Leprosy and Its Metaphors in Coleridge's "The Rime of the Ancient Mariner"

柯爾律治《老水手之歌》之痲瘋流亡喻意

吳佳玲(Chia-Ling Wu)

《語文與國際研究》 8期 (2011/12) Pp. 151-169

https://doi.org/10.7084/LIS.201112.0153

摘要

《老水手之歌》中，鬼船上神秘女子和死神掌控水手命運，近有文獻研究認為詩人柯爾律治以此呈現殖民地區病原反撲，意在反映當代英國海外販奴之弊病。愛德蒙點出此詩結合奴隸船和痲瘋呼應反奴役話語，然而詩中未曾提及殖民反奴，其間豐富痲瘋意象仍乏人問津。本文旨在探究《老水手之歌》痲瘋喻意和道德訓示，與聖經和中世紀以降之痲瘋傳統連結，檢視詩中種種天譴概念和恐怖意象。

關鍵字

柯爾律治 ； 老水手之歌 ； 活死人 ； 基督教傳統中痲瘋病

並列摘要

Coleridgean scholarship in the past decade has marked the significance of disease metaphors in ”The Rime of the Ancient Mariner,” ascribing them to the ills of British imperial expansionism in the Romantic colonization. Rod Edmond further brings together leprosy and the anti-slavery discourse. However, the latter is nowhere explicit in the narrative itself whereas the consistently maintained metaphors of leprosy still continue unattended. The current study departs from Edmond's association between leprosy and slavery and proceeds to explore the allegorical Life-in-Death which substantially bears the Western cultural and Christian mystery of leprosy and crucially contributes to the functioning of divine retribution and grace at the poet's disposal. This paper attempts to explicate the mysterious incidents from both Scriptural sources of leprosy allegory and the folk beliefs which have roots in the medieval times. The poet's deployment of leprosy metaphors and its moral reflections will be duly examined.

並列關鍵字

Samuel Taylor Coleridge ； The Rime of the Ancient Mariner ； Life-in-death ； Christian tradition of leprosy

參考文獻

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Jastrow, Morris. "The So-called 'Leprosy' Laws: An Analysis of Leviticus, Chapters 13 and 14." The Jewish Quarterly Review 4.3 (1914): 357-418. Print.

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