表題番号：2017S-195
日付：2018/04/08
研究課題Mental Abnormality and the Female Artistic Genius in the Works of Okamoto Kanoko(1889-1939)
| 研究者所属（当時） | 資格 | 氏名 | |
|---|---|---|---|
| （代表者） | 文学学術院 文化構想学部 | 准教授 | ピタルク パウ |
- 研究成果概要
- Author Okamoto Kanoko (1889-1939) shared with many of her contemporaries a deep interest in the connections between mental abnormality and artistic creativity. Okamoto herself had first-hand experience of internment in a facility for mental patients, but her essays and autobiographical writings rarely mention this episode, and certainly do not exploit it in the creation of her artistic persona. Gendered attitudes towards mental health probably lie at the root of this difference: a female writer like Okamoto would pay a much steeper price in her public image if she flirted with motifs of mental abnormality in her personal branding.In her fiction, on the other hand, I identify a common pattern in which mental illness occupies a central place in the process of artistic creation, but always split into two different characters whose relationship becomes the center of the story. One of the characters then experiences these pathological states vicariously through the other and derives their creativity at least partly from them, participating in the genealogy of the “mad artist” but without necessarily displaying the full effects of mental illness. It is possible to assume that, having had first-hand experience of mental illness herself, Okamoto would not be so cavalier about its consequences.