英語表現史への試みI : 英語の記述的表現論と歴史的表現論 : 文学的テクストを中心にして

An Essay towards A History of English Expression : An Introduction to a Synchronic and Diachrocic Theory of English Expression

Masui Michio

広島大学文学部紀要

The Hiroshima University studies, Literature Department

This essay is a preliminary attempt at a theoretical description of English expression. 'English expression' as we call it here may be defined as 'expression by means of the English language'; to put it conversely, 'the English language as seen in its expressional and expressive aspects'. We are here concerned with, particularly, the theoretical problems of the English language as a means of expression, denotaitive, evocative, symbolic, and so on. We are further interested to appronch the written English language as manifested in and through English literature: in other words, the written texts of such English expressions as may appear in English literature in particular, from, say, Old English through Middle English down to Modern English literature. Professor Wilbur Marshall Urban of Yale University says with emphasis on expression that reality as such does not come into being until it is expressed, and goes so far as to say that "Life as it is merely lived is senseless... we may have a direct apprehension or intuition of life, but the meaning of life can neither be apprehended nor expressed except in language of some kind. Such expression or communication is part of the life process itself" (Language and Reality, p. 21). This statement of Professor Urban's may with due modification be applied to the various and meaningful expressions of English literature in that a poet or a writer may endeavour to express or represent in language his imaginative, apprehension or direct intuition of life and the world in his work of art whether it is a poem or a novel. ...

English [ 830 ]

English and American literature [ 930 ]

jpn

広島大学文学部

[ISSN] 0437-5564

[NCID] AN00213701