding of isolationism was inspired by political discourse; it was not explicitly political but was intended to influence politically minded American citizens. While Emerson was away to Europe, American foreign policy began to adopt principles of expansionism, supported by the Young America movements whose center was in New York. At that time, New York became a metropolis for culture that surpassed Boston and Philadelphia and its journalism tended to be political. Emerson's former nationalistic view encountered this new dimension and he omitted nationalistic parts of his lecture "The Young American" when he republished it in 1849. It marked the transformation of Emerson's thoughts and also revealed the contradiction inherent in the project seeking "American thoughts."

Mikayo Sakuma examines Herman Melville’s aesthetic appreciation of the natural world and his moral interest in it. Her account extends from animals’ visual images to cultural incidents that impacted Melville. After completing his phenomenal work of sea literature, Moby-Dick, Melville traveled the Levant region and encountered Oriental culture, which provided him with additional opportunities to become aware of animals in different cultural contexts. His last long pilgrimage poem Clarel exhibits a human-animal communal world. By following Melville’s trajectory of animal representation, the essay elucidates his awareness of nature and culture toward broader recognition of ecology.

19世紀中頃のアメリカの文学状況を当時進行する音楽的環境の充実とあわせて考察した。これまで等閑視されていたエマソンの音楽性に注目し、エマソンと音楽との接点をトランセンデンタリストの中のドワイトという音楽評論家の影響として指摘した。その上で、当時アメリカのおかれていた状況とあわせて、エマソンの孤立と共存という感性と思考について論じた。

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