蜕变的诗学

The Poetics of metamorphoses
蜕变的诗学

Gaston Bachelard
加斯东、巴舍拉

假如目前这篇文章能够被拿来当作是狂想的物理学或化学，当作是决定狂想的客观条件的轮廓，那么它应该会供应作为客观的文学批评的这些工具。所谓客观，就是以世界的最精确的意义来说。它应该证明，蜕变并不仅仅是像火箭爆炸时的理念化，在空中爆裂而展示自己的微不足道。相反地，它应该证明，各种隐喻互相召唤，远比各种感知更加地被协调。这样，诗的心灵才会实实在在地成为是隐喻的句法。每位诗人，因此应该产生一种轮廓，指示著他的各种隐喻协凋的方向与均称。确实如同花的轮廓定义它的花瓣的开展的方向与均称。每朵真实的花朵，必然会有这个几何学的一致性。同样地，每个诗学的开花，必然会有诗的各种意象的某种综合。可是，这篇的主题并不应该被诠释为是企图要在诗人的创作上，限制诗的自由，赋加逻辑与现实（两者其实没有差别）。客观而言，在事件之后，在花盛开之后，我们会认为，我们发现一篇诗的作品具有现实主义与内部逻辑。有时，某些确实是多样性的意象，我们相信是具有敌意，冲突，瓦解的意象，会被融合成为是令人惊艳的意象。即使是超现实主义最奇怪的拼贴碎片，也会陆续接合。微光一闪也会显示深奥的光辉；反讽闪耀的瞥见突然具有温柔的流露：一滴眼泪掉落在忏悔的火焰上。想像的决定性行动就是如此强烈：它让怪物成为是新生的婴孩。

但是，诗的轮廓图并不仅仅就是一种图形。它必须找到一种方式来合并各种犹豫与暧昧。光是它们就能够让我们从写实主义里解放出来。它让我们能够梦想。就在这个时刻，我们预先的工作形成它所有的困难与它的价值。诗并不是从一种一致性内部诞生。单一性并不具有诗的属性。假如我们无法立即获得有秩序的多重性，我们能够使用辩证法，作为一种震耳欲聋的声音，唤醒正在沉睡的回响。如同阿曼、佩提辛Armand Petitjen注意到，「思想的辩证法的令人不安，不论有无各种意象，都可以无与伦比地充当想像的决定。无论如何，我们特别要捕捉住反思的表达的各种冲动，并且将熟悉的各种意性，予以精神分析。。这样，我们才能够获得进入各种隐喻，特别是进入隐喻中的隐喻。因此，我们将会了解，佩提辛为何会写说，想像并不隶属于心理学的决定—包括精神分析学在内。想像形成一种原初与体内的领域。我同意这个观点：想像是心灵产物的最大力量，超过意志力，超过生命的冲动。从心灵而言，我们是我们狂想的创造物，因为就是狂想在呈现我们心灵的幽微的领域。

雄伯译
32hsiung@pchome.com.tw
https://springhero.wordpress.com

火的詩學 03

火的詩學 03

Fragments of A Poetics of Fire by Gaston Bachelard 巴舍拉

 

VII

 

   Sometimes it is through resistance 抗拒 to Empedoclean imagery, by means of contradiction 矛盾, that the path to Empedoclean seduction comes to light 顯現出來.

 

   Our temptation to cast ourselves into the flames is not fulfilled. We balk 畏怯already at the thought of even minor burns. This provides us an initial 最初protection at least against what is too hot to handle, a physiological d生理上的efense which allows us to enjoy Empedoclean temptations in all safety. In the final analysis, the image of Empedocles is one of those rare images 稀有的意象 which has never had a victim.

 

   It is for this reason that the Empedocles Complex 情結appears in transposed 轉換的form, and that it is capable of returning to life with tremendous 巨大的violence in poetry.

 

   I seem not have adequately 足夠stressed in my earlier essay on The Psychoanalysis of Fire the nuance  細微差別which distinguishes the power of the senses in real life from the power of the sense in imagined, imagining, imaginary life. TheEmpedocles Complex as once transposed 轉換permits us to dramatize our reveries before fire, rendering 使成為them excessive. By means of excessive imagining we enter the realm 領域 of the poetic, and thus read the poets dynamically 戲劇性地.

 

   Poets bring new life to our complexes of solitude 孤獨情結. To read a poem about the death of Empedocles is to become the solitary 孤獨 hero—and the poet as well:

 

        And gladly, did not love restrain 遏制me,

            Deeply as the hero plunged 投擲I’d follow,

 

    Psychoanalysts show bare 不加掩飾的 interest in these complexes of solitude, or at least  if they discover the traces 痕跡of one they base their interpretations 解釋on familiar, social, or domestic 家庭的factors. The psychoanalyst who came across 偶遇these lines by Holderline would respond to the poet something like this: “ As it is love which restrains 遏制 you, there would appear to be something you are trying to escape. Your beloved smothers 使窒息you in affection, hence you dream of death. You love her deeply in return and so, Empedoclean that you are, you find yourself hating her at least a little. You are consumed  燒毀by two opposing flames.” The Empedoclean philosopher’s great lesson, it seems, was to have pointed out of the intimate, tenacious 堅韌的 union 結合between hatred and love. Empedocles was precursor 先驅to the philosophy of ambivalence 愛恨交加. He inscribed 銘記love and hatred in the very mechanism 機械學of the Universe. How could this same ambivalence not be present 存在於in the human heart? And how then could it not be found at the heart of that dynamic 有活力的 super-element 超級因素, fire. Fire is benevolent 仁慈and cruel. It is a god, truly.

 

   With this we find ourselves back in the realm 領域 of images, at the dynamic center of excessive imagery 意象 . We have, in a certain manner 方式, been transposed 轉換ourselves by an Empedocles Complex which has been itself transposed into the realm of poetry. Solitude 孤獨 in reading is ours once again, a means 方法to escape the socialized investigations of the psychoanalysts. The poetic can be lived by us apart from our experience of the mundane 世俗. As Genevieve Bianquis has put it: “ What does it matter 重要 if such moments are fleeting 瞬間so long as they are imperishable 不可毀滅的.” When an Empedocles Complex is present in a poem we experience that imperishable instant 瞬間of figurative 象徵, Cosmic 宇宙的death.

 

   In moments such as these the superiority 優秀of the Poetic over the Psychological becomes apparent 明顯. The more resolutely 決心one puts off all traces of psychology, cutting oneself of what Nietzsche, I believe, terms 稱呼 “ the plague 瘟疫of biography,” the more certain one will be of having entered the realm 領域of Poetics.

 

   The imaginary complex 情結 calms itself in a writer’s works or work. And with this we have arrived at the very heart of our study of literary activity, at the very seat of the Poetics of Fire. What might have become of  遭遇Nietzsche’s imaginary life had he succeeded in creating his Empedocles?

 

   Empedoclean temptations 誘惑 are to be found even in the anti-Empedoclean ourbursts 爆發 of Zarathoustra. One venerates 尊敬the flames of hell even in mocking 嘲諷them, and the splendors of Etna’s fate are but poorly suppressed 壓抑in anti-Empedoclean imagery. The two opposing orders 秩序of violence inhabit駐紮在the same realm. Listen as Nietzsche curses 詛咒the Volcano rising from the sea “ not far from the happy Isles 小島of Zarathoustra”:

 

  This term 用詞Ventriloquist 腹語表演者 alone stands as sufficient mockery 嘲諷of all the rumblings 隆隆聲of the Earth and terrifying din 喧囂聲 of the Volcano. To make fun 作樂 in this way is to free oneself of childish fright. Beside the many child-adults frightened of the Dog of the Abyss 深淵,  Nietzsche seems a man, a veritable 真實的superman.

 

   He derides 嘲笑 all the Volcano’s demons 惡魔, declaring:

 

   “ You know to bellow 怒吼and to darken with ashes灰燼! Best braggarts 自誇者and the world experts in the art of making the mud seethe 沸騰.”

