《枕草子》中儿童形象的文化解读

A Study of Children’s Growth Situation in the Heian Period of Japan from The Pillow Book

清少纳言的《枕草子》是日本平安时代中期的著名随笔集,文中有诸多章段涉及对儿童的描写或评论。本文通过对该作品中儿童相关语句、章段的分类整理,结合当时的历史环境、社会习俗等,对文中出现的儿童形象进行了解读:在平安时代,儿童被看作权势发展、财产继承的关键,社会上已有男尊女卑思想,但影响并不像后世那么明显;儿童被当作微缩版的成人,从事多种社会活动,男童女童职别不同,但都各有明显的阶层界限;儿童被视为纯洁无瑕的媒介,会被安排与神秘的异界沟通。

The Pillow Book written by Sei Shonagon is a famous collection of essays in the middle of the Heian Period in Japan. There are many paragraphs in the text about descriptions or comments on children, so it is an important material for the study of children’s growth in the Heian Period. Through the classification of children’s relevant sentences and chapters in this work and combined with the historical environment and social customs at that time, the paper interprets children’s growth situation as follows: In the Heian Period, children are regarded as the key to power development and property inheritance and there is the idea that men are superior to women in society, but the influence is not so obvious as that of later generations;Children are treated as miniature adults, so they participate in a variety of social activities which are different types of activities for boy or girl with clear class boundaries;Children are seen as a pure medium that is more suitable than adults to communicate with the mysterious world.