Media and Dramatic Performativity: The Parallels between the Feely and Shakespeare in ＂Brave New World＂

媒介與戲劇展演性：《美麗新世界》中感官電影與莎士比亞的對比

楊乃女(Nai-Nu Yang)

《小說與戲劇》 23卷2期 (2014/06) Pp. 77-106

https://doi.org/10.6271/fd.2014.23.2.04

摘要

在《美麗新世界》中，赫胥黎以愛情為主軸對比兩種不同媒介如何再現愛情。《直昇機上的三星期》忠實的呈現新世界子民的愛情觀，也就是愛即是性，而《羅蜜歐與朱麗葉》將愛情神聖化，藉由書寫傳統所累積的文學比喻、修辭及象徵描述愛情的美好。赫胥黎十分關切大眾文化所追求的一致性可能會導致高貴文化平庸化的問題。故事中展現了一個社會為了追求極致的穩定與秩序，日常生活的單調似乎成了必要之惡。愛情的平庸性也成為促成故事中新世界的反烏托邦面向的一個因素。如果說感官電影象徵愛情反烏托邦，莎翁劇本中描述的神聖愛情成為批判新世界子民粗俗愛情觀的力量。然而，男主人翁約翰嘗試要藉由應用莎士比亞愛情觀來追求的愛情烏托邦，是非常有問題的。約翰對藍麗娜的愛情很諷刺地從來就不是神聖的，因為他的愛總是混雜著對她的性欲望。感官電影與莎士比亞作品的對比產生的曖昧效果，源自於赫胥黎選擇以戲劇表現文學傳統所呈現的美好愛情。他選擇以莎翁劇本來呈現牽涉了長久以來學者常常爭辯的問題：莎翁劇本究竟是為閱讀而寫還是為表演而寫？這個問題其實是詮釋為何約翰追求愛情烏托邦會失敗的關鍵：究竟約翰閱讀莎翁劇本是為了獲得對愛情的知識或者他朗誦莎翁作品的行為是一種愛情表演？本論文將從媒介與戲劇展演性的觀點來回答這個問題。

關鍵字

媒介 ； 戲劇展演性 ； 感官電影 ； 莎士比亞作品 ； 愛情烏托邦 ； 愛情反烏托邦

並列摘要

In ＂Brave New World＂, Aldous Huxley draws ironic parallels between the feely and Shakespeare’s plays, presenting a satire of vulgar standardized amusements. Love is the thread by which Huxley strings together these parallels. While ＂Three Weeks in a Helicopter＂ faithfully presents the philosophy of love, that is, ＂love is sex,＂ of the New Worlders, ＂Romeo and Juliet＂ sanctifies love by means of writing that has a long literary tradition of tropes, metaphors, and symbols describing the beauty of love. Huxley is very concerned with the banalization of high culture led by the prevalence of a mass culture that pursues uniformity. The quotidian drabness arising from the pursuit of the greatest stability and order in a society, seems to be the necessary evil, as it is presented in the story. The banality of love, which is seldom discussed in the studies of ＂Brave New World,＂ can contribute to the discussion of the dystopian dimension of the New World. Whereas the feelies epitomize the dystopia of love, the sacredness of love depicted in Shakespeare’s plays seems to be a critical force used to wrestle with the New Worlders’ vulgar views of love. Nevertheless, the utopia of love, as the protagonist John strives to find by applying Shakespeare’s concept of love in the real world, is very problematic. John’s love for Lenina, ironically, is never ＂divine＂ because his love always involves the eruption of his strong sexual desire. The description of John’s love for Lenina is more erotic and sensual than that of the sex scenes in ＂Three Weeks in a Helicopter.＂ The ambiguous contrasts between the feelies and Shakespeare’s plays arise from Huxley’s choice of drama, among all the genres in literary tradition, to represent the beauty of love. His selection of Shakespeare’s plays involves an issue which has long been debated heatedly: were these plays written for reading or for performance? This question actually serves as the key to observing John’s failure in his pursuit of the utopia of love: does John’s reading of Shakespeare’s works aim to help him gain knowledge, learn what love is, or is his recitation of Shakespeare’s words also a performance of love? In this paper, this question will be answered from the perspective of dramatic performativity and media. Dramatic writing is a technology of writing which involves the function of the script according to William Worthen. The script marks the dynamic relationship between theatrical performance and a playwright as a unique form of print culture. When John is reciting Shakespeare’s words, he is doing a performance of love, by which he is also pursuing his utopia of love. His utopia of love is doomed to become a dytopia since the one who is supposed to be Juliet in his performance could never be the right Juliet.

並列關鍵字

media ； dramatic performativity ； the feely ； Shakespeare's works ； utopia of love ； dystopia of love

參考文獻

Austen, John Langshaw(1965).How to Do Things with Words.New York:Oxford UP.

Huxley, Aldous(2007).Brave New World.London:Vintage.

Barthes, Roland,Howard, Richard(Trans.)(1981).Camera Lucida: Reflections on Photography.New York:Hill and Wang.

Benjamin, Walter,Jennings, Michael W.(Ed.),Doherty, Brigid(Ed.),Levin, Thomas Y.(Ed.),Jephcott, Edmund(Trans.)(2008).The Work of Art in the Age of Its Technological Reproducibility and Other Writings on Media.Cambridge:Belknap Press of Harvard University Press.

Huxley, Aldous(1998).Brave New World.New York:Harper.