Wordsworth and His Language: A Dialogue with Derrida

華滋華斯和德希達的對話

10.29650/TCUJHSS.201112.0006

陳國詩(Charles K. S. Chen)

他者 ； 恩安德之童 ； 解構 ； 頓悟時刻 ； 德希達 ； deconstruction ； Derrida ； other ； spot of time ； Winander Boy

慈濟大學人文社會科學學刊

12期（2011 / 12 / 01）

149 - 175

英文

本文皆在闡釋華滋華斯對語言所持之態度，以及他如何將此態度反應在其首要詩作序曲當中。二十世紀許多理論家不僅嚴重挑戰語言作為溝通媒介的效力，更強調不是我們使用語言，乃語言使用我們。更麻煩的是，語言並沒有得當地使用我們和它本身，因它總同時在建立和拆解它自己的語意權威。然而，對於這種無可避免的語言失準華滋華斯似乎無法釋懷。他認為，書寫出精準無誤的語言是一種合宜的期許。基於這份對精準語彙的執著，序曲的校訂遂成了他終其一生都沒能罷手的志業。下文將指出這種操控的徒勞。本文將先陳述華滋華斯對語言的理解，進而讓此理念和德希達解構體系中的「工程師」和「修補匠」對話，最後以德氏的另一概念「替補」做結。為證明華氏對語言失能的憂慮真有些多餘，本文並透過序曲第五部的恩安德之童和第十一部兩段「頓悟時刻」的詩行，傳遞解構哲學所欲傳遞的訊息－源源不絕的閱讀可能不僅不會減損序曲的精彩，而是讓它越發豐富。

This study seeks to address Wordsworth's persistence in but failure of establishing a definitive narrative of his life through The Prelude. A good number of the twentieth-century theorists, probably the deconstructionists in particular, not only seriously questioned the validity of language as a vehicle of communication, but they also contended that rather than we use language, it is language that uses us. A more disturbing case is that it does not ”use” us and itself properly, for it simultaneously asserts and denies the authority of its own signification. Regardless of this linguistic slippage, however, Wordsworth believed that it should only be a moderate desire to produce a kind of language that can exactly reflect the reality of his renovating, self-reliant, and imaginative mind. Because of his concern with the ongoing indeterminacy of the language of The Prelude, Wordsworth could not cease his enterprise of revision until his death. In what follows therefore we hope to show that all texts go on forever changing their privileged interpretation. We shall begin with Wordsworth's own concept of language, place in between a dialogue of this concept with what Jacques Derrida describes as bricoleur and engineer, and end with a recapitulation of the dialogue in relation to the deconstructionist's idea of supplement. To show that Wordsworth's sadness about language's incompetence is not so necessary and that the possibility of infinite readability does not vitiate but enhances the richness of his poem, we shall also arrange the Winander Boy passage of Book 5 of The Prelude and the two spot-of-time episodes of Book 11 as a rendezvous of the poet and the philosopher.

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