單身漢生活、田園懷舊與同性曖昧：愛德華時期兒童文學中的男性居家氣質

Abstract

本文始於我對維多利亞時期的中產階級家庭生活和女性氣質的密切關係的懷疑。近年來學者已研究過維多利亞中葉已婚男性的「居家男性氣質」（domestic masculinity），卻忽略了維多利亞末葉及愛德華時期的單身漢「男性居家氣質」（male domesticity），尤其是它在兒童文本裡的實例。在本文中，我試圖仔細分析J. M. 巴利的《彼得潘》（1911）、肯尼斯•葛瑞漢的《柳林中的風聲》（1908），和碧翠斯•波特的《松鼠提米的故事》（1911）中，男性居家氣質表現的單身漢生活、田園懷舊氣息，與「同性曖昧」（homoeroticism）。我也會採用兩部影響深遠，與單身漢友情及男性居家氣質有關，具備同性曖昧潛質的系列故事來作為參考對照：第一部是湯瑪斯•休斯的《湯姆•布朗》系列，包含《湯姆•布朗的學校生活》（1857）和《湯姆•布朗在牛津》（1861），融合了維多利亞時期的男孩冒險故事及中學學校故事。另一部則是亞瑟•柯南•道爾爵士的《福爾摩斯》（1887-1927），為世界知名的偵探系列故事及「男性冒險故事」（male romance）。 為了將成人小說如《福爾摩斯》與愛德華時期兒童文學對照，我將上述三文本置於「跨界小說」（crossover fiction）的類別，以互文性加以討論，以證明兒童文本仍存在如同性曖昧等成人議題。關於兒童文學和性別理論學者，我和他們在對童年、對維多利亞居家生活，和對男性友誼的評論看法上有共同點；然而，我也進一步分析愛德華時期的兒童文學作家將同性戀禁忌議題轉化為同性曖昧暗示的方法。透過以雙重讀者為作品目標，這些作家才能在書中強調同居單身漢的友情，以及對女性居家生活的排除。

This thesis begins with my doubts on the close link between Victorian bourgeois domesticity and femininity. Recent scholars have studied “domestic masculinity” of mid-Victorian married men, yet they ignore “male domesticity” of late-Victorian and Edwardian bachelors, particularly when the cases come from children’s texts. In this thesis I intend to dissect bachelor’s life, idyllic nostalgia and homoeroticism in the representations of male domesticity in J. M. Barrie’s Peter Pan (1911), Kenneth Grahame’s The Wind in the Willows (1908), and Beatrix Potter’s The Tale of Timmy Tiptoes (1911). I also adopt two far-reaching series featuring bachelor’s friendship, male domesticity and homoerotic potentials as references. One is Thomas Hughes’ Tom Brown series, including Tom Brown’s Schooldays (1857) and Tom Brown at Oxford (1861), both fusing Victorian boy’s adventure story and the public school story. The other is Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s Sherlock Holmes (1887-1927), the world-renowned detective series and male romance. By juxtaposing adult fiction such as Sherlock Holmes with Edwardian children’s literature, I put the above three texts into the crossover fiction category with intertexuality to evidence the existence of adult issues like homoeroticism in children’s texts. With regard to scholars of children’s literature and gender theory, I share with them the critical perspectives of childhood, Victorian domesticity and male homosociality; however, I further analyze the ways writers of Edwardian children’s literature use to transform the tabooed issue of homosexuality into homoerotic hints. By targeting their texts at duel readership, they emphasize friendship of cohabited bachelors and exclude feminized domesticity in their works.