영어
This study focuses on the fact that key words of Tōson’s works - hometown, childhood, family and the Japanese - were not sought after in his stay in France, but showed up in ｢Childhood(幼き日)｣ published just before he went to France, and thus tries to shed a new light on the literary value of Childhood, which has been relatively unappreciated so far. ｢A Letter to a Lady(ある婦人に與ふる手紙)｣, which was written by request from a literary magazine for , was intended to write about women around Tōson. However, as the story went on, steadily extended to include his own childhood and became his own autobiographical story. Another interesting point is that unlike his other works, which were published after a thorough planning and investigation, this work went towards the direction not originally intended by him, leading to a change title of the book, ｢Childhood｣. However, in the process of publishing the work in a newspaper, Tōson came to make a few significant literary discoveries. First, he found out that with just ‘hometown’ and ‘childhood,’ he could write a decent story. Second, as he went back to his own childhood, he could see the significance of family whose meanings he had not recognized before. It is especially interesting that he newly discovered ‘motherhood’ which had previously been just a metaphor of disbelief to him. Lastly, it is noteworthy that Tōson had to deal with the Japanese traditions such as Japanese religions when he was and is known for his pursuit of scientific and objective facts in his works. It is certain that new literary discoveries in ｢Childhood｣ was the foreground where his various foreign experiences were combined with his experiences after returning to Japan, which resulted in a wide range of other works.
일본어
本稿は帰国後、藤村文学のキーワードの‘故郷’、‘幼い頃’、‘家族’そして‘日本的なもの’がフランス時代から新たに模索されたものではなく渡佛直前に発表した｢幼き日｣にすでに見えていることに注目して、今まで文学的に認められなかった｢幼き日｣の価値を再評価しようとした。 <婦人画報>の依頼から‘女性の話’を書こうと始まった｢ある婦人に與ふる手紙｣は連載が重なるにつれ、だんだん自分の話に拡大されさらには幼い時代の自体に興味ができるようになり、結局自伝的な話になってしまった。また藤村の場合、作品を緻密な企画や調査過程を通じて出版したが、この作品は途中｢幼き日｣と標題まで変更されるなど意図しない方向に流れて行ったことだった。 しかし、｢幼き日｣の連載の過程から藤村はいくつかの大事な文学的発見をすることが出来た。第一、‘故郷’と‘幼い時代’だけでも様々な話ができるという可能性を見たことであり、第二、思い出をさかのぼりながらそれはついぞ見られなかった家族を発見したことだった。特に不信のメタファーに存在した‘母’を新たに発見したのは興味深い部分だった。終りに、科学的かつ客観的な事実を追求してきた藤村だったが幼い時代の楽しい思い出の中で深山の生活の一部だった伝統信仰や祭りなど最も日本的なものが自然に登場したのも注目すべき事実だった。 ｢幼き日｣からの文学的な発見はその後、外国生活の様々な経験と融合して研磨されて帰国後、以前よりもっと多様かつ幅広いジャンルで数多くの作品を書くことができた基盤になったのは争えない事実であろう。
