日本におけるロバート・バーンズのFora, That, anda, Thatの紹介

Abstract

Robert Burns is one of the most famous English poets since the Meiji era in Japan. The elementary school song “Light of Firefly” was written as a parody of Burns' “Auld Lung Syne”. Therefore, many Japanese have had an attachment to him. Since the Meiji era, many books have been written and published about this poet's works and his life.I studied who introduced Robert Burns and his works for the first time into Japan, and who familiarized his “For a' That, and a' That” to the then Japanese in which his true humanity was portrayed. Toshio Nanba, the leading Robert Burns scholar in Japan, contributed eight bibliographies on Robert Burns since 1958 to The Bulletin of Japan Comparative Literature Association. And eventually, he published the Bibliography of Robert Burns in Japan as a corpus of bibliographical work on Burns in 1977. Furthermore, in 1982 he wrote the article titled Burns in the Meiji Era Influence. He described that the first introduction of Robert Burns was made in Kanichi Hashizume's Saigoku Risshihen Retsuden Nanba also pointed out that one of the earliest introductions of “For a' That, and a' That” into Japan was in The New Magazine Devoted to the Study of Language and Literature issued in August, 1892.In this article here, I would like to bring to your attention, that the first introduction of Robert Burns was made in the Saigoku Risshihen translated by Masanao Nakamura in 1871. In this book, he introduced Robert Burns as the poet. Of course, Toshio Nanba had known this fact. Nevertheless, he claimed that the first introduction of Robert Burns was made in Kanichi Hashizume's Saigoku Risshihen Retsuden I also point out that another initial introduction of “For a' That, and a' That” was in the Transcription of Lecture on English Literature issued issued in April, 1892. Finally, I would like to point out a possibility. That is, some Japanese had heard “For a' That, and a' That” which was read at a party 'A NIGHT WI' BURNS' in Yokohama Settlement in 1864. It wasn't an event for the Japanese at that time, but a Japanese was presented as a juggler.