Traumatic Memory, Literature and Religion in Wu Zhaoqian's Early Exile

清順治十五年(1658)，順治帝以江南丁酉(1657)科鄉試疑有情弊，親自復試舉人於瀛臺。「江左三鳳凰」之一、以詩賦著稱於時的吳兆騫「戰慄不能握筆」，交白卷而出。南闈科場案定讞，吳氏被判流徙遼東寧古塔。十六年七月，吳氏抵戍所，開始長達二十二年的流放生涯。吳氏的作品構成清代文學遺產中相當特殊的一部分，是研治中國流放詩學一筆十分珍貴的材料。本文集中探論吳氏順治十入年(1661)上半年所寫作的詩文及其致父母、友朋的書信。是年一月，順治帝崩，康熙帝繼位，大赦天下。此一歷史機緣煽起吳氏南還的熾熱願望，吳氏作品在不同層面上弦烈地反映、形構出此一心理情境。本文以「創傷記憶」為理論、分析指歸，探究吳氏此一時期作品所呈顯的特色，並嘗試重構吳氏的心理、精神狀態。吳氏本年作品的心理、象喻結構必須溯源自順治十五年的創傷經驗、記憶，而其特徵約止於康熙二年(1663)；數年之間，有一相對獨立的意義脈絡可供指認。流放是時間、空間、身分、文化的多重斷裂，而記憶是流人賴以維持自我的完整、統一感覺的心理、精神機制。吳氏順治十八年前後的作品具有濃烈的「自傳」意味，又兼有敘事的傾向，編織記憶以建構自我形象、身分的意圖十分強烈。吳氏自出塞至本年生活中最堪注意者，厥為吳氏因執不懈的文學創作及極其虔誠、精進的宗教追求。通過對重點文本的細讀特殊推敲，並結合心理分析、文學理論對「創傷」的認識，本文嘗試提出觀察吳氏此一時期作品的一個新的認知詮釋視域，為進一步研究吳兆騫開拓一異於前賢的新方向。

關鍵字

吳兆騫；創傷；流放；記憶；文學；宗教

並列摘要

Implicated in an examination scandal, the early-Qing poet Wu Zhaoqian (1631-84) was exiled to Ningguta in Manchuria, where he spent twenty-two years. Wu's writings provide us a rare opportunity to glimpse the exile's experiences and to study the poetics of exile in late-imperial China. This paper explores the element of traumatic memory in Wu's literary and religious endeavors in his early exile years. We conduct close readings of Wu's texts, mostly those produced in the first half-year of 1661. In the rich life story of Wu, this period was but a slice of life, but it was a particularly poignant moment in which we can situate his evocation of memory within a number of broader discourses that are political, historical, cultural, religious, and psychological. The spring of 1661 was personally momentous for Wu, for he entertained hopes of an imperial pardont-the Shunzhi emperor had passed away and the succeeding emperor granted the country a general amnesty. At this historic juncture, Wu cried out to be remembered. Wu's writings in 1661 can be contextualized by his works from 1658 to roughly 1662, within which Wu's traumatic memories are tightly interwoven with the different strands of his early exile experiences. Both Wu's creative imperative and fervent religious commitment subtly point to his earlier trauma. Within the dialectical relationship between memory and narrative in Wu's texts, we are more interested in the psychological and emotional expressions and their implications than the truth of the claims embedded therein. We observe that Wu's acts of memory are psychodynamically determined; the narratives that emerge defy the general character of chronotopically framed autobiography. We understand Wu's ruminations and writings as a process of self-constitution and identification more than as enumeration of experiences; and that, be the emerging narratives truthful or fabricated (or, many times, both) they invite reading, understanding and interpretation to complete the processes of signification and communication.