坪野 圭介

From the end of the 18th century, optical instruments such as the microscope and the telescope were frequently depicted in literature, especially in German Romantic writing. These instruments expanded the range of human cognition and the realm of representation beyond realism. During the same period, "phantasmagoria," which originally referred to a sort of magic ghost show using an optical device, became a metaphor for a phantasmic realm of existence in 19th century literature. Thus, technology and rationality paradoxically succeeded in reviving interest in unreal worlds and ghosts. However, in contemporary literature, optical devices are used not only to achieve traditional effects but also as a metafictional technique. For example, in some metafictional novels, the viewpoint of the video camera plays an important role in the narrative. Video equipment in the story reveals the function of the novel itself. Through an analysis of Adolfo Bioy Casares' La invención de Morel (1940) and Steven Millhauser's "Eisenheim, Illusionist" (1988), this paper explores the relation between the mechanism of optical trickery and the structure of metafiction fiction. These two writers are highly conscious of both the cultural history of optical devices and their use in the elaboration of fictional illusions.特集 ラテン文学論文