The ruins of ideals : narratives of illness and the body in Ming-Qing autobiographical prose = 理想廢墟 : 明清憶傳體散文中的疾病與身體

Abstract

本研究以《影梅庵憶語》、《浮生六記》、《香畹樓憶語》、《秋燈瑣憶》四部明清時期的憶傳體散文作為核心文本，探究此種文體中與疾病和身體相關的書寫及其意義，以及疾病話語如何反映同時代社會文化觀念對男性文人自我建構的影響。這四部作品都出自明清時期的男性文人之手，是中國文學史上少見的以夫妻內闈生活為文章主體的自傳性散文，以詳盡的閨閣生活細節描述和細膩的情感表達見長，是晚明至情思潮吹拂之下的文學產物。四部作品雖出自生活於不同時期的作者之手，卻都不約而同地囊括諸多與疾病相關的記錄和描寫，疾病幾乎成為男女主角們各個重大人生節點的刻度線。疾病和無法實現的理想互為因果，疾病成為了理想崩壞的廢墟所在，折射出其時男性文人的審美傾向和自我身份認同，亦為憶傳體散文研究帶來新的視角。

This research will examine how autobiographical narratives of illness and the body reflect social and cultural influences on the self-constructions of the male literati during the Ming and Qing Dynasties. Four Ming-Qing memoirs are addressed as the core texts of this study: The Memoirs of Yingmeian, Six Records of a Floating Life, The Memoirs of Xiangwanlou and Qiudeng suoyi. All of them present an intimate artistic life in the inner quarters between couples, which expresses the authors’ affection and mourning towards their lost lovers with detailed depiction and unadorned language. Among the four texts, narratives of illness and the body account for a considerable proportion in the life stories of both the author and his significant others, turning illness into landmarks of pivotal life events. Illness becomes not only the cause and effect of unachievable ideals, but also the ruins of broken ideals. As experiences of illness are prevalent across one’s life and the society, how scholars chose materials in the context of elite domestic life in their autobiographical proses during the private process of being ill—either of themselves or their significant others—could reasonably reveal the contemporary aesthetic trend and their construction of the self-identity. Narratives of illness and the body also provide an inspiringly new perspective for reading Ming-Qing autobiographical prose.