（英语语言文学专业论文）生命与美——《达洛维夫人》之道家思想解读.pdf

ma thesis ningbo university i 生命与美达洛维夫人之道家思想解读生命与美达洛维夫人之道家思想解读 摘摘 要要 弗吉尼亚伍尔夫作为英国著名女作家和二十世纪现代小说的先驱者之一，在文 坛上享有盛誉。她在英国文学史上具有独特的地位。其作品越来越受到评论界的关 注。达洛维夫人是伍尔夫的成名作，也是西方现代主义小说最重要的代表作之 一。不同的批评流派对该小说进行了深入分析，并取得了巨大成就。但总的来说，大 部分评论者把重点放在分析作家写作艺术的新颖上，而对作品中蕴含的哲学意义没有 引起足够的重视。 本论文试从中国传统哲学道家思想的角度分析达洛维夫人的哲学和美学 意义。体现在小说达洛维夫人中的道家哲学是无为思想。无为思想是道家哲学的 人生观。“无为”是不妄为，并非无所事事。小说女主人公克拉丽莎达洛维是这种 思想最好的体现者。无为思想的理论基础是对生命多样性的尊重，其本质是对黑暗社 会现实的反抗。无为思想的最终目的是达到精神的自由，实践真正的人生。生命美学 思想是本论文的另一重要组成部分。道家生命美学以生命作为审美活动的逻辑起点， 旨在探索生命的存在与超越如何成为可能这一问题。这种思想主要体现在克拉丽莎身 上。她热爱生命，肯定生活，同时又以一种超然的态度对待生活。克拉丽莎以艺术的 人生观在生活中创造了和谐与美。 本论文的目的在于为解读达洛维夫人提供一种新的方法,同时希望能为增进中 国古代文化和西方文化的相互理解尽绵薄之力。 关键词：达洛维夫人；无为；关键词：达洛维夫人；无为； 超越；超越； 生命美学生命美学 ma thesis ningbo university ii life and beauty: a taoist interpretation of mrs. dalloway by virginia woolf abstract as a celebrated british woman writer and one of the forerunners of modern fiction in the 20th century, virginia woolf enjoys a high reputation and her position in the history of british literature is unique. her brilliant works have been attracting more and more attentions from the world of criticism. ms. dalloway, her first successful novel and one of the most important representative works of modernist novels has been read extensively in the literary history and great achievements have been brought about through the analyses of the different critic groups. generally speaking, most critics have emphasized the newness of woolfs arts in mrs. dalloway while few critics have attached enough importance to the philosophical significance hidden in the novel. this thesis is a tentative endeavor to analyze the philosophical and aesthetic significance of the novel from the perspective of the chinese traditional philosophytaoism. the taoist philosophy embodied in mrs. dalloway is the thought of non-action, which finds its best expression in the heroine clarissa dalloway. the thought of non-action is the taoist outlook on life. it doesnt mean doing nothing at all, but refraining from any interference. the theoretical foundation of the spirit of non-action is the respect for the diversity of life and the essence of non-action is defiance of the dark society. its ultimate aim is to attain a complete spiritual freedom and thus lead a true life. life aesthetics is another important part of the thesis. taoist life aesthetics seizes “life” as the logic starting point of aesthetic activities, aiming to explore the existence and transcendence of human life. it is reflected in clarissa who loves and affirms life while at the same time she possesses a transcendent perspective of life through meditation. moreover, clarissa takes an artistic attitude towards life and creates harmony and beauty in life. ma thesis ningbo university iii the purpose of my thesis is to offer a new way of reading virginia woolfs brilliant writing mrs. dalloway and help promote the mutual understanding of the ancient chinese and western cultures. keywords：mrs. dalloway; non-action; transcendence; life aesthetics 独独 创创 性性 声声 明明 本人郑重声明：所呈交的论文是我个人在导师指导下进行的研究工 作及取得的研究成果。尽我所知，除了文中特别加以标注和致谢的地方 外，论文中不包含其他人已经发表或撰写的研究成果，也不包含为获得 宁波大学或其他教育机构的学位或证书所使用过的材料。与我一同工作 的同志对本研究所做的任何贡献均已在论文中做了明确的说明并表示了 谢意。 签名：_ 日期：_ 关于论文使用授权的声明关于论文使用授权的声明 本人完全了解宁波大学有关保留、使用学位论文的规定，即：学校 有权保留送交论文的复印件，允许论文被查阅和借阅；学校可以公布论 文的全部或部分内容，可以采用影印、缩印或其他复制手段保存论文。 （保密的论文在解密后应遵循此规定）（保密的论文在解密后应遵循此规定） 签名：_ 导师签名：_ 日期：_ ma thesis ningbo university 1 1 a survey of virginia woolf and mrs. dalloway 1.1 virginia woolf virginia woolf (1882-1941), a celebrated british woman writer, is one of the forerunners of modern fiction. she is famous not only as a novelist, but also as a critic, essayist and short story writer. as a prolific writer, she has published not only novels (nine), but also books of literary essays (e.g. the common reader, 1925, and the second common reader, 1932), some excellent polemical feminist books (a room of ones own, 1929, and three guineas, 1938), letters (six volumes), and diaries (five volumes). virginia enjoys the reputation as the founder of modernism and feminist critic. the entry on virginia woolf in the old dictionary of national biography acclaims that in woolfs work “the english aesthetic movement brought forth its most exquisite flower”(see mcneillie 2001:1). adeline virginia stephen was born at hyde park gate, london in 1882, the daughter of sir leslie stephen, an