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オックスフォードの変わった存在
3月のエッセーは、現在オックスフォード大学の大学院に在籍中の加藤麻理子さんが執筆します。
その第1回となる今週は、加藤さんが籍を置くクライストチャーチ・カレッジの紹介です。
このカレッジは多くの英首相を輩出した名門として知られているのですが…。
An Oxford anomaly
"Keats ... ah yes, such a youthful dichotomy on external and internal beauty ... and so burdened by his admiration of Milton ... ?" So began my weekly one-to-one tutorial with my white-haired professor in his rooms at Oxford University. He handed me a small glass of red wine and poured a large one for himself, waiting for me to respond intelligently to one of his questions-that-aren't-questions.
I was reading English. Unlike Japanese university students, English university students have to choose one subject of study from the beginning of their course. There is an on-going argument in the U.K. that children are forced to choose too narrow a field of study too early in their lives.
Oxford University consists of 39 colleges. I had applied for Christ Church College, which perhaps wasn't the smartest choice. It had the reputation of being the most "white public schoolboy" college at Oxford, and I was a Japanese girl from Croydon, a south London town notorious for gun crime and chavs.
Founded in 1524, Christ Church was owned by King Henry VIII and it protected Charles I during the Civil War. It was here that writer Lewis Carroll modeled his famous heroine on the Dean's daughter Alice, and the college has produced 13 of Britain's prime ministers. It is visited by hoards of tourists as a film location for the Harry Potter movies, and in the fountain in the main quadrangle lives a large koi carp reportedly donated by the Empress of Japan.
The "white public schoolboy" image of Christ Church is at least partly true. In my matriculation photograph, there are only two Indians, one Chinese and one Japanese in a sea of a hundred white faces.
There have been moments too perfectly stereotypical to be believed. For example, a college cathedral service was joined late by a blonde (gay) tenor in full horse-riding attire, complete with whip and a whiff of manure. Since the age of six, I have grown up among Londoners of whom a third were ethnic minorities. A significant number of them were living in poverty. At Christ Church I was certainly on unfamiliar ground.
And yet, it was at Oxford that I confronted my Japanese identity for the first time in 12 years. I was introduced to the world not as an English person with a Japanese face, but as a Japanese person who somehow wound up at Christ Church. It gave me carte blanche on which I could build a new identity without the weight of past assumptions and prejudices. It was a rite of passage granted to students, which the young idealistic Keats would surely have envied.
- anomaly
- 変わった存在
- Keats
- ジョン・キーツ(英詩人)
- youthful
- 若者らしい
- dichotomy
- 対比させること
- burdened by 〜
- 〜に苦しむ
- admiration
- 賛美
- Milton
- ジョン・ミルトン(英詩人)
- tutorial
- 個別指導
- questions-that-aren't-questions
- 質問になっていない質問
- was reading English
- 英文学を専攻していた
- on-going
- 現在進行中の
- too narrow a field of study
- あまりに狭い研究分野
- colleges
- (オックスフォード大学の構成単位である)学寮
- had applied for 〜
- 〜に出願した
- white public schoolboy
- 私立学校出身の白人男子
- notorious for 〜
- 〜で有名な
- chavs
- 品の悪い若者たち
- Civil War
- イングランド内戦(⇒清教徒革命時の国王派と議会派の軍事衝突のこと)
- Lewis Carroll
- ルイス・キャロル(英作家)
- modeled 〜
- 〜のモデルとした
- famous heroine
- 『不思議の国のアリス』の主人公のこと
- Dean
- 学寮長
- hoards of 〜
- 多くの〜
- fountain
- 泉
- quadrangle
- 中庭
- donated by 〜
- 〜が寄贈した
- matriculation photograph
- 入学式のあとの集合写真
- in a sea of 〜
- 〜がたくさんいる中で
- cathedral
- 大聖堂
- service
- 礼拝
- tenor
- テノール、声が高音の人
- attire
- 服装
- complete with 〜
- 〜まで身に付けた
- whip
- むち
- a whiff of 〜
- 〜のにおい
- manure
- 馬ふん
- Londoners of whom a third were 〜
- 3分の1が〜であるロンドンっ子
- significant
- かなりの
- And yet
- それでも
- wound up at 〜
- 〜に転がり込んだ
- carte blanche
- 白紙状態
- assumptions
- 前提
- rite of passage
- 通過儀礼