Elegantly Vulgar: Jane Austen and Eighteenth-Century Vulgarity

優雅的粗鄙：珍‧奧斯汀與十八世紀粗俗／鄙性

魏柏瑜(Po-Yu Wei)

《小說與戲劇》 27卷1期 (2017/12) Pp. 11-31

https://doi.org/10.6271/fd.201712_27(1).0002

摘要

While Jane Austen is now universally acknowledged as an elegant novelist, there are voices from her contemporary critics to readers nowadays calling her works vulgar. In order to see how ＂vulgarity＂ and Austen's novels are connected, this essay explores the meaning of vulgarity in the eighteenth-century British context. The research first examines vulgarity in eighteenth-century philosophical thinking, conduct book literature, and social and cultural theories, concluding that the concept of vulgarity in eighteenth-century England is very different from that in our modern time. For example, unreasonable thinking and linguistic mistakes were both considered vulgar by philosophers two hundred years ago, and in conduct book literature, the excess of emotion and the lack of manners were equally vulgar. The research then examines the expression of vulgarity in Jane Austen's novels, finding that behind Austen's elegant narration and plots, vulgar characters and behaviors are easily to be overlooked. Even some of Austen's refined characters make vulgar mistakes. The contribution of this essay is that it traces the history of the concept of vulgarity in Georgian England, and that it treats vulgarity as a literary motif rather than a social or cultural phenomenon.

關鍵字

eighteenth-century English culture ； Jane Austen ； vulgarity

並列摘要

珍‧奧斯汀（Jane Austen）如今是一公認的優雅小說家，但從她同時期的評論家到現代的讀者，仍有指責她的作品很粗俗的聲音。為了一探｢粗俗／鄙性｣和珍‧奧斯汀小說間的關聯，本文探討了粗俗／鄙性在十八世紀英國脈絡中的意義。本研究首先十八世紀哲學思潮、行為文學指南，以及社會與文化理論中的粗俗／鄙性，得論粗俗／鄙性在十八世紀英國的定義與當今的認知不同。舉例來說，非理性的思考和語言錯誤對於兩百年前的哲學家來說都是粗俗的，而在行為文學指南裡，過剩的情緒與過少的禮貌同樣粗鄙。本研究接著探討在珍‧奧斯汀小說中粗俗／鄙性的表現，並發現在奧斯汀優雅的敘事及情節背後，粗俗的角色與行為很容易被忽略。更有甚者，小說裡形象較為正面的角色也難免犯下粗俗的錯誤。本研究的價值在於其追溯了粗俗／鄙性在喬治亞時期的英國中的歷史，也在於其將粗俗／鄙性視為文學主題而非單純的社會或文化現象。

並列關鍵字

十八世紀英國文化 ； 珍‧奧斯汀 ； 粗俗／鄙性

參考文獻

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