川端康成の「掌の小説」の詩学 : 〈短さ〉の考察を通して <査読論文>

This paper concerns to creative principle of Yasunari Kawabata’s “Palm-of-the-Hand Stories", an extreme short form of short story. There have been many directions of research on this genre such as study of its stylistics, classification of its content tendencies, biographical critical approach, etc. However, scholars paid less attention to artistic principle hidden behind the shortness of this form. This study aims to address the following issues: why did Kawabata choose the extreme short form, how did he theoretically deal with this extreme shortness, what techniques he used to handle this shortness. In order to do so, it puts this genre in the historical context－the Neo Sensualism school, examines some Kawabata’s main essays on the principles of “Palmof-the-Hand Stories”from the late Taisho era to the early Showa era and analyzes some typical works to disclose the essence of his creativity. The main argument of this research is that the shortness of this genre is not only a “form” but also a kind of “expression” in itself. In its poetics, there is a combination between the aesthetics of Japanese traditional short poetry such as Haiku, Tanka and Western modernist aesthetics such as B. Croce’s theory on intuition and expression in art.