羅伯特●路易斯●史蒂文森《化身博士》以及《Falesá海灘》的空間與敘事

Abstract

十九世紀晚期帝國的擴張，使得維多利亞人對城市以及海洋抱持著想像。身為一個維多利亞晚期作家，羅伯特●路易斯●史蒂文森也對自身成長的愛丁堡城市環境，以及出海航行時的南海島嶼抱持著特殊興趣。有鑑於維多利亞晚期的人對城市與海洋的想像以及史蒂文森對環境的興趣，本論文使用「空間」一詞涵蓋維多利亞晚期城市及南海地理環境，從此概念檢視史蒂文森如何操作對空間的新鮮感，把空間當成他寫作的來源基礎，最終以史蒂文森利用空間來書寫，作為本論文的貢獻。 本論文以《化身博士》以及《Falesá海灘》為例，探討史蒂文森書寫中依賴空間的敘事，這意味著作者使用一個語言，而這個語言對故事角色與維多利亞晚期城市空間和南海地理環境變動結構的互動關係有著高度的敏銳性。為了深入探究這個特殊的敘事語言，本論文以十九世紀末德國及英國美學對空間的「共感」理論作為方法學，演示人物角色與空間相互互動的思考脈絡。論探討史蒂文森書寫中的「共感」語言，即是研究一個將空間轉換成工具去發展的語言，著重於James J. Gibson所定義之人類與空間互動中，所賦予或創造出空間不同的功能特性，而非將空間的功能特性視為象徵，運用此「共感」理論為方法，還原空間的特殊性，進一步解釋史蒂文森書寫中的敘事。

The empire’s expansion during the late-nineteenth century enables the late Victorians to hold imaginations about the city and the ocean. As a late-Victorian contemporary writer, Robert Louis Stevenson also shares a special interest in his upbringing surroundings in Edinburgh and the South Sea islands during his voyages on the ocean. Regarding late Victorians’ universal fancy for the city and South Sea islands and Stevenson’s interests in the environment, this thesis employs the term “space” to encompass the late-Victorian city and the South Sea island. By doing so, this thesis examines how Stevenson manipulates the universal interest in “space” and takes “space” as the foundation of his writing resource. Ultimately, the contribution of this thesis is about Stevenson’s dependence on space in composing his writings. My thesis takes Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (1886) and The Beach of Falesá (1892) as the textual grounds to study the narrative dependent on space in Stevenson’s writings. By this, I mean the writer employs a language that is highly sensitive to the mutually interactive process between his characters and the changing configuration of late-Victorian city space and the geographical environments of a South Sea island. To delve into this unique narrative language, this thesis appeals to the late-nineteenth-century German and British aesthetic theory of empathy and space as a method of reading to demonstrate the thinking of the mutual interaction with space. By saying that I am exploring Stevenson’s “empathetic” language, I am explicitly studying a language utilizing what space can afford, treating space as what James J. Gibson coins as “affordance” instead of reducing these affordances into symbols. From there, I will further the interests of the narrative in Stevenson’s writings.