自己的素材：《達洛維夫人》與《燈塔行》中的創造性 感知及自我的物質媒介

Abstract

本篇論文欲分析維吉尼亞·吳爾芙於小說《達洛維夫人》及《燈塔行》中如何運用物質性與身體性建立角色的自我意識及創造力，並藉由梅洛-龐蒂關於身體、感知與現象意識的觀點闡明吳爾芙於文本中呈現的物質性感知。關於吳爾芙的相關文學批評多強調其對於角色的內在情緒、思維等抽象特徵的刻畫，然而此論文主張吳爾芙的主角獨特性和她們的感官體驗及身邊的物質環境息息相關。這些感官經驗為刺激、催化她們自我意識形成的重要因素，本文將此現象定義為「自我的物質媒介」。筆者將《達洛維夫人》與《燈塔行》的主角們解讀為擁有不同層次創作意識的藝術家，並引用梅洛-龐蒂關於現象學的書寫將這些女性角色們與物質世界的互動連結到她們各自的創作行為和自我表現。本文的結論則強調吳爾芙在其自傳性紀實書寫、短篇小說及長篇小說中皆頻繁描繪出物質性與藝術創作者的自我表現之間的緊密關聯，而此關聯所形成的女性主義取向現象學可被視為吳爾芙對現代主義敘事法的重要革新之一。

This thesis analyzes Virginia Woolf’s use of materiality and physicality in the construction of creative identity as portrayed in her novels Mrs. Dalloway and To the Lighthouse, referencing Merleau-Ponty’s theories of the body’s centrality to perception and phenomenological experience. Contrary to the critical assumption that Woolf privileges abstract intellectual and emotional inwardness over embodiment, this thesis argues that Woolf’s articulation of her protagonists’ individuality is rooted strongly in the physical phenomena they encounter, and that such encounters with physicality serve as essential catalysts in the characters’ formation of selfhood—namely, what I define as “material-mediated identity.” Reading the protagonists of Mrs. Dalloway’s and To the Lighthouse as artistic creators with varying degrees of creative awareness, I reference Merleau-Pontian phenomenology to link the characters’ engagement with physical phenomena to their respective creative endeavors and expressions of selfhood. I conclude that the interconnectedness between materiality and artistic identity, which Woolf expresses extensively in her autobiographical nonfiction and short fiction as well as her novels, constitutes a form of feminist phenomenology that acts as a Modernist innovation of narrative form via its foregrounding of material-mediated knowledge.