Biotechnology+and+Creative+Writing

生物科技與文學創作皆「生命科學」：前者處?生物之形性，後者表現生活之樣式。學門相互影響：文學之「有機形式」一語?自生物學。萬物皆為「文」(text)，皆選擇與組合成分之結果。文學由語言組成，生物由細胞組成。製造文學作品與製造基因產品均需判斷?與想像?，誠如重組DNA需有裁剪與黏著??酵素。語言與基因之「文」皆有「語碼」(code)，皆有意符與意旨，皆由符號排成直線結構群。基因訊息由DNA「轉寫」為RNA，再「翻譯」成蛋白結構体，有如語文由意義轉成語音再翻成字形。基因工程也在「書寫」或「重寫」語碼，以改變「訊息」。文學創作與基因工程皆牽涉極複雜之「系統之系統」：各層次之創作文本由音素、形素、義素等各種有限之基本單位組成無限之創作個体，各層次之生物結構体亦由各種有限之基本單位 (包括基因)組成無限之生物体。無?如何，人?乃「第二個神」，是另一創造者。只是創造皆有危險：文學創作與生物科技產品皆有?有弊，皆應興?除弊以保「生之?息」。Biotechnology and creative writing are both “life science”: one handles life forms, and the other expresses life manners. Biological ideas and terms have entered literature: “organic form,” for instance, is an ideal for creative writing. Everything is a text. A literary text is made up of sounds, shapes, and senses: it is a verbal structure resulting from the selection and combination of its elements. Biotechnology uses the same basic modes of selection and combination. In gene cloning, it selects genes and combines genes by inserting certain genes into a genetic sequence. Both biotechnology and creative writing need judgment to cut apart and imagination to put together, just as recombinant DNA technology needs one category of enzymes to act as scissors and another category to act as glue. In cutting and gluing, both creative writers and biotechnologists must consider the problem of “homogeneity or heterogeneity.” Both a literary text and a genetic text involve a coding process. A literary text is a linear sequence of words, which are signs with sounds and shapes functioning as signifiers and with senses as the signified. A genetic text is also a linear sequence with genetic substance signifying genetic content. The flow of genetic information involves the transcription of RNA for DNA and the translation of RNA into protein, just like the transcription of sounds for senses and the translation of sounds into shapes. So, a biotechnologist “writes” or “rewrites” a sequence of amino acids while a creative writer writes or rewrites a sequence of words. This writing or rewriting process involves, in fact, very complicated systems of systems. A literary text has its sound system based on phonemes, shape system based on graphemes, and sense system based on sememes, stylemes, ideologemes, etc. A genetic text has its various genomes with various combinations of amino acids, which contain codons, which contain nucleotides. The act of creating literary or genetic texts has never ceased and will never end. Man is a “Second Deity,” a ceaseless creator like God. But creation always has its danger. Writers may produce literary works detrimental to society; biotechnologists may create genetic products harmful to the world. So, both biotechnology and creative writing should have the common end of ensuring a good end for all life in the cosmos

概談西洋文學理論之分類

This essay discusses such topics: What is theory? What is literary theory? How can we classify literary theories? And what is the best way to classify Western literary theories. The conclusion is: Western literary theories can be most scientifically classified into six categories first, on the criterion of critical orientations towards the factors of communication. They then can be further classified into sub-categories based on the topics or interests or subjects of study. And each critic’s view about a particular literary problem can be a class in the final analysis.「理論」是針對問題所提出的解釋或看法，是一種推想，一種假定或假說。「理論」以「實際」為相對語，在本質上也相對於「直覺」，理論化就是擺脫直覺而通則化，所以有脫離實際的危險。文學理論可泛指一切針對各種文學問題所提出的想法或說辭，但通常它只限於研究文學的原理原則，包括文學的範疇、門類與標準之類的論述，不包括針對具體的個別作家、作品所做的「批評」以及所撰寫的「文學史」。文學理論可以依時代、評家、主題、批評手法、所導向的文藝要件、以及其他各種主觀的準則來加以分類。但以「導向文藝要件」的分類法最有系統性，也最客觀。西洋文學理論的分類方法雖然沒有一定的準則，卻也可以按層次由大類（根據文藝的要件劃定理論的導向），經小類（劃定探討的內容、主題、旨趣），再分析出細類（各家針對某特殊問題之看法）。然而在問題與理論多到無法計數之情況下，原則上，我們只能把實際產生出來而比較熱門的話題與看法加以剝析分類而已

