Browsing by Author "Frank Stevenson"

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Exteriority, Laughter and Comic Sacrifice in Hawthorne’s “My Kinsman, Major Molineux”
(英語學系, 2011-03-??) Frank Stevenson
In the final night-carnival scene of Hawthorne’s “My Kinsman, Major Molineux” (1832), an entire town humiliates the major by laughing at him as he sits tarred-and-feathered in a cart; even his nephew Robin finally joins uncontrollably in the contagious sea of derisive laughter. Here I interpret this as a ritual of “comic sacrifice” by comparing its dynamics with those of the traditional (“tragic”) sacrifice. I look at the dialectical relation between the mindless exteriority of laughing spectators and the intense self-consciousness of the sacrificial victim as a variation on the Girardian middle-distance between spectators and victim, and as another form of the relation between the inquiring Robin’s ignorance and the secret knowledge of the townspeople in a rumorand potentially laughter-filled town. I also take the grotesque figure of the victim as a variation on the tragic-sacrifice victim, who is traditionally seen as a sacred object or “gift”: here the tarred-and-feathered major becomes a onceangelic but now fallen bird-man, and the sacrificial smoke of roasting victims that rises toward the gods becomes the “offering” of contagious laughter rising at the end of the story to the Man in the Moon. Finally, the wasteful excessiveness of this laughter is further discussed in the context of the themes of exteriority, duplicity, falseness and tragic-comic ambiguity in Hawthorne’s two other early night-festival tales, “The Maypole of Merry Mount” and “Young Goodman Brown.”
On the Horizon
(英語學系, 2009-09-??) Frank Stevenson
“Still More Distant Than the Most Distant Stars”
(英語學系, 2011-09-??) Frank Stevenson
This paper explores some closely-related themes in Nietzsche, Kafka, and Benjamin: a trans-temporal “bridge” that is broken or interrupted in the middle, “breaking news” whose delivery is infinitely delayed or impossible, and the figure of a partially-constructed wall which may also serve as the fragile foundation for a new Tower of Babel. The Benjamin passage at stake is Thesis IX of the “Theses on the Philosophy of History,” where the angel (angelikos, messenger) of history suddenly appears, caught between immanent and eternal time, and wants to (but cannot) “make whole” the fragments of wreckage from human history that are thrown in a heap at his feet. The above themes from Nietzsche and Kafka are used to interpret the angel’s impossible project of making-whole as a project, not of delivering but of reconstructing the original message, now taken as the originally universal and communal human language, meaning or “name” which was fragmented by God into a “babel.” Here this original language, also seen in the context of Benjamin’s still-idealized notion of “pure language” in “The Task of the Translator,” remains metaphorically tied to the figure of the Tower of Babel, a tower whose piecemeal construction, ambiguously decreed by the Emperor in Kafka’s “The Great Wall of China,” implies the virtual equivalence of (its own) construction and deconstruction or collapse.
“Still More Distant Than the Most Distant Stars”
(英語學系, 2011-09-??) Frank Stevenson
This paper explores some closely-related themes in Nietzsche, Kafka, and Benjamin: a trans-temporal “bridge” that is broken or interrupted in the middle, “breaking news” whose delivery is infinitely delayed or impossible, and the figure of a partially-constructed wall which may also serve as the fragile foundation for a new Tower of Babel. The Benjamin passage at stake is Thesis IX of the “Theses on the Philosophy of History,” where the angel (angelikos, messenger) of history suddenly appears, caught between immanent and eternal time, and wants to (but cannot) “make whole” the fragments of wreckage from human history that are thrown in a heap at his feet. The above themes from Nietzsche and Kafka are used to interpret the angel’s impossible project of making-whole as a project, not of delivering but of reconstructing the original message, now taken as the originally universal and communal human language, meaning or “name” which was fragmented by God into a “babel.” Here this original language, also seen in the context of Benjamin’s still-idealized notion of “pure language” in “The Task of the Translator,” remains metaphorically tied to the figure of the Tower of Babel, a tower whose piecemeal construction, ambiguously decreed by the Emperor in Kafka’s “The Great Wall of China,” implies the virtual equivalence of (its own) construction and deconstruction or collapse.
