Manyoshu no Seishin Sono Seiritsu to Otomo no Yakamochi (Yasuda Yojuro Bunko 12)

[Machine Translation] The idea for this book was inspired by a visit to the Shosoin Imperial Treasure Exhibition held at the Tokyo Imperial Household Museum in the fall of 1940 to celebrate the 2600th anniversary of the Imperial Era, and after completing the book in about a year, it was published in June of the same year. It is the author's masterpiece, a work that is also a theory of Tempyo culture that rejects the general tendency to regard Tempyo culture as Buddhist culture and suggests that the culture should be reviewed from the viewpoint of the circumstances surrounding the formation of the Manyoshu. The author's different stance is expressed most clearly in his point that Otomo no Iemochi's role in the formation of the Man'yoshu was nothing other than an effort to reconstruct the authenticity of the history of Japan. In a time when the classics were being extolled and nationalism was gaining popularity, YASUDA, who wrote, "I may be the last reader of the Manyoshu today," may have been thinking of himself in Iemochi's lone shadow.

本書は、昭和十五年秋、皇紀二千六百年を祝って東京帝室博物館で開かれた正倉院御物展の拝観をきっかけに想を起し、ほぼ一年で脱稿したのち、同十七年六月に上梓されたA五判五百七十一頁に及ぶ大著である。即ち、天平文化を仏教文化と見倣す一般の風潮を排し、『万葉集』の成立事情からその文化を見直すべきだとする天平文化論の性格をも備えた著者の代表作である。就中、同集の成立に果した大伴家持の役割が、国史の信実を再構築する営為にほかならなかったという一冊の眼目は、何よりも本書の性格を示して、著者の異立を表わしている。古典が持て囃され、国粋が幅を利かす時局とは別のところで、「今日に於て万葉集の最後の読者であるかもしれない」と誌す保田は、自らを家持の孤影に重ねていたのだろうか。