The Vicious Moralist and His Legacy: A Critical Reanalysis of Samuel Johnson as Moral Figure

暢談道德言論的不道德之徒：賽繆爾‧強森

王亞倫(Allen Walzem)

《長庚人文社會學報》 10卷2期 (2017/10) Pp. 269-291

摘要

During the early modern period, Great Britain's single most popular form of writing, by far, was, ＂Religious in subject matter, didactic in intent＂ (Hunter, 1990: 225). Concurrently with this, the extreme working conditions of the industrial revolution, harsh labor and debt laws, and broad international colonization led to widespread subjugation and exploitation of peoples, both domestically and internationally. The vast national production and consumption of moral discourse stressing Christian virtues like charity, love, forgiveness, etc., did not translate into recognizably related policy; reading and writing about ＂doing good＂ seemed to substitute for the actual practice. One of the best and most popular of these morality writers was Samuel Johnson, who wrote a long series of morality tracts known as ＂The Rambler.＂ Using sharp logic and beautifully balanced Latinate prose, Johnson constructed clear arguments for why we should improve ourselves, which naturally led many to assume he, himself, was a paragon of virtue. However, his own journals and the numerous biographies written about Johnson reveal that he was long habituated to vice, and surprisingly, the juxtaposition of his Rambler essays and biographical writings reveals that he had a tendency to most vehemently exhort against those very vices that he was most guilty of in his own life. As a result, ＂The Age of Johnson＂ is well named: Johnson was truly emblematic of this time period, not just in his positive examples of learning, good sense, and erudition, but also in his negative ones, of vociferously extolling one type of behavior while engaging in its opposite.

關鍵字

Samuel Johnson ； Moral Writing ； Eighteenth-century Britain ； Vice

並列摘要

在早期現代時期，大不列顛唯一最受歡迎的寫作格式，很顯然，是以宗教為主題，教誨為意圖(Hunter, 225)的寫作格式。同時期裡，也隨著工業革命及殖民地主義興盛，導致不論是國內或國際上，對其他民族大肆剝削利用。然而，那時期的全國人民卻言行不一地以閱讀大量的道德書，小冊子作為自我修身的工具。在當時，這種的道德虛偽儼然成為一個國家的顯著的特點。其中最受推崇的道德作家－賽繆爾．強森，就有一系列集結短篇成冊、眾所皆知的道德刊物－漫談者(The Rambler)。也因為這一本刊物，使得當代大多數的作家，想當然爾認定賽繆爾．強森就是美德的楷模。然而，從他的日誌及無數的自傳裡，在在的顯示，他只是一個滿口道德經的不道德家。在此，我在我的論文裡舉証並歸類了賽繆．強森的道德沉淪及列舉他所觸犯七大原罪中的任何一條戒律。藉由檢視賽彌爾．強森的漫談者(The Rambler)及友人的回憶錄，來証實他其實是一個言行不一，一生做盡違反自身所暢談道德言論的不道德之徒。因此，著名的強森時代中，賽繆爾．強森不只以他正面的，極具機智並博學的楷模形象；也以大力推崇其一「行為」但自己卻做著反其道而行的不道德行為來塑造這個他所高談闊論的時代，也因如此，為英格蘭往後在殖民地主義及資本主義猖狂嚣張行徑下舖了一條康莊大道。

並列關鍵字

山繆爾．強森 ； 道德寫作 ； 十八世紀大不列顛 ； 道德敗壞

參考文獻

Boswell, J. (1925), The Life of Samuel Johnson LL.D. in Three Volumes ed. Roger 1925: Boston: Lauriat.

Johnson, S. (1941), Lives of the English Poets Volume I. London: Dent.

Piozzi, H. L. (1897), “Anecdotes of the Late Samuel Johnson, LL.D., During the Last Twenty Years of His Life” Ed. George Birbeck Hill. Johnsonian Miscellanies Vol. I. Clarendon: Oxford.

Bate, W. J.(1998).Samuel Johnson.Washington, D.C.:Counterpoint.

Boswell, J.(1958).The Journal of a Tour to the Hebrides with Samuel Johnson.London:J.M. Dent & Sons.