英國抒情詩中之女性與自然, 1500-1850

Abstract

摘 要

本篇論文探討自西元一五零零年至一八五零年英國抒情詩中自然與女性的地位，並以法國女性主義及生態女性主義為理論基礎。基本上英國抒情詩中自然與女性大多處於被歧視的地位，不過本論文亦指出被壓迫者隱藏但永遠存在的顛覆力量。 對於十六世紀的抒情詩，討論的重點放在當時盛行的文類，即十四行詩集。第二章探討飛利浦‧西尼爵士的《艾斯特菲爾與史黛拉》及瑪莉‧羅史女士的《潘菲利亞致安非藍瑟斯》中對比的性別差異，藉此顯示男性詩人對女性的歧視，也彰顯女性的顛覆力量。在西尼詩集中西尼藉男主角艾斯特菲爾表達他對瑞奇女士的愛慕之意，實則他消除了女性角色史黛拉的聲音與面容，以確保男性之主體性與優越性；但他仍需強調女主角對他的影響以確立自已於文本中的身分。羅史女士的詩集以西尼詩集為範本，是此男性文類的模仿亦是顛覆；女性詩人與女性主角提供讀者一個陰性縫隙使我們得以在封閉的男性愛情文類中聽到女性的聲音，感受到女性被壓抑的情感。 第三章旨在分析莎士比亞十四行詩集中主要的二部分，即給青年男子的詩與給黑女士的詩。此二詩群顯示了莎翁對兩性迥異的態度；莎翁不斷褒揚青年男子貶抑黑女士，但他對黑女士既愛且恨的矛盾情感，推翻了男性的優越也顛覆了青年男子詩中的單一同質性。對莎翁而言黑女士似乎代表了男性心中既想與之分離又渴望與之結合之賤斥女性母體。 第四章中經由對十六世紀十四行詩集及十七世紀早期抒情詩之爬梳，顯示出自然在當時多是詩人表達不同目的的工具，如彰顯他們愛人的美麗、象徵他們的情感、顯示上帝對人類的恩澤、呈現人類的優越等。自然鮮少以「物自身」的身分呈現，而多半被描述成「為我之物」。在西方傳統二元對立的思想中，自然被視為遜於文化、遜於人類、遜於心智，因而理所當然應受到人類世界的宰制。此種受生態女性主義詬病的，以人為中心的思想，是當時普遍的想法。 第五章聚焦於十七世紀早期抒情詩中之女性意象。當時抒情詩人傾向將女性污名化，在他們詩中女性常被描述為不貞、放蕩、粗鄙。此種污名化舉動實則肇因於男性對女性原始繁殖能力之畏懼。為了確定父親之名的傳承，男性詩人鼓吹女性貞潔與多產的美德。不論貶斥女性的放蕩不貞或誇讚女性之貞潔多產皆顯示了男性對女性生殖力的畏懼與控制女性的意圖。 至浪漫時期，所謂「自然詩」當道，女性不再是抒情詩之重要主題。浪漫時期的重要突破之一在於詩人對自然的態度有了大幅的轉變，他們確認了自然於抒情詩中之重要地位，自然成為抒情詩的重要主題，不再只是詩人抒發己意的工具。想像力也同時被視作詩的重要元素，浪漫詩人一方面極力讚美自然世界無以倫比的壯觀美景，一方面又鼓吹想像力的應用，認為想像力可以美化並提升自然，使平凡無奇的自然景緻超凡入聖。詩人對此二種不可或缺卻又彼此對立之重要元素的矛盾情愫，常成為當時詩作的主題。第六章即探討詩人對自然的態度及他們想像力的應用。華茲華斯在長期擺蕩於兩者之後，最終似乎肯定了想像力的卓越；柯立芝躊躇於兩者之間，最後似乎將自然的力量歸功於上帝的創造，因此暗示了他對自然更高的崇敬；雪萊採取了較持平的態度，在他詩中自然與想像力皆偉大不凡且互相提升、相得益彰；濟慈鼓吹「消極能力」，亦即放空自我，充分感受體驗外在世界的能力，因此被女性主義評論家認為是浪漫詩人中較女性化的一位，而他對自然似乎更為推崇。 對女性及自然的貶抑與剝削似乎深深植根於西方歷史與文化中。雖然女性與自然在抒情詩中大多受到男性詩人宰制，此篇論文從法國女性主義與生態女性主義的角度，指出男性詩人對自然與女性生生不息的力量的恐懼，並彰顯被壓迫者的顛覆力量，以提供對抒情詩世界較為平衡與多面的了解。

