「女為悅己而容」：珍奧斯汀書信中的時尚議題

Woman Is Fine for Her Own Satisfaction Alone: Fashion in Jane Austen's Letters

涵蓋1796年1月9日到1817年5月28日這段期間，並且記錄她所有極重要的瑣事，珍奧斯汀（Jane Austen, 1775－1817）寫給其姐卡珊卓拉（Cassandra）和其他人的書信，反映她對穿著議題的濃厚興趣。本文一開始，我將以《諾桑葛大宅院》（Northanger Abbey 1818）中敘述者對女性和衣著間複雜的關係所持之嘲諷性的觀點，以及奧斯汀書信中顯現的自主女性形象，指出本文標題引文所涵蓋之雙重意義。輔以擷取自奧斯汀書信和小說的些許例子，我將接著檢視作者在兩種書寫中對衣著的描繪上所蘊含的矛盾，並將主張作者在其書信中對服裝相關議題的高度關切，和其小說中呈現之相對保守的衣著概念形成對比。藉由她書信裡對於時尚與服裝的描述，本文亦將探究奧斯汀如何把玩時尚潮流，並以此展現她的自由意志。文章末了，我將指出，對奧斯汀而言，時尚衣著為她和她所愛的人們，創造多樣性和新奇感，以疏解日常生活的枯燥與一成不變。她的書信不但揭露其生活點滴，也同時驗證生活瑣事對奧斯汀而言，具有莫大意義。

Covering the time span from 9 January 1796 to 28 May 1817 and recording all her highly important little matters, Jane Austen's letters to her sister, Cassandra, and others reflect her never-failing interest in the discourse of apparel. In the opening of this article, I will use the narrator's sarcastic view of women's complicated relationships with clothes in ”Northanger Abbey” as well as the picture of the autonomous woman revealed in the letters concerned to point out the title quotation's double meanings. By means of a number of instances extracted from the letters and novels by Austen, I will further examine the paradox intrinsic in the two kinds of writing in relation to clothes and argue that the author's preoccupation with the matter of dress recounted in her life writing stands as counterpoint to the relatively conservative sumptuary notions conveyed in her creative works. Drawing on her epistolary account of fashion and dress, this article will also investigate how Austen managed to play the game of fashion for pleasure and demonstrated her free will through the exertion. In the end, I will maintain that to Jane Austen, fashion created variations and novelties for her and her loved ones to relieve the humdrum of everyday life. And, her letters simultaneously lay bare the minutiae of her life and attest to the extreme significance she attached to life's little things.