eminent literary critic and biographer, and of julia jackson duckworth. her father encouraged her to read widely at an early age, and provided her with his extensive library. in addition to this, the familys relation with contemporary cultural elites also helped to build up a profound cultural foundation for virginia and developed her elegant aesthetics. but throughout her life, she was afflicted with manic depression. on three occasions, the depression even developed into madness. virginia had suffered from several death events in her family since childhood. in 1895, when she was thirteen, her adored mother died, which affected her profoundly and triggered her first mental breakdown. and the death of her mother was closely followed by that of her beloved sister stella in 1897. and then, her father died in 1904, which brought on her a second breakdown. unable to express her grief over his death, she committed suicide by throwing herself out of a window. in 1906, virginia woolf suffered another tragic issue. her brother thoby died of typhoid fever on a trip to greece. all these prompted her to contemplate upon the question of life and death at an early age, and made her become more sensitive and self-reflective. and these life experiences also deeply influenced her later writings. in 1941, as the war took hold, she slipped deeper into depression. frightened by the thought that she was again on the verge of breakdown and could not recover this ma thesis ningbo university 2 time, she drowned herself in a river. in her lifetime she had been defying the mental illness and had learned to value the anguish experience as the source of her artistic creativity. her suicide was not submission to death, but defiance of it. leonard woolf1, her husband, had a quotation from her novel the waves as her epitaph, “against you i will fling myself, unvanquished and unyielding, o death!” (banks 1989: 444) when discussing virginia woolf, we should mention one literary groupbloomsbury, which exerted great influence on the writings of woolf. following the death of leslie stephen, the stephen siblings moved to no. 46 gordon square, bloomsbury. every thursday night, there gathered the younger generation of artists, philosophers, writers, some of whom are thobys friends at cambridge university. they discussed enthusiastically about the topics of “beauty”, “reality”, “good” and other literary, philosophical and aesthetical theories. thus a famous literary group took shape. the bloomsbury group includes the woolfs, forster2, strachey3, grant 4, vanessa bell5, roger fry6, and keynes7. virginia woolf, as one of the keenest members of the bloomsbury group, was deeply influenced by the groups philosophy and aesthetical doctrines, and reflected these thoughts in her works. during the first three decades after her death, virginia woolf was largely read as an aesthete (roe the latter maintained that the influence of post-impressionism enabled woolf to draw visual ideas into her writing. 9 as to the critics who studied the woolfs writing from the feminist perspective, see marcuss (2000) essay “woolfs feminism and feminisms woolf” for detail. ma thesis ningbo university 3 psychological1 and modernist2 theorists studied her works from different perspectives. but on the whole, critics placed more emphasis on the innovation of virginia woolfs art, including her use of the so-called stream-of-consciousness writing technique, her dissolution of traditional limits of plot and trivial details of the external world, her emphasis on the inner experience of human being and also her dissolution of the traditional boundaries between mind and world. however, in my view, the most important contribution virginia made lies in her exploration of the meaning of life, instead of her experimentation of the new forms of the novel. few critics have attached enough importance to the fact that virginia woolf is essentially a novelist with the quality of a philosopher who merits more than her reputation as a “founder of modernism”. during her life, she never ceased pondering upon the meaning of life and then wrote her thoughts into her writings. most of her works commonly quest for the fundamental problems of human life, such as life and death, being and non-being. as julia briggs argues, “virginia woolfs fiction explores the nature of the human condition”(briggs 