  

   It matters little that these imprecations 詛咒語are followed by a tirade 激烈的攻擊against the revolutionaries 革命of the day. If Nietzsche hopes to draw comparisons 對比 between the troubles of society and the cataclysms  劇烈變動of the subterranean 地下的world, he wastes his own time and his reader’s both. Only the image is real; the volcano alone possesses true dynamic 有活力的power. The real life in Nietzche’s work is to be found in his images. We see him here in hot pursuit 追求of excessive imagery—he declaims 發表 inflammatory 煽動性words, incensed 憤怒的words directed not to an audience but to Etna as imagined by a rebellious 反叛的Empedocles who believes in shouting No to the temptations of the void 空無

 

    Yet, in cursing 詛咒the volcano, Nietzsche belongs to the volcano. He confesses 坦承in another poem to a flame-like nature of his own.

 

              Ecce Homo 瞧！這個人

        Yes, I know from whence I came!

        Ever hungry like a flame,

        I consume 燒毀myself and glow.發光

        Light grows all that I conceive 想像,

        Ashes everything I leave;

        Flame I am, assuredly 確定.

 

    But far more than the flame of a hearth 爐床fire, the Philosopher is Flame of a Volcano:

 

    My life is a consuming 燒毀的 fire, and so long as its victim shall live so long shall pour forth the holy smoke of its holocaust 大破壞. The perfumed 芳香的cloud will fly into the distance, out over the sea, stirring 激動 the solitary Navigator’s 航海者的heart.

 

    In the resonance 共鳴of these poems is it possible to avoid the sense that an Empedoclean fate 命運remained alive in Nietzsche the philosopher’s dreams? Empedocles ends up a wisp 縷of smoke, a perfumed 芳香的cloud overhanging 垂懸 the sea. Nietzsche never tells us the tale; everything is there in the one master image. Images suffice 足夠because of their vastness 廣漠. Images make one as big as the world. The Poetics of Fire require no storyline. A storyline is but the string 串線on which the pearls 珍珠are strung, hardly worth a second thought once one has been transfixed 怔住by the richly jeweled marvels 驚奇 of fire.

 

springherohsiung@hotmail.com

火的詩學 02

火的詩學 02

A Poetics of Fire by Gaston Bachelard

 

VIII

 

   Sometimes a fire just getting started is already active in the flesh 肉身. A human being is a living pyre 火葬柴堆. Rene Char, in the dedication 獻辭to his fine book In Search of Base and Summit 尋求山谷與山頂, gives expression to the ardor 激情 in an inborn 天生的pyre , a personal Empedoclean image. One can be “ burned alive,” the poem tells us, “ by fire no greater than oneself.”

 

An Empedocles of this sort is on fire even prior to 早先於 his final plunge投擲. So grandiose 宏偉is such a philosopher’s dream of combustion 燃燒, he offers himself up to the volcano for the volcano’s own sake. It is necessary to think: “ If I cast myself into the fire, my own ardor will fan 煽起 the flames.” We will burn together, the two of us, and share together the splendid life of fire.” Incendiary 煽火者and fire become one.

 

The philosopher, a choice 精選的combustible 可燃物, purifies vulgar 粗俗的worldly fire, enhancing 增加 its worth. But this purgative 淨化的 process is set in motion 觸發already by images of fire. All poets and all dreamers stir continually the fire beneath the mountain. It is they who are the life of the volcano; its destiny is theirs. Something would be lacking in the poetry of volcanoes if the private drama of Empedocles had not found its apotheosis 神聖化的人物 upon the summit of Mount Etna.

 

In the case of Rene Char, a poet who feels burning within himself fire equal to Fire, flames before the Flame, it is necessary to speak of an inner pyre, a pyre longed for 渴望 which exists in order to extinguish 熄滅flames of inner fire. The pyre of Hercules is neither widow’s pyre 寡婦的柴堆 nor disciple’s pyre 門徒的柴堆 for it consumes 燒毀 not the past. The presence of the image triumphs over history and legend and culture. Is not the tunic 素腰外衣of Nessus devouring吞沒 Hercules’ flesh a truly unforgettable image, a remordent 一再重複的 remorse 痛悔, a burn which burns again, still burns, will burn forever?

 

Why does such an image remain morally 確實viable 可實行even if one has but a poor or vague remembrance of its source in legend! The expression “ burning memory” apart from any image or analysis is only an expression but one at least which puts the image forth , starting it to life as a result. Each one of us is in possession of  擁有a secret pyre.

 

But let us not forget that Hercules was living flame throughout his life, the “ Glory of the Air.” As Paul de Saint Victor has put it: “ His former solar 太陽的nature…smothered 悶抑 secretly within his human form…” All the labors of Hercules were labors of rage 憤怒 which glorified his rage; the fires of rage nourished 滋養his existence. “ One might have said,” Saint-Victor continues,

 

    That the monsters he slew 屠殺 took their revenge in merging 融合with his being. The Nemean lion which he made into a cloak 外衣, the head of the Erymanthian boar 野豬with which he covered his bead, seemed thus reincarnate 化身and furiously 憤怒地alive within him.

 

The lion, solar in its essence, stirs the solar Hero with its fires. Fire lies at the root of Hercules’ exploits 事業, and fire is essential to his death.

 

His pyre merely finishes off what the fires of his volcanic anger have begun. Volcano is the term 用詞Saint-Victor chooses: invectives 謾罵issue forth. He cried out for a thunderbolt 霹靂to end his torment 痛苦.” Saint-Victor goes on to evoke 召喚  “ the myth of Solar Herculars, whose twelve labors represent the twelve signs of the firmament 天空. An extraordinary image comes to mind, that of a zodiac 星座constellated 命名星座 with monsters which grow to fill the heavens.” He concludes:

 

The holocaust 大屠殺would soon be consummated 完成. In a radiant whirlwind 旋風, from the summit of Mount Etna, a transfigured 變形 Hercules will fly skyward towards Olympus, all ablaze 燃燒, to take his seat among the gods.

 

Of course these many images are only oratorical 雄辯 . They describe nothing. But even an oratorical image must have its place in the kingdom of fire. The oratorical image may describe nothing, but it serves to elevate 提升thought to the heights of the imagination.

 

An entire generation of mythologists 神話學家 has attempted to link human destiny to celestial 天上events. A field of excessive metaphors 隱喻has been established linking the psychology of heroes to celestial cosmology 宇宙論. Cosmic reveries 幻想somehow became incarnated 具體化 in the figures of legend. In dreaming large, humanity grew to fill the world. A detailed dictionary now permits one to pass from psychological meaning to mythological meaning and back again. In analyzing legends dialectically 辯證法地, in terms of both the humanizing and the cosmicizing 宇宙化tendencies of language, one may understand things human and things cosmic doubly 雙重地, or rather imagine them twice: Hercules’ pyre becomes the setting sun..

 

 

Epilogue 結束語

 

The sage 聖賢 inquires of one pointing out an image: “What do you conceal from me in pointing out this image so? You point, but this demonstrates nothing. No one able to demonstrate would deign俯允to point. “

 

The more brilliant an image the more troubling its ambiguity 曖昧, for its ambiguity is that of the depths.

 

Respectable people prefer their images both superficial 表面的 and ephemeral 短暫的: water flowing clear over a sandy bottom, reflecting a distant sky…But heaven and earth together account for 解釋the verticality 垂直of an image. All that rises harbors the powers of the depths within.

火的詩學 01

 

火的詩學

Fragments of A Poetics of Fire by Gaston Bachelard 巴舍拉

Translated by Springhero 雄伯譯

32hsiung@pchome.com.tw

 

Empedocles 恩匹德克利斯

 

To meditate upon 沉思 Empedocles’ death atop Mount Etna is to promote a Poetics of Fire. The Image goes beyond the Act, and is itself a permanent poetic act of transcendence 超驗.

 

   The death of Empedocles should not be seen as merely another incident in the history of philosophy. What, we may ask, makes the image of Empedocls so central to the spiritual life of anyone who dreams of life and death and fire? It is assuredly 的確not the balance sheet 收支表of the man’s social life; nor is it the philosophy scattered 散開through the fragments 碎片of his thought which has wrongly been described as fundamental. No indeed! The image of Empedocles is one of the great images of the Poetics of annihilation 毀滅詩學. In the Empedoclean act the individual looms 隱約出現large as fire and becomes the principal actor in a veritable 可驗證的cosmic宇宙的 drama..

