世紀末的憂鬱：科幻小說〈世界末日記〉的翻譯旅程

Fin-de-Siècle Melancholy: The Traveling of “The Last Days of the Earth＂

現今所謂「世界末日」的概念，乃源於猶太─基督教傳統，在近代透過宗教和文學的載體傳入東亞，又結合了天文學的研究，經由媒體廣泛報導，逐漸成為集體想像的一部分。清末梁啟超翻譯的〈世界末日記〉是第一篇以世界末日為主題的中譯小說，其底本為日本作家德富蘆花的譯作〈世界の末日〉，而日譯的底本則是法國天文學家佛林瑪利安所著〈地球末日〉（The Last Days of the Earth），故事描述在數百萬年之後，人類和地球逐漸走向滅亡的過程，頗具「世紀末」的憂鬱情調。本文將追溯〈世界末日記〉的文本旅行經歷，分析比較三位作╱譯者的寫作╱翻譯策略及其文本呈現之異同，並配合相關文獻，闡釋近代中日文化脈絡下的末日想像之轉化及其所開啟的創作和詮釋可能。

The concept of the “end of the world” that prevails nowadays mainly originates from the Judeo-Christian tradition. It was introduced to East Asia through a cluster of religious and literary texts during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, and was fueled later by the burgeoning scientific discourse of astronomy. In the twentieth century, with the help of mass media, the “end of the world” has become one of the most intriguing collective imaginations. Liang Qichao's late Qing translation “Shijie Mori Ji” (An Account of the End of the World) stands out as the first translated fiction in China that concerns the “end of the world.” The original of Liang's translation is the Japanese writer Tokutomi Roka's translation “Seikai no matsujitu” (The End of the World), which is rendered from the French astronomer Camille Flammarion's “The Last Days of the Earth.” It is a short story about the extinction of human race and the end of the Earth, which is full of the fin-de-siècle melancholy. The purpose of this paper is to investigate how the Western concept and image of the “end of the world” integrated with the East Asian culture during the turn of the nineteenth and twentieth century, and how they consequently inspired innovative interpretations and literary writings. Taking the France-Japan-China travel of Flammarion's science fiction as my subject, I will analyze the similarities and dissimilarities between these three writers/translators' strategies and compare their presentations of the “end of the world” in these three texts. Moreover, I will consult relevant religious and cultural texts in order to explore the transformation of the imagination of the “end of the world” in modern Chinese and Japanese cultural contexts and their significance.