詩的距離的現象學──詩（坡）的'哲學'／詩（坡）的空間美學：方法／建構／瘋狂

A Phenomenology ofPoeticProxemics—Poe(Tic) “Philosophy”/Poe(Tic) Po(e)lis:Method, Mad(e)ness, Madness

艾德格‧艾倫坡的「創作的哲學」（The Philosophy of Composition，1846），作於美國浪漫主義復興（American Romantic Renaissance）正蓬勃發展的時候，裡頭談論詩的創作，見解古趣而一板一眼（quaint mechanistic），貶低了柏拉圖的模仿動能論（Mimetic dynamic），影響所及，兩代以上的詩人與讀者，對於什麼是創作，什麼不是開放、有機、主觀的詩，都受其誤導。艾倫坡過於講究 “構成”（“making”），卻也首開風氣，其後有 “派德森博士的”（“Dr. Paterson’s”）同輩寫手，寫的多半是 “文字搭建的小（或者是大）機器” （“small （or large） machine[s] made out of words.”） 。意象主義運動，有一部分便是排拒以及遵循，艾倫坡大膽的形式主義、唯我論的斷言（dicta）。寫作這戲劇性（histrionic）的作品，多半為稻梁謀，可以說錢之一字“毀了”（“damned”） 他就像毀了梅爾維爾一樣。艾倫坡有著新古典式恐懼，而且輕視脫離凡塵的ex-stasis 以及俗世富於想像的熱情—榮格的靈視藝術（“Visionary art”）。這些特質讓慣於閱讀小報及雜誌的大眾，看重他論「大鴉」這首詩的胡話（blague），甚於他較為理性而明智，在身後出版的「詩學原則」（Poetic Principle， 1850）。早期的「哲學」，像他常寫的夢囈、抽象而遠離現實的詩句，給後現代主義者一種表面的“風景的視野”（“vision of landscape”）而非內心的 “靈視的景致” （“landscape of vision”）。談到詩為人工 （poem as “a thing made”），艾倫坡為先聲，但是他卻把這概念推展到大多數詩人和理論家無法接受的地步。他反對夢幻的創作過程，不管在熟練與技藝之間 （cunning and craft）、“mad（e）ness”/ 方法 和瘋狂 （“繆思乃泉源”-- “of which the Muses are the source”）、形式和作用、靈視和意志（vision and volition）。愛默森、梭羅、惠特曼一系的美國超驗主義的浪漫詩學，注重靈視批評（visionary criticism）、有創意的非小說，並以象徵式的詩預示民主、自由、國家與藝術家在空間上的擴張及精神上的成長。艾倫坡談論「大鴉」一詩的「哲學」，寫成於“黑暗期” （a “dark time”），則異軍突起，走務實的路子。艾倫坡的見解如格言般精要：詩藝控制內容，方法治癒瘋狂。他一面迴避浪漫主義理論，一面像任何同輩作家，投身“現代詩的合戰” （“the gang-wars of our [modern] poetry”） 。

Edgar Allan Poe’s quaint mechanistic conception of poetic creation in The Philosophy of Composition (1846) during the burgeoning American Romantic Renaissance not only diminishes Plato’s Mimetic dynamic, but misleads at least two—maybe three— generations of poets and readers about what invention is, about what open, organic, Projective verse is not. Conversely, his overwrought emphasis on “making” also anticipates “Dr. Paterson’s” contemporary maker of (mostly) “small (or large) machine[s] made out of words.” The Imagist Movement, in part, reflects a reaction to—and an adherence of—Poe’s bold formalist and solipsistic dicta. That histrionic piece, of course, was mostly made for money, the dollars that “damned” him as much as they did Herman Melville. His Neoclassical fear and disparagement of otherworldly ex-stasis and thisworldly imaginative passion—Jungian “Visionary art”—convinced a tabloid- and-magazine-educated public to take seriously mandates make more of the machine than most working poets—and theorists—want. He rejects the oneiric creative process between cunning and craft, “mad(e)ness”/method and madness (“of which the Muses are the source”), form and function, vision and volition. Poe’s pragmatic Philosophy concerning The Raven, composed in a “dark time,” interrupts a transcendent American Romantic poetic forged by Emerson, Thoreau, and Whitman in visionary criticism, creative nonfictions, and symbolic poems auguring democracy, freedom, and spatial and spiritual growth for country and for artist. Poe’s vision is axiomatic: Poetic craft controls content, method unmakes madness. Eschewing Romantic theory, Poe, too, as much as any contemporary, contributes to “the gang-wars of our [modern] poetry.”