 

   The outcome 結果of the drama of Empedocles is not decided in a dialectics 辯證法 of acceptance and denial 背棄 . Denial is possible where ideas are concerned, never images. The interpretive 解釋的dialectics which suggest themselves here are many in number. To dedicate oneself to致力於 fire is to become fire!  Or perhaps to dedicate oneself to fire is to succeed in achieving a state 狀態 of Nothingness. It is a long way from the majesty輝煌 of flame 火焰 to that of Nothingness. Or again, perhaps such grand 輝煌的 and totalizing 整體化fire is one’s guarantee 保證of total purification 淨化. But is purification a guarantee of rebirth! In the Philosopher’s heart phoenixical 鳳凰鳥的 hope springs eternal.

 

Here possibilities for interpretation begin to emerge出現; and if the drama of Empedocles’ life is interpreted 解釋 in terms of his philosophy, one turned to time and time again down through the ages, any transposition 調換 becomes possible, everyone a fit 適當的 object of philosophic reverie 幻想 .Those of us capable of accepting all possibilities ( for all must be accepted!) enter thereby the realm 領域of the Poetics of Fire. Here ideas themselves have dreams, and everyone might well be termed 稱為Empedoclean. Each is an unconsummated 未實現的 pre-act , a delicate synthesis 綜合of tension and terror—a phenomenon 現象familiar to every serious dreamer of flames.

 

A number of testimonials 證明書will follow. Although we are not carried away by temptation誘惑 ourselves as the philosopher once freely chose to be, the fact that once he was is known to us. We dream endlessly that individuals are free still to confront 面對this possibility. Empedocles, the hero of a freely chosen death by fire, triggers 觸發 and perpetuates 使不朽these dreams in us. The human destiny he represents is one of fatal imagery 意象. There are times we are obliged 強迫by fire to imagine death. It was by such a fatal 致命的image that Empedocles was overcome.

 

In contrast to the myriad 無數的philosophies which claim that we are cast into existence, we confront here a Philosopher whose casts into the arms of death. While both birth and death are glorious Instants 瞬間, birth is not a matter of one’s choosing. Empedocles experiences freedom for the first time when he casts himself to death. Moments of decision like these are worthy objects of study for a Poetics of Time.

 

Empedocles’ Act takes place in an Instant upon a Summit 山頂. These four capitals 大寫字母work together here, and a Poetics of Fire must undertake to elevate 提升 their tone 語調. Psychological explanation will not suffice 足夠; poetic explication 解釋written in poetic capitals is called for. The dilemma 困境is a clear one: is the Act of Supreme 崇高Will on the Summit of the Mountain of Fire human circumstance or cosmic 宇宙的event?

 

If it is to be read as human drama, more psychological background a focus more on the action at center stage will be necessary. Distant 距離causality因果關係 will be seen to play as great a role as factors 因素 nearer the drama at hand. This eloquent psychology, despite its limited means 方法, serves to distance us from the munificence 寬宏 of the drama’s denouement 【de’numAH】結局.

 

Psychologically explained in this way, the Philosopher becomes just one more down-trodden 被踐踏的individual, a disappointed citizen or abandoned 被捨棄 political leader, caught in the web 網絡of social drama as any ordinary specimen 樣本of human psychology might be. The fervor 熱情of poetic sincerity 誠懇will be missing from any such work of minor psychological fiction in which the fantasies of psychologists of social drama are given free rein 免除駕馭 .

 

To move from psychology to theater the tone must be heightened 強調. Psychologists who fail to see theatricality 戲劇性 as vital to poetry will find themselves unable to account for 解釋this change in register 登記. How many vain attempts have playwrights made to lay the groundwork 奠下基礎for Empedocles’ final scene, undergirding 強化 Legend with a storyline!

 

As the number of quaint 古怪的and puerile 未成熟的 secondary characters, kings and women, is increased, the central character, Mount Etna, is forgotten. How is one then to study the psychology of the Volcano, bellowing 吼叫and groaning 呻吟 forth temptations 誘惑, sleeping so long as the philosopher sleeps and awakening as his cosmic intelligence awakens?

 

While the playwright is busy complicating 複雜化 the psychological drama of Empedocles further and further, his cosmic drama boils 沸騰to a head; the Philosopher answers the Volcano’s call, stirred 鼓動by merely human unhappiness no longer. The Volcano has in mind more than just a victim 受害者, more than simply any human sacrifice whatever. The Volcano wants Empedocles. And in this cosmic drama’s aftermath 餘波 the names Empedocles and Etna are forever joined.

 

No longer is it to recollect 回憶the one without remembering the other. Poets will have little use for 不喜歡those who would establish 證明the date of the philosopher’s death by charting 標明the volcano’s eruptions 爆發. Legends need not be dated 確定日期for they are eternal, revitalized 復活each time a poet dresses them in imagery anew.

 

Legends concerning 關於the summit are immovable 不動. Prometheus nailed upon the Caucsus, Empedocles scattered散開 to the four winds by mountain fire: in legends such as these the Summit becomes a character in its own right 本身. And the Etna of Empedocles is truly both the summit 山頂of a man and summit of a world.

 

The summit isolates. It overlooks 俯瞰 the sea, the true and the only sea, the sea great dreamers dream of gazing over 凝視as have so many of the culture’s heroes. Edgar Allan Poe, as an inhabitant 居民of the New World, is one poet who looks to the Mediterranean 地中海to lend his cosmic reveries 幻想the nobility of ancient thought. In proclaiming 宣稱his eureka 我發現, Poe goes so far as to imagine himself upon the mountain of Fire’s Summit! From here the human, more than human has the power to see all, to take his bearings 舉止in all directions and so embrace 擁抱 in a single primal vision 以原始的洞察力east and west, north and south, all that rises and all that sets:

 

He who from the top of Aetna casts his eyes leisurely 悠閒地around, is affected chiefly by the extent 程度and diversity 多樣化of the scene. Only by a rapid whirling 旋轉 on his heel could he hope to comprehend the panorama 全景in the sublimity 崇高of its oneness. But as, on the summit of Aetna, no man has thought of whirling on his heel, so no man has ever taken into his brain the full uniqueness 獨特性of the prospect 景象; and so, again, whatever considerations lies involved in this uniqueness, have as yet no practical existence for mankind.

 

Thus the ideality of Etna is forever glorified推崇!

 

While the name Empedocles is not pronounced 宣稱in Poe’s Eureka 我發現了, the Philosopher’s memory is palpable 可明瞭的 nonetheless throughout the meditation 沉思. In order to dream his philosophical dreams of a Unified World and to contemplate 沉思Existence, Poe travels to the very site where for Empedocles Being and None-Being were proximate 近似. Here the essence of the world is present in all its fullness 充實and splendor 輝煌. Here the infinities 無限of space find their center. Ye annihilating 毀滅的fire is to be found here too in all of its enormity 巨大. The Nothing is enormous here, the sea immense 廣漠的.

 

I hope to demonstrate 證明the importance of this concrete dialectic 辯正法of being and non-being to both the Empedoclean site and the Empedoclean act. We will begin with a look at the many poetic echoes 回響 of this dialectic in the tragedies and odes 頌歌 of the great poets, attempting through their works to come to terms with 達成協議the attraction of this symbol of annihilation 毀滅. It is a symbol which remains unresolved 未解決in the glory of the Poetics of Fire. Travelers today who climb to the top of Mt. Etna are reminded of Empedocles. It would prove a disappointment, though, were one to fall into the crater火山口—a poetic gesture manqué 假面劇. Indeed, the only way for one to live out he Empedoclean Act is through one’s poetry.

 

After taking a look at the great plays, I will, in the second part of my discussion, present a number of less striking 顯著的images which evidence only partially developed or barely 免強perceptible 感覺到temptations. Even images only hinted at 暗示, such as these, incontestably 無可置疑bear the sign of the workings 操作 of Empedoclean imagination. This should signal our arrival in a poetic realm 領域where the images of a psychological complex play themselves out in small imagistic意象的 cruelties, a realm of extremes where masochistic 受虐 and sadistic 虐待tendencies go hand in hand.

 

The butterfly plunging 投擲into the flame of a candle is undoubtedly the victim of phototropism 趨光性—this is the conclusion immediately drawn by any student of animal psychology. But what about the dreamer ? What about the poet who has no need to see in order to dream? It will be ours to discover whether a sufficient number of Empedoclean images may be collected without danger.

 

But why not begin grandly!

