The Tropology of Homosexuality and Postcolonial/National Allegory

這篇論文一開始先探討所謂「同志文學」的具體含括範疇為何，因為觀察其實際操作的界定標準，就方法論的要求來說，其實是缺乏一致性且依照需要而權宜更換的。尤其晚近一個耐人尋味的文本現象的出現，更使得相關後設批評的問題無法被忽視，因為現在文本儘管可以公開地呈現同性戀，卻出現了許多「別有目的」的此類呈現，使得同志批評必須尷尬地從以往擅長的「暗櫃閱讀」轉而批判否定這些同性戀呈現的同志價值。不過本篇論文以為，正面地分解辨析這個宰制弱勢的主流再現體系，其實也應該是同志批評的重要工作之一。而為了要論證這個「批評轉向」的必要，論文接下來選擇針對這個文本現象中一個特定的範疇，即後殖民/國族寓言，來進行具體的分析，特別是細部討論了索因卡的〈詮釋者〉毛翔青的〈勇氣的徒勞〉以及（比較簡略地）奈波爾的〈在自由的國度〉與《游擊隊》這幾個文本中的同性戀轉喻。同時論文並且嘗試透過對於寓言經濟體系與刻板形象動員等概念一個政治化的理論建構，來解釋這種寓言/轉喻化的再現機制為何。

關鍵字

同志；刻板形象；索因卡；毛翔青；奈波爾

並列摘要

Starting with a critical interrogation of what constitutes ”lesbian and gay literature” and finding its territorializing criterion methodologically inconsistent, this essay first proposes a metacritical examination of what the emergent field really means to whomever constructs it. For a most recent textual phenomenon, in which homosexuality is represented openly but apparently for ”other” purposes, has forced this problem onto lesbian and gay critics, who are now stretched between the specialized practice of ”closet reading” and the unprecedented denial of the relevance of those homosexual representations. A particular group of this textual phenomenon, namely that of postcolonial or national allegory, is chosen for close examination because it is believed that an analytical understanding of the dominant representational mechanism should also be considered an important task for lesbian and gay criticism. In order to illustrate this point, the essay discusses in particular the figurative presence of homosexuality un Wole Soyinka's 'The Interpreters', Timothy Mo's 'The Redundancy of Courage', and (briefly) Naipaul's 'In a Free State' and ”Guerrillas”, and endeavors an explanation for this postcolonial/national allegorization of homosexuality through a political theorization of the allegorical economy and its mobilization as well as proliferation of stereotypes.