當代《潘密拉》版本中消失的書信婚議

The Disappearing Marriage Proposal in the Modern Editions of Pamela

本文聚焦在三本當代版本《潘密拉》之間的差異，藉此展現不同印刷編輯所帶來的影響，不只是意味著排版與視覺上的差異；從詮釋理解女主人翁潘蜜拉的角度來看，不同印刷版本也呈現出不同樣貌的潘蜜拉，揭示她如何透過書信體裁來呈現具有顛覆性的女性書寫，並對父權社會的宰制加以反擊。透過討論此三版本中對於消失了的婚議之再現，能夠使我們更進一步了解潘蜜拉作為受壓迫者的書信策略，並對書信體的詮釋提供當代觀點。
從當今學界的十八世紀印刷文化理論的觀點來看，透過比較三個目前可供閱讀的《潘密拉》版本，足以證明在實體書信沒落的年代，書信體仍然以其多變的樣貌揭開嶄新的閱讀可能，如同文章所強調的那封不斷消失又再現的爭議婚議一般。於是，文章所揭示的當代書信體研究，不再只是單純的比較哪一個版本孰優孰劣，亦非只是珍妮・巴科斯（Janine Barchas）所謂的版本現代化的問題。藉由研究當代書信體的印刷版本，我們不僅僅見證書信體的物質性在二十一世紀的文學研究中仍然重要，更可以讓我們另闢蹊徑，不再拘泥於書信體研究中的系譜與傳承。

The paper aims to use three modern editions of Pamela—one based on the second edition, another on the fourteenth, and a Project Gutenberg webpage version of the text with no specific edition mentioned—to show print arrangement is still very much an integral part of how we understand the various means Pamela employs to present a subversive female epistolary model and counter the encroachment of patriarchal society. Their differing approaches to the presentation—and lack thereof—of Mr. B’s disappearing marriage proposal and subsequently of Pamela’s reply shape our perception of Pamela and her writing strategies, and provide contemporary takes on the concept of epistolarity.
Using existing theories of eighteenth-century print culture, I suggest that these three different modern editions should be seen as evidence of how the letter continues to maintain its hold on readers due to its variability, whether it serve as a substitute for an absent lover, a diary entry masked as a letter, or in this case, a marriage proposal that keeps vanishing under various hands. It is no longer about which edition is better or is more attuned to the original condition; nor is it about the“modernization”—as Janine Barchas calls it—of these early novels which“distorts and diminishes the early novel’s graphic diversity [so] that it is difficult to resurrect the genre’s lost visual dynamism.”By studying the various modern editions of Pamela, we not only witness how the letter’s materiality is still relevant in the twentieth-first century, we also become freed from the genealogy of conventional genres emphasized in critical studies of the epistolary novel.