自然史與女性教育：夏洛特•史密斯與約翰•拉斯金

Abstract

本論文旨在以夏洛特•史密斯（1749-1806）與約翰•拉斯金（1819-1900）之 作品為例，探討十八世紀末至十九世紀間英國「自然史」與「女性教育」之互動。 自然史起源古希臘羅馬時期，本為研究人與自然關係之綜合型學科，其早期 綜合科學與人文之特性，使學者在書寫間可抒發其政治理念；在十八世紀末至十 九世紀的英國女性教育相關辯論正興之時，自然史即為其提供良好的平台。自然 史發展後受大英帝國海外擴張影響，轉變為一龐大、專業化、分工精細的自然科 學系統，也失去了其哲學與倫理學之色彩；其時女性教育便成為傳統自然史學者 再興其人文特色之途徑。 本論文自史密斯之《詩歌概論對話錄》（1804）與拉斯金之《塵土的倫理》（1865）著手，研究兩自然史與女性教育之兩種互動模式。身為以出版養家糊口的女作家，史密斯於《詩歌概論對話錄》，借自然史之人文特色教導女孩詩學、引導女性關注社會、經濟議題，將女性引領往公領域。為物質化科學憂心的拉斯金，則在《塵土的倫理》中運用女孩與水晶之譬喻，展現人類社會與地質環境之相似性，借女性教育論述對科學研究再人文化之期許。兩部作品出版時間相隔六十年的作品， 呈現了自然史與女性教育的兩種關係。

This thesis delineates the convoluted development of natural history and women’s education in the eighteenth- and nineteenth-century Britain, with the focus on the contributions by Charlotte Turner Smith (1749-1806) and John Ruskin (1819-1900). Natural history, an ancient study rooted in Greco-Roman time, has been refreshed by the expansion of the British Empire and has become a dominant science in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. As an academic discipline dealing with various aspects of nature and humans, the study of natural history became politically charged. Its existence created a platform for debatable issues, including women’s education, which was a popular topic tightly connected to natural history. As the empire expanded, natural history was divided into different disciplines and professionalized, and had lost its metaphysical characteristics. Women’s education became the platform on which scholars could consolidate the metaphysical natural history. Suggesting that natural history empowered women’s education, and that women’s education could also be used to revive natural history, this thesis focuses on two educational works for girls, Smith’s Conversations Introducing Poetry (1804) and Ruskin’s The Ethics of the Dust (1865). Being a woman who has to support herself and her family with publications, Smith educates girls to approach poetics, economy and social criticism via the metaphysical natural history, and leads them to the observation of the public sphere. Worried by the materializing science, Ruskin displays the similarity between human society and geological environment and tries to revive metaphysical natural history through the analogy of girls and crystals. The two works shows related yet different views on the relationship between natural history and women’s education.