濟慈的神話詩學：時間、憂鬱、寓言

Abstract

本論文討論英國浪漫主義詩人濟慈敘事詩中的烏托邦欲望，將取材自神話的諸作品視為對社會歷史情境的回應，並嘗試論證，濟慈的文學抱負實屬第二代英國浪漫主義者，即使經歷拿破崙戰爭所致的幻滅，仍試圖改造世界的革命理想。濟慈創作神話敘事詩的歷程，本文名之「神話詩學」，此想像彷彿脫離塵世，實際上卻幽微地與普羅米修斯神話對應，體現了一個奮力為俗世帶來文明的靈魂及精神。 本文第一章討論《恩迪密昂》。濟慈自承此詩受到少不更事與天真爛漫所累，然而烏托邦衝動在此作可謂昭然若揭。最特殊者，乃同名主角在追尋女神之途中，感受到時間之脆弱：恩迪密昂在夢中急切擁抱女神，顯示他受困於當下之時間，敘事的大團圓結尾相形之下反而顯得勉強、造作。詩作中受困當下之感，與濟慈在書信中流露對生命苦痛的敏感遙相呼應。但正是因此對生命當下的悲劇性體會，才能真正投射出對未來的希望。 第二章接續討論《海柏利昂》。透過詩作中諸神之憂鬱，詩人表達對進步史觀的疑慮。而詩人原本有意模擬史詩，卻基於這些疑慮，令其保持片斷形式，進而創作另一詩《海柏利昂的敗亡》。在靈視中，該作的說話者墮入生也有涯的憂思，透露濟慈關於群體歷史的烏托邦幻想，已獲得深化。 本文第三章討論《蕾米亞》。此詩寫一母蛇求得神助，化作女子與凡人相戀，最後仍在眾人眼前被貶回原形，在當時可謂聳動。集強大的欲望及文字能量於一身，費解卻使讀者著迷之作品，濟慈在書信中曾稱之「寓言」。由此觀之，此傳奇詩內部蓄積潛能動勢，只為一舉超脫歷史桎梏，有如蛇體貌似蜷曲，實為前進而預備。

This thesis examines the wishes and longings in John Keats’s narrative poems that are informed by their socio-historical situation, and argues that Keats’s literary aspirations belong to the second-generation British Romantics’ attempt to resuscitate energies that fuelled progressive politics in a period when the high hopes of revolution were dashed by post-Napoleonic despair. Keats’s mythological poetry is grasped concretely as a literary endeavor in the face of socio-historical adversity. And this thesis calls Keats’s process of writing mythological narratives his “mythopoesis.” Such a creative process reveals the subtle ways in which an imagination of the otherworldly in fact embodies a struggling, civilizing spirit. This thesis suggests a parallel with the myth of Prometheus. Chapter One investigates Endymion. While Keats concedes that this mythological romance suffers from inexperience and naivety, this vulnerability of the poem suggests a scarcely concealed utopian impulse, most notably at work in the fragile temporality of the eponymous hero’s quest. Endymion’s desperate embrace of his goddess, along with the unconvincing final resolution of the poem, gives rise to the feeling that Endymion cannot escape from the present; here, one finds an echo of Keats’s sensitivity to human suffering. Only through this tragic conception of life in time can a truly utopian hope be projected. In Chapter Two, this concern is further explored in Hyperion, where the melancholy of the gods expresses the poet’s misgivings about the liberal ideology of progress. Doubt leaves the epic attempt fragmented, and Keats goes on to compose The Fall of Hyperion, in which the visionary speaker’s fall into a melancholy awareness of mortality reveals a deepening of Keats’s utopian fantasy about a collective history. Chapter Three discusses Lamia, a sensational drama about a serpent-woman’s love affair that demonstrates a remarkable degree of libidinal and linguistic energy, which characterizes what Keats refers to as allegory in his letters. The serpentine movement of this romance demarcates the limitations of circumstances, in order to to gesture a potential way out of the historical impasse.