Soft Matter: The Valorization of Mud 06

Soft Matter: The Valorization of Mud 05

軟泥：泥巴的穩定

From Earth and Reveries of Will

泥土與意志的幻想

By Gaston Bachelard 巴舍拉

Translated by Springhero 雄伯

 

We have only to reread , in Maurice Genevoix’s Raboliot, the many pages devoted to sticky snares, to experience a detailed, minute offensiveness that illustrates the degree to which human existence is reactive, a response to circumstances. Our earliest impressions of snares, decoys, and traps resonate with the experience of beings subject to existence.

我們只需要重讀Maurice Genevoix 的Raboliot，裏面有好幾頁專注於談黏性陷阱，就可以體會到一種詳細、微細的攻擊，舉例說明人類的存在對於環境的反應，反動到什麼程度。我們對於陷阱、誘餌、及羅網的最初印象都迴響著生命隸屬於存在的經驗。

 

This example also serves to distinguish the masculine unconsciousness from the feminine. For when we take offensive action against viscous matter, we abandon the deepest and most basic regions of the unconscious, the realm that is essentially feminine, and, with the weakest of weapons, we response to the first conscious stirrings of masculine aggression.

這個例子也充當區別陽剛的無意識跟陰柔的無意識。因為當我們採取攻擊的行動對抗黏性物質，我們放棄了無意識最深層、最基本的地區，這個領域基本上是陰柔的。用這個最軟弱的武器，我們回應陽剛的攻擊性第一個意識到的激動。

 

We enter the realm of cunning will, stubbornly determined to turn the forces of the world to its own advantages. The human being thus becomes a center of hostility. Its prodigious offensivity leaves no force in the universe unactivated. If power reveals itself in substance, the first question is: against whom or against what it can be utilized? The viscosity experienced by human beings seeks an enemy. We overlook this dynamic if we think of ourselves as victims.

我們進入狡猾意志的領域，頑固地決心要將世界的力量轉為己用。人類因此成為一個敵意的中心。它巨大的攻擊性啟動了宇宙所有的力量。假如力量在物質中顯示自己，那第一個問題是可使用來攻擊誰或攻擊什麼？人類所經驗到的黏性尋找敵人。假如我們只認為自己是受害者，那我們就忽略了這個動力。

 

But this is not the typical experience, and it may be preferable to offer a simple image of the viscous universe by recalling our first childhood experiences with jam. Picture for instance bowls overflowing with pitted cherries. The fingers stick to them a bit already, an agreeable sign that the fruit is ripe.

但是這個並不是典型的經驗。我們不妨回憶一下我們童年吃果醬的經驗，提供一個簡單的黏性宇宙的形象。試著想像一下去核的櫻桃流溢碗盆，手指已經稍微黏住他們，欣喜地顯示水果已經成熟。

 

Then the juices brighten in the great copper kettle. The ladle drips red, the air fills with the buzzing of bees…As idle onlooker might find everything about this disagreeably sticky, perceiving the disorderly kitchen as dirty, though every object contributes to the aesthetic of making syrup. To avoid boasting of my own jam-making skill I will simply transcribe a passage from Josephine Johnson to put us in the proper frame of mind.

然後果汁使得大銅壺輝煌起來，長柄杓都滴到紅，空氣洋溢著蜜蜂的嗡嗡聲。旁觀者可能會發現每一樣東西都黏得令人化不開，感覺到廚房又亂又髒，雖然每一樣東西都促成製造果醬的美感。為了避免是在誇張我自己製造果醬的技巧，我將僅僅引述一段Josephine Johnson的文章，我們就可以親臨體會。

 

A young woman stands before a raging oven in the middle of summer, watching cherries slowly dissolve “ in a rich, syrup redness. She stormed around among the kettles, testing and slopping,–shouted Whoa! And Haw! to the cherries pouring over, dripped wax with one hand and stirred with the other, and sniffed at the strong smell of burned juice blackening where the stuff boiled over. I don’t know what it was—only health perhaps, too much to be contained inside and radiating out like her overstoked ovens.”

一位年輕女仕在仲夏站在熱驣驣的火鍋前，觀察櫻桃慢慢溶化成為豐富的紅色果汁。她在各個水壺間走來走去，品嚐試探，哇塞哇塞地叫嚷，面對滿溢的櫻桃汁，一隻手滴滿汁，另一隻手攪拌著，鼻子嗅著強烈的味道，當滾燙的果醬漸漸變黑及沸騰起來。我不知道那是什麼，只知那是健康，健康洋溢，無法被包裝在裏面，不得不像添火過熱的火鍋般輝煌起來。

 

One has the sense here of a cook fully at the center of her work, conscious of her strength in action. Viscous, sticky, gummy matter has been rendered powerless against her.

我們可以理解到一位廚師站在工作的正中央，意識到自己行動的力量。黏性、粘著、膠黏的物質在她面前變得任由擺怖。

 

In this way the human being is revealed as the being opposed to things, not siding with things but standing up to them. From unhappiness at feeling stuck, feelings of anger rise in dialectical response, and with them a sense of liberation.

以這個方式，人類被顯示為與物質對抗的存在，不是偏袒物質，而是對抗物質。從感覺被黏住的不快樂，憤怒之氣昂揚興起回應，隨之而來的是解放之感。

 

A passage from Jacob Bochme describes this secondary order of human will, this will-in-response which generates oppositional beings: “ The will, if wrapped in the gloom of anguish, reasserts itself as a second will to fly from anguish, to engender light; and this second will is the affective base from which thoughts of breaking free of anguish arise.”

Jocob Bochme的這個段落描述人類意志的次等順序，就是反應意志產生了相對的存在：意志假如被包裹在痛苦的陰鬱中，會以次等順序重新主張自己，而逃離痛苦，產生光輝。這個次等順序就是情意的基礎，掙脫痛苦的思想從這裡飛揚起來。

 

In a quick turnabout, the existence of stickiness is supplanted by the oppositional being of the hand. Characterized anthropomorphically, pitch represents the will to “ become unstuck.” In the psychoanalysis of labor, the will makes a weapon of the naturally offensive quality of a substance. Compressed in the shoemaker’s gauntlet, the stickiness of pitch serves him well. Pitch-coated rope groans against the pull of the gears. It becomes a powerful astringent, a subtle protection against moisture, a force to counteract warping.

迅速回轉，黏性的存在被手的相對存在所取代。用擬人化來說，瀝青代表「不甘受困」的意志。在勞動的精神分析學，意志以物質的自然攻擊特質為武器。被壓縮在鞋匠的保護手套裡，瀝青的黏性服務得最好。塗上瀝青的繩索對抗機械的拉扯哀鳴。它變成一種嚴峻的力量，一種微妙的保護，避免潮溼，一種反抗被扭曲的力量。

 

Once more the worker has domesticated matter. So taught Jacob Boehme, shoe-maker and “ vanquisher of pitch,” for whom the lesson was so clear it became the source of his loftiest metaphors. A person’s whole being comes to life when the hand takes control of matter. When the hand “ breaks through the gloom, the penetrating eye will look upon itself in delight, far from the shadows, in the sharp light of the will.”

再一次，工作者馴服物質。Jocob Boehme 如此教導。對於鞋匠及「瀝青的征服者」，這個教導是如此清楚，足以做為他最崇高的比喻。當手掌控物質時，人的整個存在展現生命。當手衝破陰鬱，炯炯有神的眼睛顧盼自喜，遠離陰影，自得於意志的強烈光輝。

 

It is impossible to understand a passage like this if one does not begin with the material image of a shadowy substance, a substance that manifests the density of shadow. From there one must proceed from the imagination of matter to the imagination of power and thus overcome sticky density. Darkness, thickness, and stickiness are thee substantial stages through which the imagination must pass. Once stickiness has been conquered, darkness and density are automatically overpowered.

