| Abstract: | 經過1970 年代女性主義學者的強力塑造，19 世紀末興起的「新女性」文學和現象向來被視為首重政治和社會議題，如女性投票權、婚姻制度、女性教育權，以及反娼妓、道德淨化運動等，「新女性」自己則多是受過良好教育、具有強烈政治意識、引領先鋒的中上階級女性，她們往往舉止男性化、戴著眼鏡、鄙夷時尚和消費文化，以上流社會的社交聽、俱樂部或學院為基地，自視不同於或超越絕大部分盲目沈溺和享樂於商品文化、缺乏政治意識的中下階級女性。「新女性」文學似乎往往注重於「室內」題材，批判維多利亞的兩性雙重標準，批判女性在婚姻和家庭中的弱勢地位，但其對維多利亞性別「隔離領域」本身的批判，似乎著重於政治層面，反而相對忽視日常生活的經歷層面，其對女性自由涉足於城市公共空間必須是新女性自我塑造之重要一環的強調，也似乎是相當缺乏。不過本研究意圖指出，「新女性」這個概念其實相當複雜，也歷經演變過程，儘管稍早「新女性」的形象確實有如上特色，在接近世紀之交的文本中，「新女性」已漸漸演變成一個在城市公共空間裡遊走自如、且打扮時尚、絕不摒棄身體的都市女子形象。「新女性」和商品文化之間具有多重關係，她既要追求理性消費、又開懷享受商品文化帶來的各種視覺和感官的樂趣，以即因參與商品文化而帶來的更大空間自由；女性主義日漸借用商品文化的醒目視覺效果來宣導理想，而「新女性」自己也將投入商品化的文學市場和大眾媒體，和女性自立和獨立劃上等號。仔細觀察這世紀末風起雲湧、議題繁雜的「新女性」文學，不難發現「新女性」概念的演變，以及她和城市公共空間及現代商品文化的複雜關係。最近七、八年來英美文評家對「新女性」文學的研究又開始聚焦(Ardis, Heilmann 1998, 2000, 2004, Ledger, Nelson, Vadillo)，大致都將「新女性」文學置於世紀末豐富文化的脈絡裡，強調其和各種現代文化和社會論述的互動和影響，本研究則特別強調「新女性」文學和現代城市空間和商品文化的密切聯繫，以及試圖顛覆早期研究對「新女性」文學過於單一的解讀。本研究計畫以兩年時間，探索世紀之交時期的「新女性」小說，這其中包含男性作家寫作的較為著名的以「新女性」為主角的小說，如George Gissing』s The Odd Women, H. G. Wells』Ann Veronica, 還有「新女性」作家自己寫作的「新女性」小說，如Ella Hepsworth Dixon』s The Story of a Modern Woman, Sarah Grand』s Ideala, and Amy Levy』s The Romance of a Shop。不管是男性作家或是新女性作家自己，或是女性主義者和反女性主義者，都難免有將「新女性」小說視作政治工具的意圖，這其中，女性作家的作品顯然較男性作家更富同情，但後者卻因傳統上被視為文學技巧純熟，而在影響力上遠較被視為技巧較弱、過於「說教」(Elaine Showalter) 的「新女性」作家要來得重要。其實仔細觀察這兩種文本，都不難發現其本身充斥相當複雜、不同甚或矛盾的聲音，遠不是簡單將它們歸為「保守反動」或是「進步」所能涵蓋。這些作品儘管有不同角度，但卻都反映出，在世紀之交的「新女性」和現代城市空間的互動上已出現和稍早時期的不同，本研究試圖不再將「新女性」因政治意識不同而明確強調其和多數普通女性的區別，反而試圖指出，「新女性」自己也日漸將自由行走於倫敦城市公共空間視為挑戰既有傳統規範的重要一環，而展現健康身體慾望、享受感官「胃口」，不僅是對傳統維多利亞女性模範的挑戰，也是區分於早期女性主義在社會淨化運動中摒棄身體、強調女性道德和精神純潔的主張。另一方面，普通女性，尤其是新一代的年輕中下階層女性，雖非為「新女性」的政治主張追隨者，卻也在日常生活層面日漸將其主張轉化成個人爭取更大行動自由的要求，「新女性」和大多數普通女性間的界線也就日漸模糊。因此，欲更深瞭解女性的都市現代化經歷，進而瞭解都市現代化的錯綜意義，必須仔細探討「新女性」文學及其勾畫的「新女性」在日常生活層面的經歷。
The New Woman as a literary representation and journalistic myth has been traditionally constructed as well-educated, socially privileged upper-middle-class women in the last years of the 19th century who radicalized political issues like the vote for women, marriage and maternity, social and moral purification and education and employment for women. Such radicalism seems to have been predicated upon the New Women』s political and social agitations and vanguardism, their distance from the bulk of non-political, less well-educated middle-class and lower-middle-class women, and their more or less disdain for or disapproval of the pleasure-inducing, 「irrational」mass commodity culture that played on the visual and sensual desires of the bulk of enthusiastically participating ordinary women. Often emphasized for her bookish, mannish, bespectacled, physically emaciated appearance, her disdain for fashion and dress and her membership of the 「shrieking sisterhood」, the New Woman is seen to wage her battle mostly in the confines of the upper-class drawing room or club, the cloistered courts of the women-admitting colleges or the occasional political rallies in the public street, and is not normally linked on an everyday basis with the commodified urban space of modern London. Many prominent New Woman writers are more concerned with the Victorian double standard, with women』s subjection in marriage and home, without, however, duly challenging the ideology of the separate spheres itself or advocating for a new female selfhood based on women』s ability to navigate the commodified public space of urban modernity. This study seeks to argue that while such traits do seem to characterize the earliest phase of the New Woman phenomenon, by the turn of the century the New Woman is undergoing a subtle transformation whereby she is now seen as a healthy, embodied and fashionable young woman at home in and freely mobile in the public urban space, who does not scorn to take a pride in her looks (Heilmann 56) and maintains a complex relationship with the modern commodity culture by following its fashion in a rational way without denying any sense of the visual and sensual pleasures offered, and by participating in commodity culture either through working as journalists or writers for the mass market or by utilizing the specular strategies of commodity culture for feminist campaigns. A close examination of the complex and often contradictory literary and journalistic representations of the New Woman in the turn-of-the-century period shows that, unlike earlier constructions evidenced in the established feminist scholarship of the 1970s, the New Woman is a changing concept as it takes on more qualities that suggest a close link with the public urban space of modernity and a more complex relationship with the modern commodity culture. |
