「介於中間」與歷史議題─華特‧班雅明《拱廊街計劃》研究

Abstract

本文根據《拱廊街計劃》（The Arcades Project, Das Passagen-Werk）一書，旨在解析華特‧班雅明（Walter Benjamin, 1892-1940）反歷史主義的視野，探究其「碎片」、「介於中間」等概念。

班雅明認為，習慣處於簡化的歷史脈絡下，易對現實無感。因此，他以碎片摘錄的形式佈排《拱廊街計劃》，並藉由不同碎片組成的「介於中間」，收納歷史、社會、時代下隱藏的部份，還原現代社會和歷史的碎片聚集空間。其目的在於發掘可見歷史縫隙中，為數眾多卻被刪除的歷史；換言之，以此目的視為寫作動機的《拱廊街計劃》，可以說就是眾多「介於中間」之聚合體。

本研究採取抽樣方法，從《拱廊街計劃》中選取四章節深入分析，耙梳「青年藝術風格」、「鐵造建築」、「賭博與賣淫」、「收藏家」等四項主題和班雅明歷史觀點之關聯：憑藉「介於中間」具備的拒絕排除、無法解釋、以及去除功能性等特質，探討班雅明如何藉由十九世紀巴黎的藝術、建築、文學、社會等碎片，呈現「介於中間」的歷史，釋出另一種歷史描述方式，進而析論班雅明面對歷史議題的立場及作法。

This thesis based on Walter Benjamin’s The Arcades Project mainly focuses on the view towards anti-historism and explores the concept of ‘detritus’ as well as ‘intervening’.

Benjamin claimed that people would ignore what happened in reality under the scheme of simplified history. As a result, he established The Arcades Project by the form of detrital extraction, and collected concealed parts of history, society, and epoch through ‘intervening’ which consists of different detritus in order to take a reduction of gathering space from modern society and history. Its purpose aims at excavating numbers of deleted history via the chink of visible history; in other words, the purpose is considered to be the motivation of The Arcades Project, i.e. numerous collective of ‘intervening’.

Consequently, this thesis adopts sampling technique as a method to dissect four chapters of The Arcades Project and attempts to find relations of Benjamin’s historical standpoint from the following four subjects: ‘Jugendstil,’ ‘Iron Construction,’ ‘Gambling and Prostitution,’ and ‘Collector’. Relying on characteristic of ‘intervening’ including refusing exclusion, inexplicable, detaching objects from functions, this thesis could investigate Benjamin how to present ‘intervening’ history by means of art, architecture, literature, and society in Paris among nineteenth century. Furthermore, it not only expands another historical description, but demonstrates the position and practice Benjamin confronted.