要了解這一段是不可能的，假如我們不先從陰影物質的物質形象開始。那種物質展示了陰影的密度。從那裏，我們必須從物質想像進展到權力想像，然後克服黏性密度。黑暗、厚度、黏性是三個實質上的階段，想像必須經歷的。再一次，黏性被征服，黑暗跟密度自動地被壓制。

 

P90–P91

Soft Matter: The Valorization of Mud 06

軟泥：泥巴的穩定

Earth and Reveries of Will 泥土與意志的幻想

by Gaston Bachelard 巴舍拉

Translated by Springhero 雄伯

https://springhero.wordpress.com

32hsiung@pchome.com.tw

    

Soft Matter: The Valorization of Mud 05

Soft Matter: The Valorization of Mud 05

軟泥：泥巴的穩定

From Earth and Reveries of Will 泥土與意志的幻想

By Gaston Bachelard 巴舍拉

Translated by Springhero 雄伯

 

Sartre would return to an existentialist study of sticky, viscous matter in Being and Nothingness. But this time he would forgo the device of a fictional character with a right to his idiosyncracies. The philosopher here takes viscosity as a serious object of study, demonstrating by the density of his remarks the importance of positive, real experience for concrete philosophical meditation.

在「存在與空無」一書中，沙特常常回到存在主義的研究粘貼黏性物質。但是這一次他塑造一個虛幻人物的特質，擁有怪癖的權利。在此哲學家將黏性當著一種嚴肅的研究客體，以他談話的密度證明積極、真實的經驗作為具體的哲學沉思。

 

In, as we might say, “ working” this theme, Sartre makes clear his view that matter is a revelation of being, that is to say of human being: “ The simple revelation of the substance of those objects by which the child is surrounded expands the child’s horizons to the extreme limits of being and offers at the same time clues for deciphering the essence of the human condition.”

如我們所言，在從事這個主體時，沙特澄清他的觀點：物質是存在的啟示，換言之，就是人的啟示。這些環繞小孩的客體物質的簡單啟示，擴充了小孩存在極限的地平線，並且同時提供線索來詮釋人類情況的本質。

 

Matter, in fact, gives us the sense of hidden depths; it compels us to unmask superficial being. And this is precisely what Sartre does when he unmasks the viscous. In this vein, it is certain that studies could be multiplied.

事實上，物質給我們隱藏的深度感。它逼迫我們揭開膚淺存在的面具。這確實就是沙特所為，當他揭開黏性的面具時。從這個特質來看，這個研究確實能夠再多幾倍發揮。

 

Broad examination of viscosity would lead to more specific studies, say of pitch or honey, that would reveal matter’s powers of individuation. Pitch, for instance, is the stuff of unremitting anger, of aggressive melancholy—melancholy in the material sense of the term. It is enough to read the writings of the shoemaker Jacob Boehme to recognize that pitch is, in the Sartrean sense, a key to his entire oeuvre.

廣泛的審查黏性，我們將得到更明確的研究，例如瀝青跟蜂蜜，更可看出個別化的力量。例如，瀝青是憤怒不已、憂鬱侵奪的物質，從這個詞語的物質含義而言，確實是憂鬱。我們只要閱讀一下鞋匠Jacob Boehme 我們就會體會到，就沙特而研，瀝青的黏性足以形容他一生之所以契而不捨地著作。

 

On the theme of viscosity, however, we can recognize a difference between existentialism of real matter and a doctrine of the material imagination. For me, the material imagination of soft substances is essentially concerned with labor. Viscosity, then, is only a passing offense, a skirmish between reality and the laborer in which the dynamism of the latter ensures victory.

可是在討論黏性的主題時，我們體認到真實物質的存在主義跟物質想像的信條不同。對於我而言，柔軟東西的物質想像基本上是關心到勞動。因此黏性只是過程的冒犯，是真實界與勞動者之間的伏擊，後者的動力最後終將獲勝。

 

Active material imagination of this sort is scarcely affected by the vertigo Sartre invokes when he writes of viscosity: “ It is a soft and yielding action, a moist and feminine sucking; it lives obscurely under my fingers, and I feel a dizziness that draws me as the bottom of a precipice might draw me. There is a quasi-tactile fascination in slimy things, a sense of appropriation I am unable to arrest but which continues.”

沙特在寫到黏性時，召喚一種暈眩：「這是一種柔軟而順服的行動，一種潮濕而女性化的吮吸。它模糊地生活在我手指間，我感受到一種暈眩吸引我，如同懸崖的底端吸引我。這是一種虛假觸覺的著迷於黏稠的東西，一種我無法阻擋，卻又繼續下去的篡奪感」不過，這種暈眩卻很少影響到我這種積極的物質想像。

 

It continues, no doubt, if we take no action, if we experience viscosity on its own terms! But if we work viscosity, all is changed. For one thing, in kneading, if dough sticks to the fingers, a sprinkling of flour is enough to clean the hands. We can domesticate the viscous though an indirect attack with dry matter. At the mixing bowl we are demiurges. We determined the destiny of the matter.

假如我們沒有採取行動，假如我們按照黏性的特質去經驗它，它無疑會繼續下去。但是我們運作黏性，一切都隨之改變。舉個例子，在塑造時，假如麵糰黏貼手指，噴灑一下麵粉就足夠將手洗乾淨。我們使用乾燥的物質對它從事間接攻擊，就可將黏性馴服。在混合的碗中，我們是造物主。我們決定物質的命運。

 

Our struggles with viscous matter cannot be described parenthetically. Only the gaze can bracket in this way, permitting us to close our eyes and put off introspection until tomorrow, occupying ourselves for the time being with outward appearances. Working hands, hands animated by reveries of work, engage themselves. They take sticky substances and impose a hard future upon them according to a calculated timetable of progress.

我們跟黏性物質的搏鬥無法用括弧的方式來描述。只有眼光才能用這種方式括弧，允許我們閉起眼睛，拖延內省直到明天，暫時專注於外在的表象。工作的手，工作幻想所激動的手，自得其樂。他們接納黏稠物質，依照仔細盤算的進度表，

給予他們一個辛苦的未來。

 

In fact, hands think only as they squeeze, only while kneading, only while in action. Hands that fail to triumph by force, get bogged down or grow enervated in defeat, are no longer hands but mere envelopes of skin. They are afflicted by viscosity as a nose or cheek or upper arm might be. They are no longer powerful doers. They are themselves undone. It is amusing to observe that those who fear viscous matter spread it everywhere.

事實上，只有在壓擠之時，只有在糅捏之時，只有在行動之時，手才會思想。手若無法以用力獲勝，若動彈不得，或若因失敗而變得虛弱，那他們不再是手，而僅是包骨之皮膚。手跟鼻子、臉頰、或手臂一樣，會因為黏性而痛苦。他們不再是有力量的行動者。他們會自行毀滅。說來好笑，那些害怕黏性物質的人，卻到處散播黏性。

 

And, of course, passive hands imagine nothing. At the least contact with something viscous they slip back into so-called “ existentialist experience.” Contact with viscous matter may cause them to retreat into regression, experience the masochism of leeches, the vertigo of annihilation.

當然，被動的手毫無想像力。稍微跟黏性的東西碰觸一下，他們就溜回到所謂的「存在主義經驗」。跟黏性物質接觸可能會引起他們撤退成倒轉，經驗到像水蛭一般的自虐，毀滅的暈眩。

 

This may be the nature of existence, but the creative imagination desires something else. Ultimately, the material imagination derives not from phenomenology but ,as we have shown , on many occasions, from human activity or dynamology.

這可能是存在的本質，但是具有創造力的想像渴望其他東西。最後，物質想像並非從現象學而來，而是如我們剛才所說的，在很多場合，是從人類活動或動力學得來。

 

The forces discovered through experience the material imagination takes as its own, until at last the imagination sees itself as an active genius. If it were necessary for me to experience sliminess, I would become slime. I would set limed snares in the thickets ( God forbid!), playing songs of hypocrisy on my pipes.

物質想像接受經由經驗發現的力量當著自己的力量，直到最後想像看待自己當著自負不凡的天才。若我必需經驗黏滑，我願成為黏滑，我願在叢林設下黏滑的陷阱，用我生命之笛吹奏虛偽之歌，雖則我雅不願如此。

 

P88—p90

Soft Matter: The Valorization of Mud 05

軟泥：泥巴的穩定

Earth and Reveries of Will 泥土與意志的幻想

By Gaston Bachelard 巴舍拉

Translated by Springhero雄伯

https://springhero.wordpress.com

32hsiung@pchome.com.tw

 

Soft Matter: The Valorization of Mud 04

Soft Matter: The Valorization of Mud 04

軟泥：泥巴的穩定

From Earth and Reveries of Will 泥土與意志的幻想

By Gaston Bachelard 巴舍拉

Translated by Springhero 雄伯

 

Continuing our study of unpleasant matter, we will now attempt to characterize, from the point of view of the material imagination, a work of literature that contains great psychological truths. In Nausea, Jean-Paul Sartre presents a character, Roquentin, who exemplifies with unusual clarity a certain psychological type. This character serves to distinguish between a psychological originality profoundly rooted in the unconscious and the contrived originality found in woks of secondary novelists.