2001: 72). as an insightful modernist pioneer and a true lover of life, virginia vigorously explores the meaning of life and the beauty in everyday life in her writings, among which mrs. dalloway is one of the most successful. this novel practices woolfs idea about the life in “modern fiction”, “life is not a series of gig-lamps symmetrically arranged; life is a luminous halo, a semi- transparent envelope surrounding us from the beginning of consciousness to the end.” (woolf 19931925: 1924) 1.2 the novel mrs. dalloway first published in 1925, mrs. dalloway is virginia woolfs first mature novel and also the first successful application of her “tunneling process” method (diary: 270), which woolf used throughout her later novels. the fluid meditative style, the artistically exquisite framework and the profound philosophical thinking make the novel rank among the great works of the world literature. mrs. dalloway is set on a day in june in 1923. centering on the mental world of the heroine clarissa dalloway, and together with other characters points of view, the novel inquiries into the meaningful existence of man and tries to seek 1 see the essay “virginia woolf and psychoanalysis” by jouve (2000) for detail. 2 see the essay “virginia woolf and modernism” by whitworth (2000) for detail. ma thesis ningbo university 4 the truth and beauty in life. woolf puts her purpose of writing the novel in her diary in june 1923 as follows, “i want to give life the slow opening up of single and solemn moments of concentrated emotion”(ce iv: 6). in this novel, the two levels are interwoven, but it is evident that the importance is attached upon the latter. the chiming of big ben, the clock at the houses of parliament in westminster, informs the reader of the passing of time, while the city london provides the space for the characters moving about, encountering different people, and witnessing the same events. contrary to this objective framework of time and space, the authors main attention is placed on the subjective lives of the characters. memory plays an important role in presenting the inner lives of characters. woolf herself attached great importance on memory, claiming in her essay “a sketch of the past”, “ if life has a base that it stands upon, if it is a bowl that one fills and fills and fillsthen my bowl without a doubt stands upon this memory(the memory of st ives).” (mb: 64) with the help of memory, the past and the present meet and the present backed by past is much deeper than the present when it pressed so close (mb: 98). the one single day framework shows another way that life is experienced, that is living a contemplative life. it also shows woolfs point of view that the complexity of life is reflected in ones mind, and the truth lies behind the appearance. using the technique of indirect interior monologue, the author brings us into the inner world of the protagonist clarissa dalloway. following the rising and falling moods of clarissa, we go through her happiness, loneliness, and weariness. during the day, clarissa contemplates life and death frequently. she thinks about the rapid passing of her own life, about the cruel war and its aftermath, about the horrible accident in which her sister died very young. clarissa comprehends the meaning of life through a profound understanding of death. in the process of contemplation, the world of clarissa is widened with her mind ma thesis ningbo university 5 probing into the past and present. with the ebb and flow of her thoughts, and together with the memories of other major characters, such as peter walsh and sally seton, the past and present lives of clarissa are unveiled for us. simultaneously in the novel, there is a parallel story of septimus warren smith, a shell-shocked veteran of world war i, who shares clarissas unease and commits suicide that day. the stories of clarissa and septimus run side by side in the novel, and their lives arent really intersected until clarissa is informed of the latters death in the party. through identifying with septimus and at the same time transcending his death, clarissa gains strength and gets a revelation momentarily. and at last she is triumphantly in control of her world. besides following the consciousness of clarissa and septimus, throughout the novel we are also involved in the subjective lives of other characters, such