神話與紀實：倫敦的認同論述與文學想像

Myth-Making and Realism: The Self-Fashioning of London as Modern Metropolis

人類文明發展史上約以文藝復興為現代時期的開端。現代時期的諸多特質之一，便是都市的興起。倫敦作為當時世界最大城市，第一個工業國家的首都，和粗具態勢的帝國之政經樞紐，最令人印象深刻的首先是它的人潮和動能，以及隨之而來的複雜多樣的人際互動。倫敦的建設由初期的西敏市和市區東西對峙，逐漸向郊外和泰晤士河南岸發展，利用無形的文化宰制力量進行社會性的區隔，劃分階級與族群的領域。文藝復興時期倫敦的認同論述訴諸神話傳統，至十八世紀，文學中的倫敦形象大量出現，較為趨近現實，多自日常生活取材，再加想像潤飾，抒發觀感，各寫己見。本文擬檢視倫敦的認同論述與以「紀實」為策略的文學想像，考掘文復時期神話建構與十八世紀「紀實」文學所具現的空間政治，用以凸顯神話大論述和紀實策略之間的轉折和扞格。

The self-fashioning of London as Troynovant (new Troy) or Rome proliferates in quasi-historical writings, city custumals, and literature in the early modern period. Eighteenth-century writers, including Edward Ward, Alexander Pope, and Tobias Smollett, opt for the realistic mode, tinting their descriptions of London street-life with a rhetoric that appeals to a social topography that polarizes The West End and The East End, center and margins. This paper provides a cultural reading of texts that rest on this dichotomous construct in the self-fashioning of London as modern metropolis.