從鄉村、城市、帝國到網際網路──一種文化研究觀點的「空間變遷」探討

Country, City, Empire and Internet ------ A Discourse of Spatial Transformation from the ＂Cultural Studies＂ View

王賀白(Herbert Wang)

《通識教育與多元文化學報》 4期 (2014/07) Pp. 1-23

摘要

威廉士是文化研究領域的創建者之一，其對鄉村與城市，有著非常深遠寬廣的研究。在《鄉村與城市》中，他提出了眾多有關英國文學、政治與歷史方面的複雜問題。正如威廉士所說，這本書有一個非常明確的出發點：如何閱讀英國鄉村莊園詩，此一被廣泛討論的問題。透過英國文學敘述態度上的轉變，讓我們看出「鄉村與城市」，這兩種傳統生活中心，其與社會發展的關連。而不管是封建貴族或新興資本家，他們都試圖透過「鄉村莊園詩」，理想化過去統治階級下的農村實景。針對此一誤解，威廉士進行了實質有力的辯駁，與此同時，他也呈現了由農村實際工作者自身，對其生活的真實承傳與召喚。另外，在十九世紀中葉後，英國城市人口首度超過鄉村人口。這後來居上的城市，其黑暗與光明一直都是並存的。事實上，即使如何不情願，許多人還是必須來到城市，因為沒有其它餘地可供選擇。威廉士認為，與其停留在城市的消極分離或聚集，倒不如正向期待著，共同體意識的可能。而薩依德可說是批判地繼承威廉士觀點，在其基礎上，鋪陳帝國主義的反與正。反的是，殘酷的帝國殖民經驗，如何隱藏在眾多美化的文學戲劇作品中；而正的是，其最大的成就就是拉近世界的距離。在2003 年修正後的〈作家與知識分子的公共角色〉中，薩依德提及網際網路可能帶來改變的新力量。

關鍵字

鄉村 ； 城市 ； 帝國 ； 網際網路 ； 空間性

並列摘要

One of the cultural studies founders, Raymond Williams explored the country and the city of enormous range and depth. The Country and the City raised a large number of very complex questions, about English literature, politics, and history. Just as Williams’ words, The Country and the City had a very precise starting point: the much discussed problem of how to read the English country-house poems. Concentrating on changing attitudes as portrayed in English literature, Williams showed the shifting associations of these two traditional centers of life, and related them to social developments. This book is a sustained polemic against false attempts to idealize the values of a ruling-class agrarian order of the past, whether feudalist or capitalist. But at the same time it is also a plea for the continuity of real values of rural life, created by the direct producers themselves. By the middle of the nineteenth century the urban population of England exceeded the rural population. The city was not only of darkness but also of light. Even to oppose and reject the city, people came to the city; there was no other ready way. Rather than the negative separateness within the city aggregation, Williams always hoped the positive possibility of collective consciousness. In 1989 Edward Said was invited to present the first Raymond Williams Memorial Lecture in London. Just as the words of Culture and Imperialism, Said hoped himself do well to follow and expand Williams’s lead, and draw connections between the imperial endeavor and the culture that both reflected and reinforced it. In his intensely and despairingly crafted content, The Public Role of Writers and Intellectuals revised in 2003, Said talked about the determined function of Internet at the age of electronic media.

並列關鍵字

Country ； City ； Empire ； Internet ； Spatiality