@article{oai:nichibun.repo.nii.ac.jp:00006033,
 author = {THORNTON, Sybil A.},
 journal = {Japan review : Journal of the International Research Center for Japanese Studies},
 month = {Dec},
 note = {This is a short introduction to a problem that affects two areas of research: historical seismology and medieval literature. The Meitokuki (1392−96), a gunki monogatari or battle narrative, reports an earthquake on the fifteenth day of the tenth month of the second year of Meitoku (1391). This report has been and is still accepted as legitimate. However, a full investigation of the sources adduced as proof of this earthquake’s historicity leads to the conclusion that no contemporary records confirm the Meitokuki report. Furthermore, an analysis of the Meitokuki text as a gunki monogatari, which is a genre of historical fiction, demands a comparison of its earthquake report with those in other gunki monogatari. Such a comparison with those in the Kakuichi variant of the Heike monogatari (before 1371) and the Taiheiki (about the same decade) reveals a specific form as well as a function of the earthquake report as an omen of impending disaster. This study proposes that, of the three examples, only the Heike report is authentic and that the two others are fabrications based on it. This conclusion is important for two reasons. First, it identifies the earthquake report in gunki monogatari as a type scene, a traditional narrative unit not unlike the Homeric scenes of arming, embarkation, and reception of the guest, or indeed the gunfight or chase scene in Westerns. Second, it demonstrates the importance of the type scene in the development of the gunki monogatari as a genre of fiction.},
 pages = {225--234},
 title = {<Research Notes>Meitokuki: Earthquakes and Literary Fabrication in the Gunki Monogatari},
 volume = {28},
 year = {2015}
}