大田垣 裕子

William Wordsworth(1770-1850) was born and brought up in the Lake District in England, which has been renowned for its scenic beauty for more than two centuries. He wrote a tour guide to that region, about which many other guides and travelling journals were written at around the same time. While other books were designed mainly to provide the tourists with information about how to approach most picturesque scenes, Wordsworth's primary focus was on giving an ecological and historical point of view to the landscapes so that the new residents as well as the tourists could appreciate nature as it was, protect it by traveling on foot in stead of trains or couches and come to live "in the spirit of nature." "Ode. The Pass of Kirkstone" is put at the end of his guide. In this paper I discuss how the poem conveys Wordsworth's values as described in his guide. Men belong to both "the culturedplains' which" the fertile valley shields' and the 'desolate Domain' where 'A Genius dwells.' The poet comes to recognize the place where we are in nature by walking over the pass through the 'mists' , which often stands for imagination in Wordsworth's poems and he enables us to feel it for ourselves through reading the poem.

Doppo Kunikida(1871-1908) walked around the places full of nature to "seek for nature's blessings" as he wrote in his essay about words for dipicting nature, "Shizen wo utsusu bunsho." He is considered to be the first to write about the experience he had while walking in Meiji era. At that time European cultures were readily received in Japan and European walking cultures and walking literature were not unusual. Modern European walking literature is said to have started with Jean-Jacques Rousseau(1712-1778),and it was handed down to European Romantic artists like William Wordsworth(1770-1850). Dopporead some of Wordsworth's poems and critical biographies, and wrote in one of his short novelsthat he walked about the beautiful countryside of Saeki "with Wordsworth's anthology inside his kimono." He also decided to write about unforgettable ordinary people or "wasureenu hitobito" like Wordsworth wrote about a solitary reaper and an old shepherd. One of his most well-known works that depict Doppo's experience of nature is "Sorachi RiverBanks". In this paper, I focus on its tactile images including auditory images such as "nature's whisper" that he heard near the banks and on its unforgettable characters that he met on the train, at the inn and under the moonlight. I attempt to make clear how Doppo tried to explore the essence of nature and the relationship between nature and man, considering the influence of European walking literature, especially of Wordsworth's works on him.

If you are asked to name a work by Natsume Soseki in which the characters walk a lot and look at the world outside and inside themselves, you will probably think of Sanshiro or I Am a Cat. They often take walks around the town. `Nihyaku-toka' is about two people called Kei-san and Roku-san who try to climb Mt. Aso, a volcanic mountain, get caught in a storm, lose their way and come back in vain. They wanted to go to the top of Mt. Aso because Kei-san thinks he should look in its crater with his friend, Roku-san, before he changes the world around him. We are not told why they, especially Kei-san, have come to have these revolutionary ideas and how they will help the poor and unfortunate. However, they have the images of Hephaestus or Vulcan, who is the god of volcanoes and forges. At the beginning of the story Kei-san observes a blacksmith replacing a horseshoe and is amazed how beautiful the sparks are in the evening. They enjoy a hot spring bath, and aim for Mt. Aso. In this paper, I consider how European Romantic Revolutionary ideas have influenced Soseki's ideas in this short novel, examing the dialogue between Kei-san and Roku-san, which take up most of the novel, and descriptions of the natural landscapes.

If you think of the relationship between walking and writing in the Meiji era, probably DoppoKunikida(1871-1908) will most likely to come to your mind. Among the writers at that time, Doppo was the first to walk around the suburb of Tokyo called Musashino and on the banks of the Sorachi River in Hokkaido, which was a very unusual thing to do for ordinary people then. Here I tried to make clear how he was influenced by the ideas and works of modern Europeanpedestrian literature, which is said to be started by Jean-Jacques Rousseau (1712-1778), and handeddown to European Romantic artists like William Wordsworth (1770-1850). The most well-known works that depict the nature which Doppo experienced while walkingare his short novels titled ` Musashino' and `The Banks of the Sorachi River.' I exclusively dealtwith the former reading, closely focusing on tactile images including auditory images used thereand considered how modern European pedestrian literature was introduced to Japan in the Meijiera.

Isabella Bird (1831-1904) was one of the most noted Victorian lady travelers. She traveled around the world and wrote books and gave lectures about the areas she visited, which brought her a very high reputation. In 1878 and 1879, She paid her first visits to the Far East - Japan, China, and Malaysia. She tries to be as accurate in her minute descriptions of her experiences as possible. Her idea is usually to take "the bull by the horn," and she writes about her adventures calmly hereand humorously there. The reader will notice that her travel journals have contradictory points of view. Sometimes she praises "an Asian Arcadia", and at other times she gives negative interpretations ofindigenous cultures, religions, and so on. Although she looks on Asian people and phenomena with an imperialistic gaze, she writes that she is "painfully aware of the danger ... of forming hasty and inaccurate judgments, and of drawing general conclusions from partial premises." This balanced stance on intercultural aspects could be a key to solving the problems in the postcolonial age we live in.

William Wordsworth is well known as an enthusiastic lover of walking, who habitually composed poems while walking. This paper explores the relationship between walking and writing in his case. Towards the end of the eighteenth century pedestrian touring gained popularity before the rise of mass tourism by railway both in Britain and on the continent. Writers such as Jean-Jacques Rousseau and even Wordsworth himself, were partly responsible for the increase in pedestrian touring. In 1790 Wordsworth walked across the Alps with a fellow student from Cambridge, which was a radical, and leveling act, for only vagrants or footpads travelled on foot at that time. They visited Neuchatel, which Jean-Jacques Rousseau writes about in the books where he considers walking and writing. As Wordsworth writes in his autobiographical poem The Prelude, `…the lonely roads/ Were schools to me', walking was the means of finding the world and himself, which is discussed here by onsidering his biographical facts, social background and a few of his poems.

Beatrix Potter is widely known as the author of Peter Rabbit books, which have been appealing to children since their original publication a century ago. The first Peter Rabbit doll was made by Potter, but over the years Potter's illustrations have spawned an industry estimated at two thousand different kinds of merchandise including toys, tea sets and DVD's. Peter Rabbit books are mainly set in Lake District, where Potter lived in her later years. For more than 40 years this beautiful countryside inspired her to write her books, and engage in vigorous activities as a conservationist. She purchased a lot of land and old buildings which she later donated to the National Trust. She also helped to preserve indigenous sheep from extinction by working as a sheep-breeder. In this paper I focus on the biographical facts of the author from an eco-critical point of view and by doing so try to give another interpretation to the long-lasting charm of Peter Rabbit.

Peter Rabbit's popularity extends back to the first privately printed edition in 1902 and forward to the present day. What are the reasons for this enduring popularity? Numerous perspectives exist from which this question can be accurately addressed, among them the brilliance of Potter's artistic talent combined with her scientific knowledge, the blend of imagination and realism, the radical qualities of Potter's deceptively simple stories like ambiguous endings, and the pull of her poetic, yet restrained prose. In this paper I also propose another perspective from which to examine the instant and enduring popularity in the contemporary age, one that focuses the relationship between her works and environment-the ecocritical perspective. A close comparison of her works with Wordsworth's reveals that they are designed to move readers to actively engage in dialogues with nonhumans and to become advocates of conservation of the delicate balance created by the community of creatures and plants that share and maintain a habitat like the Lake District's.