Associate Professor of English Literature

SAIGUSA Kazuhiko

The role of literary research

I conduct research on 20th-century English novels, with a focus on the works of the novelist Evelyn Waugh (1903-1966). To put it simply, the role of literary research is to present interpretations of literary works. It is attempted to find various meanings of a literary work rather than a single “correct” one through intensive reading of literary texts, along with referring to various related materials. This research process sometimes brings out exciting moments.

Literary works are the “threads” woven into culture

I find it appealing that the study of literature covers a wide range of fields such as culture, society, and history, in investigation of literary works. The body of a literary work - referred to as the “text,” which is originally a Latin word for “to weave a cloth” - is woven out of the relationships of social and cultural phenomena. Each literary work is like a thread woven into a larger text, or culture. Then, the study of literature primarily aims to interpret literary works, but its scope includes the culture and society which produced them, and at the same time, are composed of them. In this way, the study of literature means the study of culture, and furthermore, of humanity.

Relevant themes, even in the 21st century

The novels of Evelyn Waugh vividly describe what British society was like in the interwar period, or the two decades between the First World War and the Second, as he started his career as a novelist with his first novel Decline and Fall (1928). They deal with the impact of emerging media technologies like telegraphs, telephones, and radios as well as the aftermath of the War. I have been exploring and examining what relationships people and literature had with them. Although they appear to be outdated in our time, when information technologies are continuing to evolve to an astonishing degree, the themes suggested by the old media technologies described in Waugh’s novels are still relevant in the 21st century.