라프카디오 헌의 신도관:내셔널리즘과 신국표상을 중심으로

초록

An English writer Lafcadio Hearn(1850~1904), who was married with a Japanese woman and naturalized in Japan with a Japanese name “Koizumi Yakumo”(小泉八雲) during his stay from 1890 until death, played a very important role in introducing Japan widely to the westerners by his 14 books on Japan and great voluminous letters written in English. Additionally, he is often said to be “a foreigner who was able to understand Japan far more than Japanese people themselves.” The purpose of this essay is to examine the meaning of various representations of “Land of God” in Hearn’s discourses on Japan, relating them with his nationalism, chiefly based on his understanding of Shinto. In the concrete, this paper will pay special attention to Hearn’s experience of Izumo Shrine(出雲大社), Shintoic sensitivity that sees the divine in nature, his understanding about Kami(神). As a result, it might be said that Hearn considered Shinto fundamentally as a symbol of Japanese spirit. And furthermore, I will show the three aspects of the “Land of God” image such as “a divine home”, “a country protected by gods”, “a land of the dead”, which correspond to the three types of nationalism, that is, cultural, political, and religious one respectively. In conclusion, this essay will maintain that the representations of “Land of God” in Hearn’s japanology suggest a collusion among those cultural, political, and religious nationalism, and that among them, the “Land of God” representation as “a land of the dead” linked with religious nationalism has been exercising a great influence until nowadays, for example, upon so-called Shinto Nationalism etc.

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