「傳記」與照妖鏡－－重釋善謀姜生的《薩維吉傳》

Biography as Exorcism of the Subversive Other: Samuel Johnson’s Life of Savage

本文有三個目標：重新詮釋姜生的「薩維吉傳」；重新說明姜生和十八世紀腐化論間的邏輯和修辭關連；藉「薩維吉傳」解析姜生對「傳記」文類的界定，以及該界定隱含的政治立場。於文本解析上，本文採用符號化和符號變動的邏輯分析，並且企圖以相同的解析方式，說明歷史或物質變遷，如何牽動社會、政府、制度、自我等。

The essay is a project of reinterpreting Samuel Johnson’s Life of Savage. The project attempts to reread the biography in a historical context of social and cultural instability, in which changes in various aspects of life caused discursive wars between the stench defenders of long established values and institutions and the enthusiastic progressive champions of the newly innovated. The reading is to be conducted in light of concepts, such as semiosis, and the logic of supplementarity. It is expected that the reading will bring new light to the fundamental conflicts at issue in the discursive wars, and demonstrate how Johnson employed “biography” as a discursive strategy of exorcism for the benefit of his middling readers in a world in which values had become alarmingly fluid.