三島由紀夫於1961年發表短篇小說〈憂國〉，五年後改拍成電影《憂國》，三島身兼導演、編劇、男主角三種角色，演出切腹自殺的一幕極為逼真。1970年11月25日三島在東京市谷的自衛隊總監室切腹自殺的消息震驚世界，當時日本社會認為三島的切腹諫國的自殺行為，早在〈憂國〉中可見端倪。42年來文壇以「憂國忌」為名，每年在三島的冥日舉行追悼活動，到今日為止，針對與三島切腹事件相關的〈憂國〉撰寫的論文不計其數。
筆者考察三島創作〈憂國〉的動機，認為三島的〈憂國〉雖以1936年日本「二．二六事件」為背景撰寫，但是如單從〈憂國〉男主角的切腹行為、大義精神或天皇論等視角，揣想十年後三島的自殺行為實有不足之處。再者過於聚焦三島的右翼思想，亦忽略了〈憂國〉的藝術創作意涵。本文深入分析三島在拍攝電影《憂國》過程時的堅持，剖析三島對於華格納音樂的告白，深入解讀三島對音樂與文字的認知。探討小說〈憂國〉、電影《憂國》與華格納《崔斯坦與伊索德》之間的關連性。

Mishima Yukio first published the novel Patriotism in 1961, and five years later he used Patriotism as the basis for a script for a film entitled Patriotism. In the film Mishima plays the male protagonist who realistically acts out a suicide by disembowelment. On November 25, 1970, the news of Mishima’s suicide by disembowelment at the Self-Defense Forces’ headquarters in Ichigaya, Tokyo, shocked the world. At the time, the majority of Japanese society believed that Mishima’s suicide was an appeal to the nation that was foreshadowed in his Patriotism. For 42 years, in the name of “anniversary of a patriot's death,” the literary world has held commemorative events on the day of Mishima’s death. By now, there are innumerable papers that connect Mishima’s suicide to Patriotism.
This paper seeks to explore the motivations of Mishima in writing Patriotism, pointing out that even though Mishima wrote against the background of the February 26 Incident in 1936, it is insufficient to use the suicide by his protagonist in Patriotism, the spirit of great righteousness, or the theory of the emperor to predict Mishima’s suicide ten years later. Since the excessive attention to Mishima’s rightwing thought has obstructed us from seeing the truth of the artistic creation in Patriotism, this study will conduct an in-depth analysis of the insistences of Mishima in filming Patriotism, and it will dissect Mishima’s disclosures regarding the music of Richard Wagner and unveil Mishima’s reorganization of it. By comparison, this study will attempt to create an alternative reading of Patriotism, which is used to clarify that the Film Patriotism was formed from Wagner’s Tristan und Isolde, and is a variation on the theme of “love-death.”