試論莊子文學空間──來自「嘗試言之」的考慮

On the Literary Space in Zhuangzi-- Consideration of the “Try and Explain”

凡論及莊子 (369-286 BC) 文學，必然提及《莊子》寫景時如何地詩情畫意，敘事時又如何妙趣橫生，議論時令人拍案叫絕，抒情時又教人悠然心遠、引人入勝，修辭上的比喻、誇張、襯托、對比、鋪排，莫不獨樹一格，教人目眩神迷等。大抵環繞體道精神的抒情世界，進行文辭點評，或描繪語言風格、或著眼於虛構性傳聞、或強調歷史時代場域的文風流衍、神話敘事的想像與還原等面向立論。間或涉及作品題材的分類，但也主要以內容（而非形式）作為分類判準。然而，諸如此類揭露《莊子》文學性格的方式，似乎過於簡單，又使人解除武裝。本文對於莊子文學空間的思考，其出發點在於，若果「我」的統一是個體經驗這個世界的條件與基礎，那麼，當「我」屬於某種難以被固定下來的「形氣主體」──流動性匯聚所構成的主體之我時，會有卮言式的文本表現而與日常語言表述邏輯相拮抗，就不是無法想像。《莊子》中屢屢出現的「嘗試言之」將成為指認《莊子》所以成為一部文學作品而成立的閱讀關鍵，這也是經由一連串心識與身體修練而來的形氣主體所引發的書寫效果，其間的歙闢開合隱含了文學生產運動的根本意義與特殊的哲學手勢。

When it comes to Zhuangzi 莊子 literature, people never forget to mention its poetic, humorous, and appealing features. When Zhuangzi describes a scene, it is poetic and scenic. His narratives are funny and his comments are admirable. If it is about expressing one’s feelings, his writing is so captivating that it seizes your heart. The rhetoric he uses—such as metaphor, exaggeration, foil, analogy, and layout—is unique and dazzling. Generally speaking, most critics focus on the lyric world of one’s experience to comment on the literary works of Zhuangzi. They talk about his linguistic styles and fictional stories, emphasize the literary trend of a particular historical period, or try restoring and imagining a legendary myth. These perspectives, although more or less related to the categorization of Zhuangzi’s works, are not based on genre but on content as the measure of categorization. These ways of discussing the literary characteristics of Zhuangzi literature are simplistic and clumsy. The starting point of this article is a reconsideration of “I.” It presupposes that the unity of “I” is the condition and foundation for a subject to experience this world. If this is the case, then, when “I” is a drifting and undetermined “body-qi subject,” it is not impossible to imagine that this subject, composed of some flexible gatherings, would contain a textual presentation of “goblet words,” which are the opposite of daily language and logic. In this article, the “try and explain” of Zhuangzi literature is a crucial in explicating how Zhuangzi becomes a literary text. This is also an effect resulting from a body-qi subject that is inspired by spiritual recognition and bodily practice. Of this process, the exercises of assimilation and exclusion implicate fundamental meanings and particular philosophical gestures of literary production.