A Comparative Study of Religious Aspects of Modern Japanese Literature and Transcendental Philosophy of American Nineteenth Literature with Special Attention to Gender

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Last fiscal year, making use of the traveling expenses of the research subsidy, I visited New York State, U.S.A and collected many data, especially, photographs of the land and the buildings which are associated with Herman Melville. This year I visited the French Polynesia and chased his footprints. These are to be important material for publication of a planned book concerning Herman Melville, which will come 2008 from a publisher in Kyoto.With regard to research of modern Japanese literature with special attention to its religious characteristics, I have compiled and published a book concerning Nobuo Kojima, a novelist and story writer of contemporary Japan. This book is a revised edition of my first publication about twenty years ago. Kojima' s literary world is symbolic of Japanese people' s sense of religion from Buddhism through Christianity. Some other men of letters of modern Japan have been concerned with occidental culture and literature based on Christianity. They are not fond of Japanese naturalistic literature without any exception. Japanese naturalism, however, was based on a kind of traditional way of Buddhist thinking. See Tokuda Shuusei, a novelist and story writer of Meiji and Taishou era. Kojima is a strange disciple of Tokuda and Natume Soseki as well. Japanese men of letters who dislike Natume and Tokuda are fond of occidental classical music and French symbolist literature. Nobody knows why music and symbolism are connected within themo But tension between Christianity and anti-Christianity must be a key to the reason.