Emergent Tensions of a Modernizing Society, as Illustrated in the Restoration Novel: Oroonoko (1688)

現代化社會的衝突：以Oroonoko小說（1688）為例

10.29950/JHKUM.200607.0006

粘忠倚(Chung-Yi Nien)；陳成宏(Cheng-Hung Chen)

大英帝國 ； 奴隸制度 ； 父權統治 ； 盧梭 ； 帝國主義 ； the British Empire ； slavery ； patriarchalism ； Rousseau ； imperialism

興國學報

6期（2006 / 07 / 01）

93 - 108

英文

西元一七○二年與蘇格蘭合併後，大英帝國在十七世紀末葉時已將觸角伸向世界各地，其發展亦和英國境內的銀行金融制度和工業革命的成長休戚相關。若要記載、分析英國的文學傳統和經典的制定，不能單以文學觀點來分析，而必須就大英帝國的整體發展來觀察。西元一六八八年，Aphra Behn以本身在歐洲大陸和美洲從事帝國間諜的實際經驗，出版Oroonoko一書，我們可從中看出大英帝國官方和袐密策略的重要線索，其中最重要的就是對於西半球殖民地和運送販賣黑人奴隸的記載。然而，Oroonoko這本小說敘述的不只是殖民主義和奴隸制度，作者Aphra Behn可以說是第一個以文學創作維生的英國女性，而且多數學者認為這本小說提倡廢止奴隸制度，並且暗批父權社會體制。很顯然地，她比盧梭（Rousseau）更早提出「高貴野人」的概念，並且文中所呈現的政治紛爭也預言了後續的社會現象。此篇作品更呈現出當時西方當權帝國的利益、競爭和衝突，也就是現代化的關鍵議題，這就是本文所要揭露的主旨。

By the late 17th century the English Empire was well on its global way [it did not become 'British' until after the merger with Scotland in 1702]. This strange animal coincided with the growth of the domestic banking, financial and industrial revolutions. British institutions are difficult to chronicle, analyze, or even perceive outside the Imperial context. Among these institutions is the literary tradition and the canon of a given period. The appearance of Oroonoko (1688), written by an imperial spy with experience in continental Europe and the Americas, binds together many significant threads of official and covert strategy. Among these are the colonies of the western hemisphere and their transported African workers. But Oroonoko does more than relate colonialism and slavery. Its author was the first English woman to make literary production a livelihood. And her novel has been understood as a salvo in the abolitionist pantheon, as well as a cryptic shot at patriarchalism. Clearly, her 'noble savages' precede those of Rousseau, and the tensions of empire exhibited in political contests among Whigs, Royalists and Puritan dissenters, anticipate much later sociology. In this work are packed all the themes, interests, rivalries, and contradictions of the West's dominant modern empire, precisely at the crux of its modern realization.

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