The Most "Lamentable Comedy" of Romeo and Juliet: Shakespeare's Ironic Vision

Shakespeare is an impure dramatist who writes both comedies and tragedies and mixes comic and tragic elements in the same play. At about the same time when he composed the comedy of A Midsummer Night's Dream with a tragic play-within-the- play performed farcically (i.e., the Peter Quince play of Pyramus and Thisbe), he wrote the tragedy of Romeo and Juliet, which echoes the theme and tone of the comedy in such a way that we can regard it as the Dream's "play-without-the-play." Romeo and Juliet has been very popular on the stage and on the screen. But it is often criticized as a bad tragedy for its abuse of chance in plot and of rhetoric in language. In order to judge the play well, we need to understand that the play is in fact a "comitragedy." Hence, it is natural for Shakespeare to use coincidences and play with words in it. Actually, like Mercutio in the play and Peter Quince in the Dream, Shakespeare has a comic vision to make light of serious matters. The comic vision is also an ironic vision. It enables the playwright and his characters to see the necessary co-existence of mutually opposing things. Consequently, they have to accept the fact that hate co-exists with love; death co-exists with sex, etc. This ironic vision is best expressed in the wordplay of uttering oxymora and puns. Even the hero's name contains such wordplay. If we want to consider the play in terms of "comic relief," we have to adopt an expressive theory of vision. Only by considering the play in the light of the playwright's comic or ironic vision can we then fully appreciate it

The Augustan"Wit"Re-Examined

As a key critical term in the Augustan Age of English literature, “wit” has been abused and has become problematic. It denotes a faculty or a quality. It has many attributes: propriety, adornment, quickness, variety, synthesis, pleasure, resemblance, congruity, surprise, truth, creativity, etc. But proper adornment seems to be the most essential idea for the Augustans. The word engenders the problem of “true wit vs. false wit.” It is connected to the differentiation of wit from judgment. It is said to have “the old sense” and the new “dangerous sense.” It is divided into “wit writing” and “wit written.” It is compared to “a perfect conception with an easy delivery.” It is in fact considered in the light of criticism, poetry, and morality altogether, and found in a wide variety of manifestations. By the time of neoclassicism, it had become a signal word for extending arguments between rhetoricians and critics such as concerning simplicity vs. ornamentation, word vs. thought, reason vs. imagination, and delight vs. instruction, and it had been variously identified with intellect, understanding, judgment, imagination, etc. Our conclusion is: the Augustan “wit” can be dichotomized into “inward wit” and “outward wit,” can be a truth-finding “pre-composition power” and an expression-finding “composition power,” and can be analytical (critical) and synthetic (creative) at once. Under this condition, wit cannot be called true or false merely due to its being exercised on ideas (content) or on words (expression), althought we must admit that after the Ramist separation of rhetoric from dialectic, the Augustans had leaned towards the rhetorical side, thus valuing art over nature and regarding proper adornment or linguistic expression (the dress), rather than insightful truth (the body), as their primary concern. This Augustan “wit” naturally would be replaced by the Romantic “imagination,” which by nature and by definition in the course of historical change was a swing back to the dialectical side of truth.英國奧古斯督時代，「才智」是最關鍵的批評術語，也是最有問題的用詞。它既指某種官能，也指某種性質，其特徵包括妥適性、裝飾性、敏捷度、變化、綜合、取樂、相似、一致、出奇、真理、創造．．．等等許多特點，但其最精華的意涵似乎是貼切的裝飾。此術語產生「真才與假才」之分辨，帶來「才智與判斷」的辯解，而有所謂「舊義與新危險義」的分野。它還可分成「寫作中的才智」與「寫作完成的才智」，而被比喻成「完美的孕育加上順利的生產」。它可從批評、詩作、與道德三方面加以聯想，而造成眾多紛雜的表現。到了新古典時期，批評家與修辭家已拿它來爭辯純樸與裝飾、話語與思想、理性與想像、悅人與誨人．．．等等文藝話題，而把它視同智慧、理解力、判斷力、想像力等官能。本文的結論是：奧古斯督時代所謂的「才智」可粗分為「內才」與「外才」，前者為發現真理真象的「創作前的才能」，後者是發現表達方式的「創作時的才能」，而兩者皆具分析批判與綜合創造的能力。在此認知下，才智之真假不在於作用的對象（意念或言語），只是自從修辭學與辯證學分家以來，顯然奧古斯督時代的人傾向修辭技巧，重視藝術勝過自然，因此強調貼切的裝飾勝於真知灼見，似乎看衣裳不看本體。這種現象對照後來的浪漫主義益趨明顯，因為浪漫的關鍵字是「想像力」，而想像力不只是找到美言巧語的才智而已，更是洞察真理的能力

