作為一種書寫題材,「鄉土文學」從來不是與時俱緲,行將「逝去」的一種文學,而是另有其論式與樣貌。對比於曩昔素樸的寫實主義-在鄉土風習畫面中,塗繪鄉野人物的勞力經驗與死生命運、寄寓重大社會命題、浮露社會歷史遷變等書寫,今日鄉土作家或張揚個人的筆調,而以人物內心裂變作為關注;或展演現實生活的層層魔魅,重建現代人的存在經驗與集體記憶的鄉土書寫,已然有了實質的改變。觀諸九○年代以降,不論是老將如朱天心《古都》(1997)裡尋尋覓覓的城市老靈魂、黃春明《放生》(1999)中漁農村落的孤寂老人、鄭清文《天燈.母親》(2000)裡的民俗與童趣;或是新秀如童偉格《王考》(2002)中的鄉野傳奇、許榮哲《ㄩˋㄧㄢˊ》(2004)裡的美濃浪遊、甘耀明《水鬼學校和失去媽媽的水獺》(2005)裡的閩客鄉音等等,雖然仍帶有土地的人文視覺,然而作家所試圖在文本中建立某個非關地理經緯度的鄉土座標時,「鄉土」顯然已從書卷裡的非陪襯性「背景」,迻異為探索終極意義上的媒介。如是而觀,這些經由意象、觀念及符號等意義的給予,而召喚出屬於個人或社會的「紙上鄉土」或「虛擬世界」,其所形塑的地域美學是否可以安放在烏托邦論述中,考察其歷經「農村與城市」的對立結構之後,所可能展延出空間圖式化的一種隱喻性-「空間烏托邦」或「時間烏托邦」之想像?而當「鄉土文學」的文體意義有了變革後,是否也將驅使「新鄉土」的想像與論述,走向「問題化」的概念演繹,而不是「主題化」的文類惰性?凡此種種皆為本論文根植於「鄉土書寫」體系下的論述位置與問題意識。
Following the main trend of the literary works from the 1990s, the writers like Zhu Tian-Xin's ”The Ancient Capital” (1997), Huang Chun-Ming's ”The Release” (1999), Tzeng Ching-Wen's ”The Lantern and Mother” (2000), Tong Wei-Ger's ”My Grandpa” (2002), Hsu Rung-jer's ”The Fable” (2004) and Gan Yao-mingr's ”School for Water Ghosts and the Orphan Otter” (2005) tend to construct some kind of ”folk” symbol in their texts. Although their works still carry literal vision of the land, ”Folk custom” has been obviously liberated from the role of being a secondary background in the books to become the main media for exploration of the ultimate meanings.According to this trend, the expressions through images, concepts, and signs may invoke ”descriptive folk custom” or ”virtual world” which should belong to individuals or the society. By inspecting the opposite structures of the rural area and the urban site, you may wonder if the regional writing esthetics can be discussed in Utopia exposition. Can this outlook exhibit the implication of spatial symbolism on the imagination of ”spatial Utopia” or ”temporal Utopia”?Since the stylistic meaning of ”folk literature” has been changed, will the concept and discussion of ”folk custom” be driven to the conceptual solving of ”the problems” instead of the traditional description of ”the themes”? All of these questions are the main research topics related to folk literature and will be discussed deeply in this thesis.