Natsume Sōseki's Inscription Poetry on Painting and Its Comparison with Wang Wei’s Wang Chuan Ji

Nakamura Hiroshi praised Sōseki's inscription poetry, by saying that “Lines that of painting conceptions appeared in early Chinese poems composed by S?seki, and this (inscription poetry) is the most obvious case. Poetic themes on Literati also represent the period of his inscription poetry.” One can see this as the realm “painting in poetry” of Literati painting (Bunjinga).When it comes to “painting in poetry”, one generally thinks of the founding father of Chinese Literati painting, Wang Wei. His literary works can express this realm to the extreme, for example Wang Chuan Ji, a Chinese poetry collection that is famous for depicting “painting in poetry”.S?seki adored the artistic realm that Wang Wei had been seeking all life. He often talked about Wang in his letters to friends and had made several compliments on the Chinese poems in Wang Chuan Ji in his novels. As a huge admirer of Wang, how would S?seki present inscription poems in the painting realm? This study intends to examine the characteristics of elements used in S?seki’s inscription poems, human’s relations with the nature, and the comparison with Wang Chuan Ji—their similarities as well as differences. Last but not least, this study also tries to explore if S?seki used his owned way, or adopted Wang Wei’s Literati conceptions in his works.