Description:
Anecdotes and legendary stories about samurai from the Taira clan, which were disseminated by the Tales of the Heike, spurred the development of meisho (famous places of literary and historic importance) from medieval times, and literary works based upon these stories contributed to the formation of their characteristic image. In other words, the particular image of a meisho was formulated in the process of circulation between the original story concerning the place and its spin-off stories that were represented in paintings or the performing arts. In this paper, I focus on the story of Tsukishima (築島), the artificial island constructed by Taira no Kiyomori in front of Owada port, and trace the process which led to the creation of the literary image of Tsukishima by examining the handscroll Tsukishima monogatari emaki, the kōwakamai play Tsukishima and others. Furthermore, I will show how the image of Tsukishima was perceived by the public through the analysis of regional illustrated gazetteers in the Edo period including Setsuyō gundan and Settsu meishozue.