モラエスの庭 : (4)生へのまなざし, 死へのまなざし

This paper is an essay on Moraes’s O ‟Bon-odori„ em Tokushima and Ó-Yoné e Ko-haru, part of the outcomes of the Project Studies by the activities in 2013 of Moraes’s Studies Group launched in July 31, 2010. The members of Moraes’s Studies Group, T. Miyazaki (English Literature, Comparative Literature), E. Ishikawa (German Literature, Comparative Literature), M. Satoh (Plant Physiology), M. Sakai (Clinical Psychology), all at the Institute of Socio-Arts and Sciences, The University of Tokushima, have been continuing to try to analyze Moraes’s works and to approach new facets of Moraes’s biographical aspects. Moraes was fascinated by the far-east Japan, and fell in love with Ó-Yoné, who died soon after the marriage. After her death Moraes decided to live in Tokushima, which was Ó-Yoné’s hometown. He lived with Ko-Haru, Ó-Yoné’s niece, for a while until she died from tuberculosis at the age of 21. His life until his death in Tokushima was a kind of hermit, disregard of his fame as Consul General and Navy high-rank Officer of Portugal, and other financial merits entailed with them. Moraes published O ‟Bon-odori„ em Tokushima in 1916 after Ó-Yoné died, and Ó-Yoné e Ko-haru afterwards. This work might be regarded as based on the forms of diary and essay, seemingly as reports from Tokushima to Bento Carqueja, editor of Comércio do Porto (Porto Commercial Newspaper) in Portugal. He consistently wrote these installment reports from Tokushima in the eyes of a stranger, putting some distance between him and the people in there. Everything seen in the eyes of Moraes wore some beautiful visional aspect because of his memory of Ó-Yoné. He expressed his thoughts on life and death throughout O ‟Bon-odori„ em Tokushima and Ó-Yoné e Ko-haru with fragmentary memories of his own as objective correlatives for the readers of his writings.
This paper is based on the presentation in the Symposium at the 49^<th> Annual Conference of Japan Comparative Literature Association Kansai Branch held at the Faculty of Integrated Arts and Sciences, here in Tokushima.