物／誤別：《嘉文爵士與綠騎士》中之物件與他者

The Thin Difference: Objects and Others in Sir Gawain and the Green Knight

晚近文學研究愈趨關注社會關係如何以物質形式表現，因此對於物件及其網絡如何建構或轉化個人與社會認同關係也提出重要洞見。《嘉文爵士與綠騎士》一詩中充滿各式各類物件的鋪陳，對多樣的人╱物關係有深刻的描述，但是這部中古英文經典作品所戲劇化呈現的複雜文化折衝以及東西方在人與物方面的交錯卻仍未見適切探討。仔細審視詩中之物件有助於瞭解其中探討之社會行為、交涉與人際互動，以及物件與他者之糾葛。詩中之交換遊戲所搬演的過程強化了羣體與跨文化的聯結，但並非將人定著於固定的物質擁有，而是在物質的流動中使人有共同而活潑的接合。瞭解物別之重要以及可能造成之誤別，也突顯亞瑟人關於自我╱他者觀念與想像之矛盾，以及兩者如何界定與區分之困難。

The increasing attention in literary studies to social relations expressed in material forms has brought about critical insight into the various powers of material objects and their relation to the construction or transformation of individual and social identities. In unfolding a world filled with things, Sir Gawain and the Green Knight sheds important light on the myriad human-thing relationships, yet the sophisticated negotiations of cultural difference and East-West intersection in persons and things dramatized in this Middle English masterpiece have not been adequately explored. A closer look into material objects depicted in this romance makes a significant difference in understanding the complex social actions, negotiations and inter subjective relations as well as the intricate entanglements of objects and others. The game of exchange in the poem enacts processes that enhance communal and intercultural bonding not by committing people to fixed material possessions but by linking them as agents or channels of shared cultural property in the midst of material flow. This realization of the thin(g) difference exposes the fault lines of the Arthurian conception and imagination of self and other, as well as the difficulties of their definition and distinction.