莎士比亞《李爾王》中的烏托邦與異質空間

From Utopia to Heterotopia in William Shakespeare's King Lear

莎士比亞藉由《李爾王》帶給觀眾淨化的心靈，卻也在三方面埋下伏筆：王 權，編劇和家庭。一開場李爾隨即宣告自己的遜位，緊接而來的是惡言相向最疼愛 的小女兒麗雅，尾聲時，李爾竟把朝思暮想的小女兒誤認為弄臣。再再顯示出李爾 對自身及旁人的盲目失察。與此相呼應的正是忠臣葛勒斯特輕易聽信私生子愛德蒙 而疏遠愛德佳。本文試圖透過傅柯所提出的異質空間概念來解讀李爾自我招致毀滅 的根本原因：誤將弄臣所代表的異質空間做為其理想的烏托邦。對傅柯而言，伊莉 莎白時期的英格蘭看似在海上無遠弗屆，實際上仍脫離不了中古時期的僵固空間概 念，每個人所處的位置更受制於王室和宗教律法，唯有吟唱詩人和巡演劇團享有自 由移動的特權。然而，弄臣和假扮乞丐的愛德佳所在的異質空間並非李爾幻想的自 在逍遙烏托邦。讓出王位的李爾也同時失去一切。即便最終李爾與麗雅得以重逢並 撥亂反正，兩人都無法從烏托邦與異質空間回到先前的地位。麗雅與李爾之死彷彿 告誡世人失去自身所處位置的危險。

Apart from the audience's feeling awestruck and the concomitant effect of catharsis, Shakespeare's King Lear still puzzles us in three intriguing aspects: monarchy, dramaturgy and family. We cannot but question King Lear's intelligence in divesting himself of the sovereign power, his mistaking Cordelia for the Fool and his enigmatic, though ruthless, reply to his dearest daughter Cordelia—“Nothing will come of nothing”. All three seem to converge on one point, that is, Lear's blindness to himself and those surrounding him. To heighten Lear's plight, Shakespeare resorts to a subplot regarding the relationship between Gloucester and his two sons, Edgar and Edmund. Drawing upon Foucault's conception of utopias and heterotopias, this paper attempts to examine Lear's self-inflicted destruction from a different angle: the peripheral position haunted by the Fool (and Edgar under the guise of a beggar). Though boasting of her marine superpower, Elizabethan England was still shackled by what Foucault regards as the Medieval notion of space—“a hierarchic ensemble of places”. One's place in the world was static and bequeathed or taken away as decreed by the Law, regal and ecclesiastical. Boundaries were strictly kept. It appears that only minstrels and touring troupes were exempted from it. That is a stratum where Lear's Fool belongs, a heterotopia rather than a utopia Lear dreams of. Giving away his sovereign center in whatever manner, Lear is soon to lose his sight/site. That Lear peregrinates in the style of the Fool and Edgar the beggar is intolerable and dangerous to those in power—his two daughters, Goneril and Regan. Not until his reunion with the Fool does Lear begin to tell the distinction between utopias and heterotopias. Nevertheless, Lear's eventual redemption is not possible without Cordelia's return from France to England, from heterotopia (then Princess of England exiled to France) to utopia (now Queen of France). The doting but stubborn father and the obedient but honest daughter are reconciled after their “becoming” journeys. Still, for Cordelia and Lear, getting caught again in the swirl of power/locality struggle after experiencing utopia/heterotopia is exceedingly unbearable. The play ending with the death of both “travelers”, Shakespeare, this paper argues, seems to advise his audience against treading on utopia/heterotopia in the mundane world. What comes of one's place in the world is, in Foucault's words, “a set of relations that delineates sites which are irreducible to one another and absolutely not superimposable on one another”.