從〈夏洛特之女〉到〈蕊芳梭〉:英國美學主義中的織女意象

Abstract

本論文探討丁尼生的〈夏洛特之女〉以及默睿思的〈蕊芳梭〉兩首詩中的織女意象與十九世紀中英國美學主義的關聯。此兩首詩皆創作於詩人尚未成名之初，反映出詩人對於創作的焦慮，織女作為創作者的化身，協助詩人在此關鍵時刻反思創作者角色之於世界的關係。自丁尼生〈夏洛特之女〉創作問世，夏洛特之女形象風行於維多利亞世紀，成為無數繪畫與插畫主題，是已溢出文本外的文化圖像，並激發許多以深閨織女為主題的詩與畫。這一類型文本除了承載維多利亞世紀對於深閨女子的集體想像，亦是詩人及畫家檢討藝術與創作的媒介，因此筆者視〈夏洛特之女〉為英國美學主義之先驅文本。 寫作此詩時，丁尼生適逢第一本詩集遭多數評論冷落，必須重新協調藝術自主性。夏洛特之女的詛咒一如詩人在藝術自恃的自主性以及創作和世界密不可分的關係間無法解套。詩人最終離開象徵創作之崇高與特權的高塔，讓織女背負他的詛咒而死，她無從解讀的屍體保護了詩的創作的純粹，詩人則妥協前進。 默睿思因早年習畫挫敗與激進思想背景，揚棄丁尼生和前拉斐爾派畫家投射出的自戀織女形象，默睿思美學中，欲解決創作中的自我矛盾，必須結合藝術創作和社會生產，讓工作成為日常生活的藝術實踐。蕊芳梭的編織不再是詛咒，而是脫離高塔的自救技能。本文透過織女意象銜接兩首詩以及其他織女為題之前拉斐爾派畫作，並呈現兩位詩人迥異的美學與文藝創作觀。

This thesis examines the trope of the “lady weaver” in two poems – Lord Alfred Tennyson’s “The Lady of Shalott” and William Morris’s “Rapunzel” – in relation to mid-nineteenth-century British aestheticism. Both poems are composed at an early, anxious stage in the poets’ career. The weavers, as proxies of their creators, assist them to renegotiate their role as creator and its relation to the world. At its publication, the Lady of Shalott enthralls Victorian artists and audience alike, rendering itself a cultural icon which inspires numerous pictorial renditions as well as other poems and paintings that feature embowered weaving ladies. This recurrent image not only carries a collective cultural fantasy of the woman in the bower but also plays the medium via which poets and artists examine the creative enterprise; therefore I see “The Lady of Shalott” as the pioneering text in British aestheticism. Suffering critical rebuff for his first collection, Tennyson had to renegotiate poetic autonomy at the composition of “The Lady of Shalott.” The curse he devises for the lady weaver figures the irreconcilable contradiction in creative enterprise: that between art’s claimed autonomy and its inevitable subjection to and reliance on the external world. The poet ultimately leaves the exclusive, privileging creative sphere in the tower for the world, leaving the curse of the creative paradox for his proxy weaver to bear. Her impenetrable corpse shields the purity of art and creation, while the poet moves on in compromise. Frustrated as an apprentice painter and cultivated with radical political thinking, Morris disavows the narcissistic weavers portrayed by Tennyson and the Pre-Raphaelites. Morris seeks to resolve the creative paradox by incorporating artistic creation and social production, thereby reintroducing aesthetic experience to everyday life. Rapunzel’s weaving is no longer a curse, but an empowering skill of self-help. This thesis bridges the two poems and Pre-Raphaelite paintings through the trope of the weaver, and presents the two poets’ respective aesthetics and view on creation.