物的神話——晚明文震亨《長物志》的物體系論述

A Mythological Study of Things-The Case of Wen Chen-heng’s Chang-wu chih from the Late Ming

四庫館臣常以「掉弄筆墨」、「強作雅態」等語彙來嘲諷晚明文人的著作，隱含了對當代遊戲書寫的貶抑。晚明《長物志》一書，作者文震亨援引晉朝王恭「長物」的典故而來，卻扭轉王恭「平生無長物」的傳統意涵，鄭重地將閒適遊戲多餘無用之物，一一作誌品評，《長物志》展現了晚明奇特的物觀與書寫姿態。本論文由符號學的角度出發，參酌法國學者羅蘭•巴特的《神話學》與尚•布希亞《物體系》二家的學說，探察《長物志》符號語意系統建構出來的種種意涵。本文第一部分為緒論，由「長物」一詞，探討晚明新興的物觀與書寫，並提出本文的理論基礎。第二部分為物的氣氛論述，首先探察物的詩意修辭，其次以起源的懷慕、文化時間的標誌、古物現在的異質文化風格、熱情與裝飾等角度，討論超越邊緣性的古物收藏。第三部分為物的評價論述：先探究「古雅」如何建構為物的終極價值，次討論兩重意識形態的論述面向，再次分析《長物志》一書如何以文化威權的語言策略，締造新的流行文化。第四部分為結論，筆者以長物成為非長物、古物的神話包裝、以反流行締造新流行、虛擬變成真實等四個面向，為本文作結。

Many works from the Late Ming period were regarded as playful writing and thus evaluated either sarcastically or negatively by the compilers of Ssu-k'u ch'uan-shu. A writer in this period who authored Chang-wu chih, Wen Chen-heng borrowed the term “superfluous things” from the Chin dynasty author Wang Kung, who had been famous for his leisurely way of writing. Wen, however, surprised us with a new interpretation of the term. Wen solemnly classified lots of so-called superfluous things and treated them with a special atmospheric discourse. Chang-wu chih represents a new way of viewing superfluous things and a new writing attitude of people of the Late Ming period. In this thesis, I adopt a semiotic framework and employ two theories for reference: they are from Mythologies by the French cultural anthropologist Roland Barthes, and Le Systeme des objets by the sociologist Jean Baudrillard. I try to illustrate the deep, complex semiotic and mythological structure that Chang-wu chih reveals. The first part of this essay is prefatory, exploring, from the term “superfluous things,” the new view of things and mode of writing in the late Ming, and setting forth the theoretical foundation of this study. The second part is a discourse on the atmospherics of things, first surveying the poetic rhetoric of things, then discussing the transcendence of boundaries by the collection of antiques, through such themes as nostalgia for origins, indices of cultural time, the exotic styles of antiquities in the present, passion, decoration, and so forth. The third part is a critique on the evaluation of things: first to be discussed is the way “ancient elegance” was constructed as ultimate values for things. We then turn to a discussion of double consciousness, followed by an analysis of how the linguistic strategies of Chang-wu chih, as a cultural authority, created a new popular culture. In the fourth part, the conclusion touches on four aspects: treating “superfluous things” as “extraordinary things”； the mythological packaging of antiques; creating new popular culture by opposing popular culture; and the treatment of simulacra as realia.