視覺與文本的交融──《名人堂》中的方言視界與書寫

Textual Vision and Visual Text: Envisioning the Vernacular Text in 'The House of Fame'

在關於喬瑟早期詩作《名人堂》的討論中，許多學者強調此部詩作著重處理語言與文本性的問題，而另一方面也有諸多論者指出視覺與圖像的重要性；然而卻少有研究進一步思考視覺與文本兩者間交錯關聯所引生的意義。本論文試圖探討三個彼此相關的議題，期能適切了解喬瑟這部早期作品的中心旨趣：（1） 視覺與文本的交融；（2） 聲音或言語在其間的角色；（3） 視覺與觀看所牽涉的問題如何幫助方言寫作得力而強化。在喬瑟所屬文化標榜的權威文本不時以難以抗拒卻又曖昧的文本性與視覺性盤繞其文本視界下，夢境裡多重的視覺性樣貌為喬瑟的方言書寫與其文化典律間之複雜關係提供重要洞見。詩作中充分鋪陳方言詩人所處的位置，其知識與文化記憶的來源，以及其識見之力量與侷限。隨著喬瑟在夢境與文本中剖析文字與圖像的交錯張力，其所造就出的視覺文本也戲劇性的展現方言寫作與權威典律的遭逢與斡旋，以及詩人如何透過方言文本以視覺、閱讀與書寫預見並傳播其美名。

While many critics of Chaucer's early poem ”The House of Fame” have put a premium on problems of language and textuality and others have called attention to a predominance of images and sight, they have generally failed to address the crucial convergence of the textual and the visual. This paper investigates three interrelated issues critical to an appropriate understanding of the poem: first, the blurring of the visual and the textual; second, the role of sound or speech in this conflation; and finally, the problems of vision and seeing that help empower the project of vernacular writing. The multiple configurations of visuality in the dream world provide crucial insight into the complicated relationships between Chaucer's vernacular writing and his culture's canon, which haunts the dream vision and text with imposing yet ambivalent visibility and textuality. The poem explores to the fullest the vernacular poet's position, the sources of his knowledge and cultural memory, and the limits and strengths of his vision. As Chaucer exploits the tension and intersection of word and image in the dream vision, his visual text dramatizes vernacular writing's confrontation with canonicity and envisions promises of negotiating and achieving fame through seeing, reading and writing in the vernacular text.