「我生命的白晝」：吳爾芙《歐蘭朵》中的英國性、異國情調他者與震渾

“Jour de Ma Vie”: Englishness, the Exotic Other, and the Sublime in Virginia Woolf’s Orlando

取材自薇塔‧莎科維爾維斯特的家族與個人歷史，維吉尼亞‧吳爾芙一九二八年出版的小說《歐蘭朵》表面上看似歌頌其中貴族血統的繼承人角色所代表的英國性。但做為一部反思國家文化再現的奇想傳記，本小說諧仿並挑戰主流的國家想像。其對小說主人翁的刻劃反諷了象徵英國性之對大自然及鄉村祖宅的熱愛，而歐蘭朵的雌雄同體更讓此角色所代表的陽性傳統的英國性變得「去中心化」。持續不斷地書寫「橡樹」這首詩，歐蘭朵體現了自然主義式的國家傳奇，反映了他的領地及社會所象徵的完美秩序。而在面對異國情調他者以及異域的大自然時，他的浪漫主義想像更展現「震渾」（the sublime）帝國主義式的、陽性的自我心理性擴展。而做為一位居家仕女，歐蘭朵並不以美學化的角度來觀照她的家園。她與蕭莫汀戲耍般的夫妻互動突顯性別與性向的「展演性」以及慾望的流動不居。因著她想像力展現的難以界定的「震渾」經驗，陰性歐蘭朵傳達超越框限的對他者的慾望。歐蘭朵與蕭莫汀的結合並寓言化另類的國家主體，一種築基在擁抱「現今」（the present）與對話的實體自我。歐蘭朵陰陽同體的傳記因而模糊了、跨越了家國與祖承的本質性藩籬。

Drawing upon the personal and family histories of Vita Sackville-West, Virginia Woolf’s 1928 novel Orlando appears to celebrate the idea of Englishness epitomized by the eponymous character as a noble heir. As a fantastical biography meditating on the question of representation of national culture, the novel nevertheless parodies and contests the hegemonic national imagination. Its portrayal of the eponymous character satirizes the love of nature and ancestral country houses as significant characteristic of Englishness. Moreover, Orlando’s androgyny enables a decentering “feminization” of his otherwise traditionalist, masculinist personification of England. Continually composing the poem “The Oak Tree,” Orlando as the poet-nobleman embodies the naturalistic romance of the nation that idealizes his lands and his society as a reflection of natural harmony. In his encounters with the exotic other and nature in foreign places, his Romantic imagination displays imperialistic psychodynamics of masculine self-enlargement of the sublime, which ensures his coherent, patriarchal English identity. Orlando, as a homebound woman, however, does not look at her country through the same aestheticizing lens. And her playful marital bond with Shelmerdine indicates performativity of gender and sexuality, and fluidity of desire. With her poetic imagination enacting an uncategorizable or “feminine” sublime, the female Orlando represents not just an unaestheticized, non-transcendental apprehension of nature and the foreign other, but also the uncontained desire for alterity. As Orlando’s interrelationship with Shelmerdine signifies an alternative national subjectivity founded on an embodied, dialogical sense of self embracing “the present,” the androgynous life breaches and confuses the naturalistic bounds of home and origins.