閱讀越界：記一部十七世紀的《牡丹亭》木刻印本如何穿梭時空為女性閱讀作見證

Beyond Reading:The Story of How a Seventeenth-Century Wood-Block Copy of The Peony Pavilion Traveled through Time and Space to Bring to the Fore a Group of Chinese Women Readers

本文以一則民國革命前夕所記載的讀書志為引，企圖勾勒出一幀橫越時空的女性閱讀史圖；這幀圖的起始點是一部二卷十七世紀的《牡丹亭》木刻印本。本文意在立論：在父系父權的社會體制下，女性的閱讀或／與書寫是幫助她們跨越許多藩籬與分隔的利器，因為本文所探討的實例證明，不同時空的女人可以透過閱讀同一部作品，甚至是擁有同一本書這種親密經驗，而互相連結；這些女人之間也許沒有血緣關係，卻可以在橫的向度上稱彼此為姊妹，縱的向度上尊前者為祖先、視後者為子孫，而前後傳承。

This is a telling of the story about a 17th-century Wood-Block Copy of The Peony Pavilion—how it was begotten in the first place; how it was passed around among different hands, through various places, and over 200 years in late imperial China. This paper, calling to attention several cases of women’s reading and commentating on the play, aims to prove that in a patrilineal, patriarchal society, women’s literacy (as testified by their reading and writing) was often a medium through which they transcended their boundaries, physically and mentally. This paper also proposes that by reading, commentating on, and owning the same book, women in different time and space might relate to one another and forge a special kind of sisterhood and even matrilineage despite the fact that they were not biologically connected.