「生命劇場」：威蓮絲《瑞士行旅》的政治與地質美學

＂The Theatre of Life＂: Politics and Geo-aesthetics in Helen Maria Williams's A Tour in Switzerland

威蓮絲以「激進感性」立足於十八、十九世紀之交的英國文壇。《法國書簡》系列（1790－1819），記錄她在革命現場見聞；《瑞士行旅》（1798）則創作於恐怖統治時期，呈現她在瑞士流亡的經驗，延續前者敏銳的政治觀察，加上對崇高地景的禮拜。地景與政治這雙重省思，映照在《瑞士行旅》正文裡，她更在附錄中，揭示其奠定於地質學的深遠基礎。但學者尚未針對作品的雙重結構做細緻的探討。正文加上附錄成為一有機聚合體，就像她沙龍女主人的角色，引介、翻譯專家名流的意見，以對話模式鋪陳出她的信念。本文從人文與自然歷史的相互對應出發，探究威蓮絲如何在瑞士山區這個自然勢力與人類文明競鬥的「生命劇場」，以地質學各種理論對地景形成的註解，與對地球命運的預測，融入個人體感所發展出來的「地質美學」，呈現她對「動態均衡」地質理論的支持，企圖在法國革命激烈轉型階段，交織出對人世積極與樂觀的信心。

At the turn toward the 19th century, Helen Maria Williams established her reputation as a writer of ＂radical sensibility.＂ The Letters from France series chronicles her witness of the French Revolution, whereas A Tour in Switzerland, composed during the Reign of Terror, records her exile in the Alpine republic. In the text of A Tour in Switzerland, her observation moves along the double axis of landscape and politics, and in its appendix she reveals the geological foundation of her political conviction. This double structure has yet to receive nuanced critical readings. The text and the appendix form an organic composite structure, with the part corresponding to the whole in a robust relationship. Like her role of a salonnière, she sometimes introduces, and sometimes translates, various opinions from different parties. This essay reads A Tour in Switzerland against the parallelism between civil and natural history, with a view to investigating how at the Swiss Alps-the ＂theatre of life＂-Williams expounds through geo-aesthetics her conviction in the geological theory of ＂dynamic equilibrium＂ in order to maintain her optimism in human affairs during the revolutionary upheaval.