Stretching Language to Its Limit
(英語學系, 2009-03-??) Frank Stevenson
Things Beginning with the Letter "M"
(英語學系, 2010-09-??) Frank Stevenson
形式-生命，情度，與非人類：愛蜜莉迪瑾蓀詩中的普世特異
(2016) 李廼澔; Lee, Nai-Hao
本論文旨在透過「普世特異」這個概念來評析美國文藝復興女詩人愛蜜莉迪瑾蓀的詩。其中特別以形式-生命，情度，與非人類等概念來討論。論文中所談的「普世」指的並不是普遍的，而指的是絕對而沒有緣由的。而「特異」指的則是在讀者在閱讀迪瑾蓀的詩感知或經驗中所「發生」的(像是一種「事件」)。本論文試圖說明為何人們，尤其是受過批判理論訓練過的人們，會發現迪瑾蓀的詩是如此地「不同」。死亡，這個在她詩中不斷重覆出現的主題，實際上是在我們所熟悉的一切與永生或空無間的過渡點。因此有理論家指出，迪瑾蓀的詩並不符合一般被視為標準卻無疑是有著重重限制的「偉大文學」。事實上我相信迪瑾蓀的詩與當代理論有著密切的關係。在某些方面而言，她的詩甚至預想到了許多當代文學理論的關鍵主題。的確，細讀她的詩就好像在「經歷現存模式中的缺口與未曾提及的」，更甚者，去「重新定義這些模式」。因為我要檢視的是：迪瑾蓀如何能夠在她的詩中啟動和活化其「普世特異」以對抗那一切過度抽象與同一不變的，並且在這些詩中尋找擺脫桎梏而脫身而出的文學「真理」。
節制、慈悲與傅柯式的反思: 論史賓瑟《仙后》中之恩典與自我觀照
(2013) 謝孟成; Hsieh, Meng-cheng
本論文研究主旨在於以傅柯自我關懷的理論，來探討史賓瑟的史詩《仙后》中，對於後宗教改革時期的男性氣概的重新詮釋與形塑。本研究闡明史賓瑟《仙后》如何重建新的道德秩序與政治想像，使男性氣質的概念游移在暴力式的英雄主義與基督教的慈悲為懷。本文中特別說明史詩《仙后》試圖以女性特質—自我犧牲、自我責罰、對別人苦難的感傷--來重塑新教概念中的男性氣概。本論文最後說明史賓瑟筆下的宗教特質如慈悲或自我犧牲如何微妙地連結我們對於女性美德的想像，把宗教的柔順特質與對女性的期待糾結在女性角色的呈現上。本論文分成四個章節。第一章以傅柯的自我關懷及醫療凝視的觀點作為理論框架來理解史賓瑟如何沿襲古典時期自我檢視與自我醫療的類比，並進一步運用傅柯的分析來探討史賓瑟如何用醫藥的比喻來看待人的生存困境，從而使讀者反思健康/疾病概念的二元論述。第二章主要要細察史賓瑟如何透過紅騎士的道德成長來呈現基督教倫理中自我苦行與古典範式中自我形塑的矛盾，其中包括對於新教的崇偶與反偶運動的辨證，本章也探討史賓瑟關於受難他者的詩學呈現並分析史賓瑟如何整合宗教受難的意象與英雄英勇典範來建構一種新的男性氣概的觀點。第三章指出節制傳奇如何將古典及基督教關於自我技藝的概念加以內化，來表意出史賓瑟所認定的節制美德，並闡明史賓瑟的節制美德是必須服膺於基督教關愛他者的律令。第四章主要針對女性角色中對於自我修練與關懷他者的倫理學討論。文中特別以女性主義觀點出發，批判傅柯的自我關懷理論，闡述傅柯所提出的自我關懷的詮釋觀點是從自我修練為起點，關懷他者為目的的思維方式，是以男性為主體為論述基礎，女性傳統上只被認為要符合社會期許: 養育小孩照護家庭。本章試圖理解當時的宗教背景、史賓瑟所思維的女性美德以及伊莉莎白一世本人的倫理態度，來詮釋女性角色中的自我修為與責任倫理之間的關係。
約翰克理蘭《歡場女子回憶錄》中的婚姻與娼妓
(2010) 陳怡伶; Chen Iling
本文探討約翰克理蘭《歡場女子回憶錄》中對娼妓的刻畫及其歷史背景。筆者首先研究十八世紀倫敦娼妓的工作情況及當時正在轉變中的妓女形象。接著，文中將分析克理蘭如何挪用當時社會改革者的妓女論述及浪蕩者的哲學來形塑小說中既善良又淫蕩的妓女。最後，筆者試圖以小說中女主角妓女及已婚婦女的身份來批判當時興起的伴侶式婚姻 (companionate marriage)。小說中對男性掌控女性肉體的描述一再強化，其實是彰顯了現實社會中兩性的不平等。此外，由於克理蘭將布爾喬亞的道德觀夾雜在他的對妓女的情色描寫中，兩相衝突的意識型態除了批判彼此對性別角色的論述，也揭露了女性在被視為丈夫的伴侶及慈愛母親的同時，也喪失了個人主體性。