One discovers, if one reads enough, that novelists imbue their heroes with numerous contradictions, in the belief that they will appear “ life-like” by means of gratuitous inconsistencies. But contradictions do not necessarily produce ambivalence. A contradiction not rooted in ambivalence remains a mere psychological incident.

 

繼續我們對不愉快物資的研究，我們現在將從物質想像的觀點，表現一個具有心理真相的文學作品的特色。在「嘔吐」的小說中，沙特呈現一個人物羅圭亭，非常清楚地作為某個心理類型的典範。這個人物充當區別一個深深根源於無意識的心理的真知灼見，以及在二流小說家的作品中常發現靈巧噱頭。假如我們時常閱讀，我們就會發現到，小說家替他們的角色沾染無數的矛盾，相信在境遇偶然的不一致中，他們更酷似真實人生。但是矛盾未必產生猶豫不決。矛盾而未根源於猶豫不定，始終僅是心理的偶發事件。

 

Sartre, on the other hand, develops his psychological novel by following the opposite course, proceeding from ambivalence to contradiction. He presents a character who, in the realm of the material imagination, cannot attain “ solidity,” and consequently can never maintain a firm position in life. Roquentin is sick even in the realm of material images, that is to say even in his attempt to establish a viable relationship with the substance of things. He attributes contradictory qualities to the essence of things because he himself is divided by ambivalence as he approaches them.

 

在另一方面，沙特以追蹤相反的途徑，發展他的心理小說，從猶豫不定進展到矛盾。他呈現他的人物，在物質想像的領域，無法得到「完整性」，結果永遠無法維持一個牢固的人生立場。羅圭亭即使在物質影像的領域中都是病態的。換句話說，即使在他企圖跟物質建立可來往的關係。當他接近物質的本質時，他給這他們賦予矛盾的特質，因為他自己就受到猶豫不決所分裂。

 

We can see this ambivalence play out precisely in Roquentin’s imagery of the consistency of objects. In a single paragraph, Sartre shows the hero of Nausea in the process of gathering  “chestnuts,” : old rags,” and, later, “ heavy and sumptuous papers, probably soiled by excrement. Yet Roquentin recoils from contact with a pebble on the beach—a pebble washed clean by the sea! The conventional responses of attraction and disgust are here reversed. This material inversion excites irregular, and as a consequence passionate, concern. Unpleasant material suffices to make an unhappy man conscious of his unhappiness.

 

我們能夠看出，這個猶豫不決在羅圭亭的物體一貫的意象中，如何準確地運作。有一段中，沙特描寫到「嘔吐」的主角在收集「栗子」「破爛」，以及後來「笨重大量的紙板」的過程，可能是受到糞便所污染。可是羅圭亭在海灘遇到海浪沖刷得乾淨的石礫，卻畏縮不前！迷人與厭惡的傳統反應在此被顛倒過來。物質的倒轉引起不正常，結果是激情的關心。不愉快的物質足夠使一個不快樂的人意識到自己的不快樂。

 

We must observe that what the writer describes sequentially, in obedience to the ineluctable law of narrative, he imagines simultaneously. Many signs betray this art of simultaneity that gives life to the Sartean hero. Here, at the slightest hint of infantile behavior, the mature personality resurfaces. Roquentin is childish in his reactions.

His ambivalent feelings of attraction and repulsion come into play even in the case of dirt’s temptations. As he is about to pick up the above-mentioned papers, almost buried “ beneath a crust of mud,” Roquentin tells us in his own words: “ I bent down, already rejoicing at the touch of the fresh tender pulp which I thought to roll between my fingers into grayish balls But I could not.”

 

我們必須觀察到作者按順序所描述的，服從敘述的不可違抗法則，他同時性地想像。許多跡象都顯現出這種同時性的技巧，賦予生命給沙特的角色。在此，在嬰兒營行徑稍微暗示一下，成熟的人格又重新府浮現。羅圭亭的反應是孩子氣的。他對於迷人跟厭惡感覺的猶豫不決，也發揮在即使是泥土的吸引力上。正當他將要檢起上面所提到「幾乎是埋在泥濘中」的報紙，羅圭亭用自己的話告訴我們：「我彎身，欣喜於碰觸到新鮮的軟泥，我很想用手指將它糅成灰色球團，但是做不到。」

 

It should come as no surprise, then, that one so painfully sensitized to the material drama of uncleanliness should also have a reaction to tactile contact normally considered innocuous.

 

對於骯髒的物質變化如此痛苦敏感的人，會有正常被認為是無害的觸覺的反應，那是不足為奇的。

 

Objects can’t touch us because they aren’t alive. We use them and we put them back in their places; we live in their presence; they are useful, nothing more. But they touch me and I find it unbearable. I fear contact with them as though they were living creatures. Now I understand; I recall better what I felt the other day at the seashore when I held the pebble. It was a sort of sweetish sickness. It was so unpleasant! And it came from the stone, I’m sure; it passed from the stone into my hand. Yes, that’s it, that’s just it—a sort of nausea in the hands.

物體無法碰觸我們，因為他們無生命。我們使用他們，我們將他們放回原位，我們生活在他們面前，他們僅是可以使用而已。但是他們事實上碰觸到我，我覺得受不了。我害怕跟他們接觸，好像他們是活生生的動物。現在我瞭解，我回想起前天在海灘拿起小石礫所感覺的。那是一種甜美的病態，如此令人不愉快，來自於那石頭！我確定，那種不愉快從石頭傳到我的手。不錯，就是那樣，就是那樣，手中有一種嘔吐之感。

 

Nausea in the hands! A crucial phrase for a psychology of unpleasant substances, for a theory of the manual imagination of weakened hands. Such hands, which perhaps have not been given a clear task to accomplish at the proper moment, nor a pleasant substance to work with, rarely succeed in coming to terms with the material world. Before anything slightly insidious or shifty, the separation between subject and object is poorly realized, the toucher and the thing touched are blurred, the one too slow, the other too yielding. The World is my Nausea, a Sartrean Schopenhauer might claim. The world is glue, pitch, paste—always too pliant; a dough that softly kneads the kneader, and whispers to the hand the material absurdity that it should loosen its grip, renounce its labor.

 

手中的嘔吐之感！這是一個重要的詞語，對於不愉快物質的心理學，對於軟弱手的手工想像的理論。這樣的手可能從來沒有被清楚告知要在適當時刻做些什麼，也沒有愉快物質可以工作，對於物質世界罕見能達成和諧。在任何稍微隱伏或變遷的東西之前，主體及客體的隔離並沒有被體認得很清楚，碰觸者跟被碰觸的東西是模糊的，前者太慢，後者太順服。悲觀哲學家叔本華會像沙特一樣說：世界就是我的嘔吐之感。這是世界是黏土、膠漆、漿糊，總是太柔軟，像麵糰一樣輕輕地軟糅著糅麵者，細聲對手說物質的荒謬，它應該放鬆對它的掌握，放棄對它的勞苦。

 

P8—p87

Soft Matter: The Valorization of Mud 04

軟泥：泥巴的穩定

From Earth and Reveries of Will 泥土與意志的想像

by Gaston Bachelard 巴舍拉

Translated by Springhero 雄伯

https://springhero.wordpress.com

32hsiung@pchome.com.tw

  

P85

Earth and Reveries of Will by Gaston Bachelard

Translated by Springhero 雄伯

https://springhero.wordpress.com

32hsiung@pchome.com.tw

  

Soft Matter:The Valorization of Mud 03

Soft Matter : The Valorization of Mud 03

軟泥：泥巴的穩定

From Earth and Reveries of Will

泥土與意志的幻想

By Gaston Bachelard 巴舍拉

Translated by Springhero 雄伯

 

    It suffices to go back only a century to discover texts still more pronounced. According to Daniel Duncan, for instance: “ It is said that a species of wild bull, known as Bonasus, spurts a stream of excrement as hot as fire back at the hunter who pursues it, and the heron releases in the direction of the sparrowhawk which chases it droppings that burn and corrode its pursuer’s feathers.” This offensive action, after all, is not much different than that of the cruel Martichora, imagined by Flaubert to “ throw volleys of needle-sharp quills from its tail.” All such anal or caudal affronts derive their force from and are centered in the same zone of the unconscious.

