維多利亞時期醫學科技的文化轉譯：喬治•艾略特的《掀起的薄紗》、《織工馬南傳》及《米德鎮的春天》

Abstract

摘要

本論文旨在檢視喬治‧艾略特三個文本，《掀起的薄紗》(1859)、《織工馬南傳》(1861)、以及《米德鎮的春天》(1872)，如何重新地運用醫學技術為文化語言在詮釋文化現象。藉由這三個文本凸顯艾略特對醫學科技的「轉譯」—亦即是將醫學科技由原來的醫療情境移轉到日常生活的場域當中，進而用來討論社會及道德等議題，以評論、想像維多利亞時期人民的社群關係。本論文更進一步呈現在這三本作品中艾略特對醫學科技轉譯的態度轉變過程：由《掀起的薄紗》當中的以醫學科技作為一個「隱喻」，到《織工馬南傳》當中重新強調一個「地方性的觀點」，最後《米德鎮的春天》探索一種具有「革新性」，並包容開明理念的鄉地方性觀點的可能性。在《掀起的薄紗》中，艾略特以輸血技術作為一個「隱喻」，或是一種並非侷限於一般醫藥意義的「比喻」，來想像性地描述日常生活，進而灌輸讀者對於道德淪喪的危機意識。而在《織工馬南傳》裡，預防接種被轉譯為一種「地方性觀點」，進而探討維多利亞時期的鄉村區域在都市化過程當中，所衍生的種種群己關係的問題。在《米德鎮的春天》當中，我們可以看到艾略特的地方性觀點絕非是狹隘的地域主義。這樣的地方性觀點其實試圖轉化「顯微鏡像視野」，觀察並再現維多利亞時期日常生活當中的複雜面向。而此種地方性觀點其實是歡迎科學進步與社會變革，只不過仍強調進步與變革須透過諸如友愛之情或同理心等等的鄉土聯繫來進行調和。

Abstract

This thesis examines three of George Eliot’s works, “The Lifted Veil” (1859), Silas Marner (1861), and Middlemarch (1872), to investigate how Eliot appropriates medical advances of the time to imagine the quickly changing Victorians’ social relationships. The re-reading of these three texts presents us a comprehensive view of Eliot in the conjuncture of medical science and novel writing of the Victorian time: a trajectory of Eliot’s “translation” of medical techniques, i.e. the relocation of medical techniques from their original clinical context to the terrains of everyday life to address social and moral issues, will thus emerge. One witnesses a development of Eliot’s attitude toward her medical translation—from a deployment of medical technique as a “metaphor,” to an assertion of her “provincial outlook,” and finally to an exploration of the possibility of a “progressive” provincial outlook that embraces more liberal views. Eliot manipulates transfusion as a “metaphor,” or a “figuration” as an imaginative way not only to diffuse a sense of moral crisis in a morally degenerating society, but also urge a moral refinement accordingly. And in Silas Marner, inoculation is translated into a provincial outlook and thus metaphorically addresses the problems of interpersonal relationships that are instigated by the urbanization of rural areas in Victorian period. Eliot’s provincial outlook, as dramatized in Middlemarch, is far from a straitjacket provincialism. Based on a “microscopic vision,” such an outlook copes with complexities in the Victorian life world: it welcomes scientific progresses and social changes, only that such progresses and changes would be incomplete if not negotiated by some provincial bonds such as brotherhood and sympathy.