Defining Women: Masculine Violence in Defoe, Pope, and Swift

Abstract

本文擬從歷時與共時二時間軸，檢視十八世紀早期英國文學作品中的亞馬遜女戰士。以狄福小說《羅克珊娜》為依據，本文首先從縱向歷史的角度，探討古希臘歷史作品中亞馬遜女戰士與羅克珊娜之間的歷史關連。其次，本文將羅克珊娜與同時期波普所著《秀髮劫》與斯威福特《愛爾蘭專文》中的女主角們，進行橫向比較。上述歷史縱、橫垂直的比對點出，狄福、波普與斯威福特文本中的男性暴力本質。自古以降，亞馬遜女戰士籠罩在謀殺、性暴力與屈辱的陰影中，而羅克莎娜的命運也同出一轍，她被控為弒女兇手，並且最終身敗名裂。與羅克莎娜同時期的女主角們則在帝國主義與擴張主義意識形態下，被塑造為強權貿易與男性暴力的代理人。這些女性不僅執行掩飾男性暴力的任務，更在文本中屢被物化與商品化，成為男性作家筆下道德敗壞、經濟衰退與貿易虧絀的代罪羔羊。

This paper examines the Amazon trope in the narratives of the early eighteenth century. Based on Defoe’s Roxana, it first explores diachronically the origin of Amazon warriors in ancient Greek historical works and examines how the ancient foremothers and the modern English heiress are related; then it synchronically compares Roxana with her counterpart, Belinda, in Alexander Pope’s The Rape of the Lock, and further with Irish women in Jonathan Swift’s Irish Tracts. The perpendicular approaches lay open different acts of masculine violence in literary works. Historically the Amazons were forced to murder, forced sexual acts, and humiliation; in like manner, Roxana is accused of filicide and cannot be exempt from her downfall. Contemporarily Roxana- and Belinda-like women are characterized as concealing male agency of mercantilism and male violence of imperial enterprise, while they, English or Irish, are further commodified and made the sites of cultural corruption and scapegoats for economic recession and trade deficits.