寺山修司のドラマに見るサーカスの美学

Abstract

The purpose of this paper is to discuss about the circus images in Terayama Shuji’s literary works, especially dramas. Terayama Shuji is a Japanese poet, a theater director and a playwright, a novelist and also an essayist. He is famous for the outrageous performances by the directions and the stories of his own. This paper emphasized that there was a big gap in concerning ‘hometown’ between cultural elites of after war period in Japan and Terayama. When he wrote about a circus, the images of ‘deformity’, and a case of ‘death of parent’ appear in his works always. One of the main themes in Terayama’s works written about circus is the realization of ‘festivity’, that presents tragic and negative power. And another important theme is the existence of a human who is standing on the border of a life and death as a ‘living dead’. Terayama Shuji represents the rebirth from an old cradle by oneself with these themes in his drama works with circus images.