Abstract

This dissertation scrutinizes the status of nature and that of woman in the English lyric poetry from 1500 to 1850; French feminist thoughts and ecofeminism are the main theoretical bases. Basically, nature and woman share similar fate of being discriminated against in the field of lyric poetry, but in this dissertation I also try to demonstrate the subversive power of the repressed, which may be obscure but unextinguishable. In the discussion of the lyric poetry in the sixteenth century, the focus is put on the prevalent genre at that time, the sonnet sequence. The second chapter discusses two sonnet sequences: one is Sir Philip Sidney’s Astrophil and Stella; and the other, Lady Mary Wroth’s Pamphilia to Amphilanthus. In the scrutiny of these two sonnet cycles I put emphasis on the contrasting sexual differences, which not only show the male poet’s discrimination against woman but also demonstrate the female’s subversive power. In Astrophil and Stella, Sidney seemingly shows his love for Lady Rich through the speaker Astrophil, but actually he silences and defaces the female character Stella to ensure his subjectivity and superiority. Yet, he still has to emphasize the female’s effect on him, since this is the way for him to get his identity. Wroth’s Pamphilia to Amphilanthus, modeling on Sidney’s Astrophil and Stella, is both a mimesis and subversion of the male genre. The female poet and the female speaker provide a feminine crevice for us to see a more balanced love world. In the third chapter, the study of the two groups of Shakespeare’s sonnets, the sonnets to the “Fair Youth” and those to the “Dark Lady,” shows Shakespeare’s different attitudes toward the two sexes. Shakespeare tries to elevate the young man and debase the dark lady, but his ambivalent feelings toward the dark lady subvert the male’s superiority and the homogeneity in the young man part. To Shakespeare, the dark lady seems to be the abject maternal body, which he wants to separate from and unite with at the same time. The fourth chapter demonstrates that in both the sixteenth-century sonnets and the early seventeenth-century lyrics, nature is employed as a means for the poets’ different purposes—to show the beauty of their beloved, to express their feelings, to demonstrate God’s mercy on human beings, to show human beings’ superiority and so on. Nature is seldom depicted as a thing in itself but always as a thing for us and this is the common attitude at that time. In the dichotomies of the Western thoughts, nature is regarded as inferior to culture, to human, and to mind, and along with this inferiority is the logic of domination; that is, nature is justifiably dominated by human. Chapter five focuses on the woman’s image in the early seventeenth-century lyrics. Lyric poets at that time usually stigmatize women in their poems, in which women are depicted as unchaste, wanton, and soulless. This stigmatization actually results from male’s fear of woman, or of woman’s chthonian nature, that is, her procreative power. In order to be sure of the passing down of the father’s name, the male poets promote the virtue of chastity and fertility, and this actually shows the male’s intention to control women. In the Romantic period, as “nature poetry” becomes dominant, woman seems not an important topic. A breakthrough change in this period is the poets’ attitude toward nature—they acknowledge the significant status of nature. Nature, no longer subsidiary, becomes the subject matter. Since imagination is also deemed an important element in poetry, the Romantic poets’ dialectic love between these two inevitable yet somewhat antithetical elements becomes an important issue in the Romantic period. Therefore, in Chapter six, the focus ison those Romantic poets’ dialectic love between nature and mind. Wordsworth, after a long process of fluctuating between the two loves, finally seems to grant imagination the prominency. Coleridge hesitates between the two important factors of poetry and finally he seems to attribute the great power of nature to God, which probably implies his higher regard of nature. Shelly holds a more balanced view since in his poems both nature and imagination are deemed great and both bring out the best in each other. Keats, with his idea of negative capability, intends to empty himself to feel or experience the outside world and so he is considered to be more feminine by most feminist critics. Keats seems to show greater reverence to nature. The debasement or exploitation of women and nature seem to be deeply rooted in history yet the repressed can also be subversive. Viewing from the perspective of French feminism and ecofeminism, this dissertation tries to provide a more balanced picture—to show that women and nature have the power to subvert the masculine symbolic, although most of the time they are dominated by the male lyric poets.