as peter walsh, who loved clarissa and wanted to marry her when she was young, richard dalloway, clarissas husband, who is a conservative member of parliament, sally seton, clarissas rebellious girlfriend, who turns up unexpectedly at clarissas party, elizabeth, the daughter of clarissa, and her tutor, miss doris kilman. the narration of the novel shifts from one character to another. thus through their streams of consciousness, we get to know their shifting and subjective lives with their respective fantasies, fears and excitements. ma thesis ningbo university 6 2 a critical review of mrs. dalloway 2.1 the previous studies of mrs. dalloway since its publication, the novel has received enormous attentions. different critic groups have studied the novel from different perspectives. generally speaking, the studies of the major critic groups are as follows. one, critics such as henke, delorey and matson studied the novel from the feminist perspective. henke (1981) argued that mrs. dalloway was a strong critique of patriarchy in her article “mrs. dalloway: the communion of saints”. delorey (1996) pushed the point further in the essay “the paradox of containment in virginia woolfs narratives”, suggesting that woolfs strategic focus on the parenthetical was a feminist narrative principle and the purpose of the use of parentheses was to deflate the dramatic events on which traditional masculinist narrations turned. matson (1996) claimed in “the terror and the ecstasy: the textual politics of virginia woolfs mrs. dalloway” that virginia undermined and challenged the patriarchs at the level of syntax, with the segmentation of the text signaled by the abundance of commas and semicolons, the repetition of key words and the abrupt and incongruous changes of verb tenses. two, critics such as harper and laurence studied the novel from the philosophical and epistemological perspective. harper (1982) indicated that mrs. dalloway was an effort to discover meaning by the narrative use of silence. according to harper, the novel tried to discover the essence of the world and to test various adaptations to it by the use of the “narrative consciousness”. in the end of the novel the transcending meaning was discovered in the silence between the personal and social dramas. thus, the novel was seen as the trace of a dynamic process that created and explored a world. laurence (1991) held the similar viewpoint, maintaining that using narrative techniques to capture “being”, silence became in her novel the equivalent of “interior distance”. he pointed out that the author used silence to mark her uncertainty about “what life is” and about “the reality of any feeling”. some silences expressed woolfs preoccupation with and exploration of interiority and her desire to capture two strata of experience at once: the life of the mind and the surface world of facts. and the novel represented a further evolution of the essential search for poetic meaning. ma thesis ningbo university 7 three, critics such as hungerford, krutch and richter studied the novels writing techniques. hungerford (19941957) analyzed the writing technique virginia used in mrs. dalloway in the article “ my tunnelling process: the method of mrs. dalloway”. krutch (19941925) discussed the stream-of-consciousness method in the novel. critics have also compared mrs. dalloway to joyces ulysses, from one-day structure to the stream-of- consciousness technique, like richter (19941989) in “the ulysses connection: clarissa dalloway bloomsday”. some critics discussed the use of metaphor in the novel. like brower (19941951) in “something central which permeated: virginia woolf and mrs. dalloway” and wyatt (19941973) in “mrs. dalloway: literary allusion as structural metaphor”. some critics read the novel from the narrative viewpoint, such as sprague (1994) who analyzed the multipersonal representation of consciousness, time strata and the shifting of the narrative viewpoint of the novel. four, another way to render woolfs novel was from the realist perspective. as auerbach (19941953) argued, woolfs novel was an attempt to “fathom a more genuine, a deeper, and indeed, a more real reality”. peach (2000) analyzed the novel from social and political viewpoint in “national conservatism and conservative nationalism: mrs. dalloway”. some held that the novel aimed to criticize t