Literary Theory and Literary Criticism

Literary Theory and Literary Criticism

This time, with a certain feeling, I wrote a critique and sent it to a literary prize. (laughs) After all this time....

The methodology was a mixture of the two: "staying in the reading" and "literary criticism with the method of literary theory. The latter could be rephrased as "wandering the boundary between paratext and metatext. Or does " Zekka" transform the text of " Kinkakuji"...?

In conclusion, if we read " Zekka" seriously, the text of " Kinkakuji" cannot help but be transformed. As for whether any intertextuality transforms the preceding text, I don't think so. However, when a publisher approves a work like Mizumura Minae's "Continuation of Light and Darkness", which is almost a "mimicry", the transformation of "Light and Darkness" is inevitable. The English version of Wikipedia says that Minae Mizumura has completed the unfinished "Meian"!

The English version of Wikipedia says that Minae Mizumura completed the unfinished "Meian"!

On the other hand, a tone-deaf theory that is embellished with extraneous material from outside will not transform the original text. However, this will always depend on the amount of reading, the accuracy of reading, and the logical thinking ability of the reader. For those who do not realize that "K" is not a surname, or are careless, the paratext of writer, university professor, or Akutagawa Prize judge is added to such a fanciful interpretation. The paratext is added.

Therefore, I think that I was able to transform Soseki Natsume's work to a high level by showing a reading that is not like that, and yet remaining in the reading, and by "criticizing literature in the way of literary theory" while "wandering the boundary between paratext and metatext. And I wrote a guru critique that says this is exactly how I and the work meet, and how I read literature.

Although I didn't discuss it in the essay, there were some hesitations before I came to this point, such as the fact that Kenji Miyazawa's "Ame Ni Mo Nakezu" cannot be corrected, and the hesitation over the interpretation of Teika's "Komatomete..." in the style of Shōfu. When I read "Ame Ni Mo Nakezu" after learning that "niteru" is "nitori" (daily wage payment), the concept of the original text became unstable. And if you look at Teika's "Komatomete..." after reading "Did a Frog Jump into an Old Pond?", you will see a parallel collision between a world in which the pieces themselves disappear and a world in which there is no shadow.

Perhaps this issue should be discussed in various forms. I am still at the beginning.

Translated with www.DeepL.com/Translator (free version)