    我們只要回溯到一世紀前，就可發現更為明顯的表達。例如，依照丹尼爾、鄧肯：「據說有一種名叫Bonasus的野牛會向追逐它的獵人，噴出一大堆熱得像火的糞便。蒼鷺會朝著追逐它的老鷹的方向，排放的糞便會燃燒及腐蝕追逐者的羽毛。」這種攻擊性的行為，畢竟跟殘酷的馬提舟拉鳥的做法沒有什麼兩樣，這種鳥是福祿貝爾想像出來，可以「從尾巴擲出像針一般尖銳的刺彈」。所有這樣的肛門或尾部的面對，都是集中於無意識相同的地區得來力量。

 

    This is not the place to discuss the ultimate meaning of excrement, which is but a particular manifestation of feat. But it is interesting, at least from the point of view of the imagination, that Buffon had no doubt of its meaning. We encounter the same simple insight in a similar remark in the work of William Henry Hudson. If psychologists spent more time exploring these lower reaches of the psyche they would better understand certain scatological aspects of human insults. But the psychology of the insult, the excremental etymology, the literature of “ dirty words,” would merit their own study. It suffices to indicate, in passing, their relationship to the psychology of matter.

   我在此並不是要討論糞便的終極意義是什麼，畢竟那只是技巧的特別展現而已。但是有趣的是，巴蜂對於它的意義深信不疑，至少從想像的觀點來說如此。我們在維廉、福德森的作品的類似說法，也遇到相同的簡明見識。假如心理學家花費更多時間來探索這些心理的低層領域，他們會更能了解人類污辱帶有某些糞便學的意味。但是這種污辱的心理學，排糞的詞源學，「髒話」文學，是值得我們研究的。現在，我們只需先提一下他們跟物質的心理學的關係就夠了。

 

   In addition, without descending to the level of the repressed unconscious, it nevertheless holds true that malleable matter of every kind is open to strange inversions of meaning which manifest the very unconscious activities I have been discussing. Here is a text in which a poet, Henri de Regnier, expresses the ambivalence of soft matter as it first attracts, then repels. This dialectic is played out with jellyfish according to their habitat, whether the waters of Greece or of Brittany. In Greece, de Regnier writes, “ jellyfish are found in the water, limp and half dissolved, like fragments of iridescent melting glass. They float flimsily like milky, pearly, liquid opals slipped from the necklace of Amphitrite. I have discovered them here, these jellyfish from the Gulf of Corinth, washed up on a little beach in Brittany…but no longer iridescent, no longer variable in color, their slimy mass washed of all its subtlety by the waves that have carried and abandoned them here upon the beach. Inert, foul, dull blue-green, they bring to mind the droppings of some fabulous undersea cattle. It is as if Neptune’s flock had left its nocturnal vestiges upon the shore.” From Amphitrite to Neptune: what a descent! How well one senses what de Regnier has left unsaid! That, underneath each opal jellyfish, intact as a pearl, on a dreary morning, you’ll always find a “ slimy” mass a  “ filthy” paste.

 

   除外，即使沒有降低到被壓抑的無意識的層次，每一種可塑物質會承受意義的逆轉，顯示我所討論的無意識活動，仍然是可以自圓其說。詩人雷格尼有一篇文章表達軟體物質起初吸引，後來排斥的矛盾。水母的表現方式，依照他們的棲息處是在希臘或布列塔尼的水域有所不同。在希臘，雷格尼寫到；「水母在水中被找到，跛行而奄奄一息，像是虹彩融化玻璃的碎片。他們脆弱地飄浮，像是乳狀，珍珠狀的液體珍珠，從安菲特萊女皇的項鍊垂落。我在此發現他們，這些柯林斯海灣過來的水母，被沖刷到布列塔尼的海灘，但是不再有虹彩，不再顏色繽紛，他們黏滑的物質被海浪沖刷掉所有的細緻，當他們被海浪帶來並委棄在這裡的海灘上。他們現在奄奄一息，骯髒，呈沉鬱深綠色，讓人想到傳說中的海底怪物的糞便。好像海神的族群已經離開它夜間的活動範圍，前來海岸。」從安菲特拉女皇到海神，下降得可真快！我們可深切地體會到雷格尼的言外之意：在海底每個乳白水母，完美如珍珠。在可怕的早晨，你將會發現是「黏滑」物體，是「骯髒」漿糊。

 

P83—p85

From Earth and Reveries of Will 泥土與意志的幻想

By Gaston Bachelard 巴舍拉

Translated by Springhero 雄伯

https://springhero.wordpress.com

32hsiung@pchome.com.tw

   

  

Soft Matter: The Valorization of Mud 02

Soft Matter: The Valorization of Mud 02

軟泥：泥巴的穩定

From Earth and Reveries of Will 泥土與意志的幻想

By Gaston Bachelard 巴舍拉

Translated by Springhero 雄伯

 

    Let us follow a little more closely the natural anapsychoanalytical process that frees adults from infantile fixations. We shall observe that the undeniable interest of young children in their own feces develops with surprising certainty and regularity into interest in mud pies. Normal children evolve towards cleanliness. They become clean not simply due to societal influence but through a sort of psychological adjustment. This evolution is presented very clearly by Juliette Boutonier in her study of Anguish, previously cited:

    讓我們再仔細探討自然的肛門精神分析過程，是如何替成年人免除孩童的偏好。我們將會觀察到，小孩對自己排泄物無可否認的興趣，令人驚訝地必然跟規律，會發展成為對泥餅的興趣。正常的小孩都朝著乾淨演化。他們變得乾淨，不僅僅是由於社會的影響，而且是由於一種心理的調適。這種演化，寶藤尼在我們先前引述的她的研究「疼痛」一文中，表達得非常清楚：

 

      All in admitting that the young child show no repugnance for its own feces…I doubt that, left to its own devices, the child would find such objects sufficient to satisfy its natural aspirations. It is certainly true that infants love to play in and dirty themselves with mud at precisely the age when they are in the process of renouncing the free activity of their sphincters and the manifestations of interest this provokes. Nonetheless, no matter how rudimentary the child’s activities, one sees arise another exigency than that of manipulating soft, dirty objects; for the child seeks to give form to this material, however, awkwardly. What’s more, success in building with sand follows a period of tactile manipulation in which the child seeks, even more crudely, to transform things.

      儘管承認小孩並不表示厭惡自己的排泄，我仍然懷疑，假如小孩可以聽任處理自己的生理，他會發現這樣的東西足以滿足自己對自然的渴望。嬰兒的確喜歡在泥濘中遊玩及弄髒自己，就在當他們處於放棄括約肌的自由活動的過程，以及所引起的興趣的展現。可是，不論小孩的活動是多麼的早期，我們看到他會有產生另一個迫切需要，除了操弄柔軟骯髒的東西外。小孩設法替物質造成形式，不管手法是多麼笨拙。而且，用沙建造成功之後，繼續而來的是觸覺操弄的時期，小孩設法要改變物質，儘管手法是更加粗糙。

 

   Boutenier describes a well-conceived education as a “ more concerned with surpassing than suppressing ( such infantile) tendencies.” Transcendence in this case consists precisely of work with malleable matter. Education must provide young children at the proper time with materials of the specific plasticity that best correspond to their earliest tactile activities. The child thus sublimates one matter with another. Sadly, our system of instruction, even where most innovative, is fixed upon concepts : our elementary schools provide only one type of modeling clay. The plasticity of the material imagination demands a wider range of softnesses. The stages of material development might be determined with greater precision if more attention were paid to the material imagination.

