芥川龍之介における＜人工の翼＞

Abstract

ARUAHONOISSYO (One Fool’s Life) by Ryunosuke Akutagawa, one of the most famous writers in the Taisho Period in Japan, is a self-confessional work by him when the moment of his death was imminent. Among its 56 chapters, the 19th chapter, “Artificial Wings,” presents the author’s artistic inclination. Since “Artificial wings” is one of the basic and important themes in Akutagawa’s literary works, the purpose of this research is to study the meaning of it. Akutagawa mentioned that Voltaire, the French Enlightenment writer, gave him “Artificial wings,” but it is evident that “Artificial wings” are from the story in Greek myth, which is about Daedalus and Icarus who both escapes from the labyrinth. Icarus ends up escaping the labyrinth with wings made of feathers and wax, but because he flies too close to the Sun, the wax is melted, and Icarus fell into the sea and drowned. Akutagawa especially focused on the process of Icarus’ tragic death, because such process was similar to the life of Akutagawa himself. Such point of view toward Icarus’ life by Akutagawa is equally shown in SEIHONOHITO(The Man of the West) when Akutagawa described about Jesus’ life. In conclusion, “Artificial wings” denotes the attitude of “art for art’s sake,” and I notied that Akutagawa added sentence about predicting Icarus’ death in order to express the retrospect of his own life. Moreover, I think this added sentence, which is identical in meaning with the very last sentence of 36th chapter, “Christs’ Life,” in SEIHONOHITO (The Man of the West), came from the notion of Akutagawa’s own regret about a journey of his own life.