朗讀《Tender Buttons》：葛楚‧史坦的體現詩學

Abstract

現代主義文學論著時常提及美國作家葛楚‧史坦（Gertrude Stein），但這些研究多數只觸及史坦古怪的寫作風格或她個人的影響力，是以史坦作為一個歷史人物在文學正典中的核心地位及文學評論家對其作品的嚴重忽視之間，長期存在著一種詭異的斷裂，而一直未曾被系統性地充分銜接。這篇論文透過詳盡的文本分析，仔細研究史坦的第一本詩集《溫柔的按鈕》（Tender Buttons），邁出解決這個問題的第一步。在這篇論文中，我避開了以理論為中心的研究方法，而開發出一種從朗讀及傾聽詩歌文本向外擴張的方法論。本論文的每一章都圍繞著一個非常不同的主題（史坦對物品的概念、文學聯覺現象和重複的修辭技巧等），但這些主題都需要借助對朗讀過程的關注及和解析，以解釋詩文的文學效果。透過強調詩歌的聲音及研發朗聲的實用方法論，這篇論文推進了文學批判論述，最終期望能校正當今詩歌研究中對聲音的根深蒂固的忽視。

American writer Gertrude Stein is cited by almost every study on literary modernism, yet often represented merely by her eccentric style or personal influence. This ironic dissonance between Stein-as-a-figure’s central position in canon and the critical neglect of her work has never been adequately and systematically addressed. This thesis takes the first steps toward addressing this problem by closely studying her first volume of poetry, Tender Buttons. In this thesis, I eschew a theory-centric reading and develop a methodology that radiates from the attentive and vocal readings of the poetic text. Each chapter of this thesis is centered around a very different topic—Stein’s idea of objects, the phenomenon of literary synesthesia, and the rhetorical trope of repetition—that rely upon the recognition and dissection of the process of vocalization to demonstrate the maximum impact of Stein’s poetry. The discussions in this thesis advance the critical discourse in literary studies by emphasizing the sound of poetry and developing a practical methodology of vocal reading, ultimately aiming to redress the entrenched neglect of sound in poetry studies today.