  寶藤尼描述精心構想的教育當著「更加關心超越而不是壓抑（如此嬰兒般）的傾向」。這種情形的超越主要是在於從事於可塑性的物質。教育必須在適當時刻供應年輕小孩明確可塑性的物質，這樣才能對應他們早期的觸覺活動。小孩因此可使一個又一個的物質昇華。可悲的是，我們即使是在最創新的教育體系，都還是專注於觀念；我們的小學只供應一種模式的黏土。物質想像的可塑性要求更大範圍的柔軟。假如我們更加注意物質想像，物質發展的階段會決定得更準確。

 

    Subsequently, the normal imagination must harden, it must be exposed to wood, to stone, and finally to iron to achieve its maximum virility. But the imagination is best served by a fairly long period of work with plastic materials. Those who learn to work soft matter with their hands at a young age are more likely to turn out well themselves. The transition from soft to hard is a delicate one. Destructive tendencies almost always manifest themselves in defiance to solid objects. Soft matter has no enemies.

   隨後，正常的想像必須硬化。它必須暴露於木材，石頭，最後是鐵，為了將精力發揮到淋漓盡致。但是這個想像若常時期從事於可塑性物質，最能得到。那些早年學習用手從事軟泥的人，更有可能培養這種想像。從柔軟到堅硬的轉變是很微妙的。挑釁固體東西時，毀滅性的傾向幾乎總是會展現出來。柔軟物質沒有敵人。

 

   I should note, however, that it is in the regression toward the earliest stage of infancy and anal fixation that one may identify a filthy, wretched sadism. It is easily recognized that some neurotics display an aggression expressed through filth that recalls certain forms of animal behavior. Buffon describes a number of animals which, in fleeting, spray a nauseating urine the stench of which, he believed, served as a means of defense against their enemies.

   可是，我應該注意到，就在退化到嬰兒的早期階段跟肛門偏好時，我們可能會辨認出一個骯髒而悲慘的虐待狂。有些精神病患透過骯髒，讓他想到動物的某些形式，並以此展示攻擊性，是顯而易見的。巴蜂描述許多動物在逃跑時，會噴灑令人作嘔的尿液，因為他們認為尿液可充當防衛對抗敵人的工具。

 

    Buffon tells of one such creature” which had, as its sole means of defense, its posterior; which it would immediately turn in the direction of whatever approached, and from which it would emit the foulest smelling excrementa imaginable.” Buffton described the coase, which “ strangles poultry and eats only the brains; whenever annoyed or frightened, it gives off an abominable odor—a sure means of defense, for neither human beings nor dogs dare approach: its urine, with which this pestilential spray apparently combines, stains and infects its victims indelibly.” Buffon reports one traveler’s claim that the coase sprayed “ its urine on its tail which served as a sort of sprinkler, forcing its enemies to flee from the horrible odor.”

   巴蜂敘述一種這樣的動物，以它的臀部作為它唯一的防衛工具，若有敵人靠近，它會立刻轉身背向，然後從屁股排泄出天下最惡臭的糞便。巴蜂描述這種動物，「勒死禽鳥，只吃頭腦，受到騷擾或驚恐時，會發出可怕的惡臭。那確實是一種防衛的工具，因為沒有人類或狗敢接近它的尿液，這個瘟疫般的噴灑很明顯無法抹除地跟受害者結合，污染並傳染。」巴蜂報導一位旅行者宣稱這種動物噴灑「它的尿液在尾巴後面，充當一種噴灑器，強迫敵人逃離它可怕的惡臭。」

 

P81—p83

From Earth and Reveries of Will

泥土與意志的幻想

By Gaston Bachelard 巴舍拉

Translated by Springhero 雄伯

https://springhero.wordpress.com

32hsiung@pchome.com.tw

  

   

  

   

Soft Matter: TheValorization of Mud 01

Soft matter：The Valorization of Mud  01

軟泥：泥巴的穩定

From Earth and Reveries of Will 泥土與意志的幻想

By Gaston Bachelard 巴舍拉

Translated by Springhero 雄伯

 

                            My soul has been kneaded together out of melancholy, kindness and mud.

                            我的靈魂以憂鬱，仁慈跟泥巴揉搓

                                Vasilii Vaasil’ Evich Rozanow,

                                             Esseulement

                            

                            Mud is no pillow. 泥巴不是枕頭。

                                     Raymond Queneau

 

    Now that I have introduced reveries of hardness and earthen matter in their ideal states, the time has come to consider images heavier or more brutal than these, images which have no connection with happiness and skillful strength. Certain types of psychological disorders express their maladies in the very style of their images. Naturally, psychoanalysis has encountered these defects of the imagination in, for example, a regressive affinity for filth. One finds abundant documentation of this phenomenon in Kard Abraham’s detailed study of anal fixation. I would like to limit my consideration of this problem to instances involving somewhat more sophisticated imaginings in an attempt to show that the healthy imagination is a progression of images which triumphs over all “ fixation.”

   既然我已經介紹過堅硬跟泥土在理想狀態的幻想，現在該是討論比他們更沉重更殘暴的意象。這些意象跟快樂及靈巧的力量沒有關聯。某些種類的心理的疾病會以自己特有的意象表達病徵。當然，精神分析學曾碰見過這些想像的病況，例如，一種退化的喜愛骯髒。我們在卡德、阿伯拉罕對於肛門偏好的詳細研究中，找到這種現象的豐富文件。我想要限制我的問題討論在一些會牽涉到更複雜意象例子，這樣我才能顯示，健康的想像是意象戰勝所有「偏好」的進步。

 

   Moreover, if one were to systematize the work of psychoanalysis in normative psychology, it would no longer appear to involve merely the study of regressive instincts. It is too easily forgotten that psychoanalysis is a method of healing, of psychological improvement, of turning things around. With regard to the very narrowly defined subject of this chapter, psychoanalysis proposes a veritable material sublimation, a progressive solidification in the materials offered to the human imagination.

   而且，假如我們想要以規範心理學的方式，將精神分析學的工作系統化，所要牽涉到的將不僅僅是退化本能的研究。我們不要忘記，精神分析學是一種治療，心理改進及恢復健康的方法。就這一章範圍較狹窄的主題而言，精神分析學建議的是一種實質上是物質的昇華，一種進步的物質團結給人類的想像。

 

   In fact, in the treatment of certain neuroses, psychoanalysis has encountered the inverse of this material sublimation; an alchemist would declare that clinical practice presents certain cases of the descension of material images. If we now pay attention to the normalization of images, conjoined with abnormal fixations, we are led to distinguish between a kind of catapsychoanalysis and an anapsycho- analysis; the first designating all the observations so necessary to the disclosure of anal fixations; the second, more relevant to our field of study, offers more objective perspectives, redirecting attention toward the materials of the external world.

   事實上，在治療某些精神病患時，精神分析師曾碰見過這種物質昇華的逆轉。煉金術師就常宣稱，診所的實務可以提供物質意象上昇的病例。假如我們現在注意到意象跟異常偏好聯合的正常化，我們就能夠區別肛門異常心理分析跟肛門偏好心理分析。前者是對於肛門偏好異常現象做所需的觀察，後者則跟我們現在研究的領域有關，偏重客體的面貌，將注意力帶回到外在世界的物質。

 

   In any case, psychologists must take a cautious approach to the primordial nature of the plastic instinct. It would be interesting, for example, to weigh the unconscious elements that underlie Hegelian theory. Hegel studied the plastic instinct in relation to the digestive process and wrote: “ the nisus formatives resembles excretion inasmuch as it represents a process of self-externatlization…The animal excretes in order to create form out of its own substance. It doe so not out of a sense of loathing for, or a desire to be rid of, its excrement, but to fashion them a means of satisfying its own needs.” A little metaphysics separates us from nature, but a lot of metaphysics bring us closer.

  無論如何，心理學家對於可塑性本能的原始特性，必須小心翼翼地從事。例如，衡量無意識作為黑格爾理論的基礎，是件很有趣的事。黑格爾研究可塑性本能跟消化過程的關係，寫到：「努力寫作類似排泄，因為它代表自我具體化的過程。動物排泄為了要用自己的物質創造形式。它不是由於厭惡之感或是渴望排除自己的糞便，而是渴望塑造它們成為滿足自己需求的工具。些微形上學使我們跟自然隔離，但是多些形上學，卻能使我們跟自然更靠近。」

 

P80—p81

From Earth and Reveries of Will 泥土與意志的幻想

By Gaston Bachelard 巴舍拉

Translated by Springhero 雄伯

https://springhero.wordpress.com

32hsing@pchome.com.tw