| Summary: | This thesis presents a study of the political aesthetics arising from the ideological
systems that motivated Yoshishige no Yasutane and Kamo no Chmei to write the
“Chiteiki” (“Record of a Pond Pavilion,” 982) and “Hjki” (“Account of My Hut,”
1212) respectively.
In order t arrive at a point where I can investigate political aesthetics, I begin by
examining the recluse tradition: first in China: focusing on Confucian and Buddhist thought
systems, and Taoist regard for nature; and then in Japan, where the Chinese recluse
tradition was syncretized and changed within Japan’s own indigenous ideologies. I then
examine the T’ang dynasty’s Po ChU-i (772—846) as a Chinese model of reclusion for
Japanese writers such as Yasutane and Chmei.
The second and third steps of my research investigate the dominant political and
religious ideologies of the Late Heian (897—1185) and Early Kamakura (1185—1249)
periods. Such an examination entails a comparative look at the various intertextual
sources that fed the “Chiteiki” and “Hjciki”: Po Chti-i’s “Ts’ao-t’ang Chi” (“Record of
the Thatched Abode,” 817) and “Ch’ih-shang p’ien” (“Around My Pond,” 829), and
Minamoto no Kaneakira’s “Chiteiki” (960).
The last section of this thesis takes a somewhat experimental approach, by setting
up the problem of genre. Each of the authors I investigate wrote about his garden or
surroundings, and I set out to explore the landscape traditions that contributed to these
authors’ undertakings. In so doing, I examine the idea of the landscape as microcosm, and
the literary devices that Yasutane and Chmei utilize in order to move us through their
literary spaces. In conclusion, I
reach an impasse, with a conflict of historicization versus de
historicization, and new questions about the consciousness of the recluse and his free will
in choice. These findings require future research. === Arts, Faculty of === Asian Studies, Department of === Graduate
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