遊走於紐約大都會之中：哈林文藝復興時期作家克羅德‧麥肯詩作中的都市漫遊與種族政治

Walking in New York: The Racial Politics of Flânerie in Claude McKay's City Poetry

在此篇論文中，我嘗試透過都市漫遊者（the flâneur）的相關概念與討論來探討哈林文藝復興時期的作家克羅德‧麥肯（Claude McKay）詩作中關於二十世紀初紐約城市的書寫。在麥肯為數眾多的詩歌作品中，其中數篇關於哈林區以及紐約都會的詩歌裡的詩歌敘述者（speakers）可以被視為在1920與1930年代時期寓居於此大都會的匿名黑人漫遊者。在這些作品中，麥肯再現了二十世紀初尋常黑人大眾與紐約城市地景的複雜關聯，並進而探索黑人主體與社群所扮演的角色和功能，以及因寓居其中而發展的情感樣貌與文化表述。在論文中，我將先討論克羅德‧麥肯如何體現二十世紀初現代都會生活中的詩人，並進一步申論在哈林文藝復興時期的脈絡中，都市漫遊者作為消費者（the flâneur-as-consumer）與都市漫遊者作為作家（the flâneur-as-writer）的不同都會漫遊經驗。在論文的後半，我將進而探討此都市漫遊的黑人詩人作家如何透過筆下的敘述者從日常的遊走經驗裡考掘、錯置與辯證如夢似幻的現代都會魔幻景況（phantasmagoria）與多重交疊的現實黑人城市歷史與經驗。論文的結尾則討論具有批判意識的詩中敘述者如何在醉心於黑人都會大眾之際，仍繼續揭露與測繪屬於黑人社群的都市地理空間與文化表述。凱肯詩作中的敘述者於是不僅是悠哉閒晃的都會漫遊者，他（們）同時也兼具知識勞動、都會探索與文化批評等多重角色與功能。麥肯與其詩中的敘述者因而在二十世紀初的大都會中體現與實踐了不同面貌與可能的新世紀新黑人（the New Negro）。

In this paper, I employ the relevant concepts and discussions of the modern urban figure of the flâneur and hence the concepts of walking to characterize the speakers of McKay's several poems about cities. The speakers of McKay's poems can be regarded as anonymous black figures inhabiting and experiencing the urban milieu of Harlem during the 1920s and 1930s. As the poetic speakers walk around the city, they reveal the material spectacles and intricate histories of the great city, and furthermore, the peculiar roles the ordinary blacks play in the economic and cultural life. Several of McKay's poems hence delineate distinctive relationships between the ordinary blacks and the Harlemite urban landscapes, revealing the emotions and sensations perceived by the black folks. By studying some of McKay's lesser-known poems, I first seek to characterize McKay as an artist of the modern urban life in the early-twentieth-century New York, and then compare and contrast the qualities of the black flâneur-as-writer with the white flâneur-as-consumer during the Harlem Renaissance. Furthermore, I will continue to explore the black flâneur-as-writer who moves from the dreaming state to the multiple and overlapping realities and histories behind the urban phantasmagorias. Ultimately, I will conclude how the critically-minded flâneur-as-writer uncovers and charts the alternative Harlemite urban geography while intoxicated by the urban black crowd. By drawing on less conspicuous aspects of the flâneur in existing literature, I argue that the historical figure of the flâneur embodied by McKay the poet and his poetic speakers is not just an idle loiterer in the streets but an intellectual laborer, an urban explorer and a cultural critic who develops an alternative reading and practice of black urban modernity, and embodies a type of the emerging New Negro in the Negro Metropolis in the early phase of the twentieth century.