Yuko Otagaki

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.