IMAGE OF HERMIT IN “TEN FOOT SQUARE HUT” (“HOJOKI”) BY KAMO-NO CHOMEI

Abstract

In the article the author considers the hermit’s image in the Japanese medieval literary work of the zuihitsu genre “The Ten Foot Square Hut” (“Hojoki”) by Kamo no Chōmei. It is described and analyzed such literary terms as “zuihitsu”, general literary concepts of «seclusion» («hermitage») and aesthetical and religious Buddhist concepts of “mujō”, “mujō no aware” and “Tao” (“The Way”). A brief review of the work of predecessors on medieval Japanese literature, literature of seclusion and zuihitsu, as well as on questions of Buddhism is provided in the research. With the help of these theoretical and practical works, the image of the hermit in the Kamo no Chōmei’s zuihitsu “The Ten Foot Square Hut” (“Hojoki”) is analysed and the forms of its realization in the text of the work are considered. As a result of the research it is determined that Kamo no Chōmei uses descriptions of natural disasters, the impermanence of human life and the unreliability of dwellings for the establishment of the Zen-Buddhist principle of “mujō” (impermanence of existence) and, as a consequence, the intensification of his own idealization of reclusive life. The aesthetico-philosophical principle of “mujō no awaré” is used by the aсthor for aestheticization,

idealization and propaganda of reclusive life.