From Romantic Movement to Postmodern Style: A Reflection on Our Fin-de-Siecle Art of Literature

The history of Western literature is a dualistic history. It begins with two separate traditions: Hellenism and Hebratism. The spirits of values these two traditions represent seldom blend equally at any supposed period of the history. The Classical period and Modernist movement aare dominated by Hellenistic qualities whereas the Romantic period and the postmodern movement are dominated by Hebraic spirits. In fact, the Postmodern style seems to be the result of pushing the Romantic movement, with its Herbraic/Dionysian tendencies, to an extreme. Many Postmodern characteristics cab traced back logically to Romantic attributes. This logical inference can be confirmed through factual evidence. After considering the seven factors-world, medium, language, author, reader, work, and theme-involved in literature as a means of communication, we cannot but admit that the Romantic spirit of loving freedom, change and difference has really brought about the Postmodern style, the fin-de-siecle trend of worshiping Chaos of anti-form, anti-literature. But this, we can predict, is likewise only a phase of the changing history. When the Hellenistic/Apollonian values become dominant again, the golden age of art may return with a new vigor

Wordsworth's Sense of Place

As a typical Romantic, Wordsworth distinguishes rural from urban places, and has the Romantic bias that a rural place is “good,” while an urban place is “bad” for life, although the City of London often lured as well as repelled him and therefore his attitude towards the metropolis was ambivalent. Wordsworth’s distinction of rural from urban places is parallel to his distinction of nature form society, and his preference of rural places is related to his Romantic worship of nature. For him, the place where nature prevails is the place of true feelings and great love, and the place dominated by society is the place where shallow feelings and evil influences are found. Therefore, Wordsworth envisions a certain correspondence between the outer great nature and or inner human nature. Yet, besides the common sense of extolling rural and natural places, Wordsworth also has his own particular sense of place, and that is embedded in what he calls “spots of time.” For him, what are stored in one’s mind or memory are “spots of time.” The “spots” can be bright or dark. But they all serve as a beneficent influence, they concur with our deepest feelings, and they are scattered everywhere in our lifetime. They may function well because of some genius loci (“spirit of place”) or owing to some psycho-analytical replacement of inner space for outer space. Anyway, they are tied up with Wordsworth’s poetics, in which the poet at first employs his “primary imagination” to form “spots of time” in memory by experiencing the “spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings” in rural or urban places, and finally the poet employs his “secondary imagination” to recall the “spots of time” from memory by experiencing the “emotion recollected in tranquility” so that successful composition of poetry can begin. But Wordsworth’s poetics also echoes his common Romantic sense of place: for him, rural or natural places are the suitable places for the poet’s writing career

兩個李爾:莎翁的人文自然觀

Shakespeare is indeed the poet of nature. "Nature" is the one single word that defines the theme of King Lear. The word's ambiguity in sense contains a number of binary oppositions: Great Nature vs. human nature, physical/material nature vs. spiritual/mental nature, natural affection between parent and child vs. natural affection between prince and subject, good nature vs. bad nature, normal nature vs. abnormal nature, etc. The binary oppositions suggest the psychomachia, the battle of the good soul against the evil soul. In Lear, most characters are flatly either good souls or bad souls. Lear and Gloucester, however, are round characters: they change from bad nature back to good nature. There are certainly two Lears in the play: the foolish, selfish Lear vs. the wise, unselfish Lear, or the unnatural Lear vs. the natural Lear. The two lears explain the middle position of human nature in the Great Chain of Being. Lear has learned, too late, two lears (lessons): the difference of human nature and the disparity between appearance and reality. He has not learned the lear that natural justice is not equivalent to human justice. But he has learned the Shakespearean lear (doctrine) that nature is above art. In fact, in many other plays as well as in Lear, Shakespeare provides a humanist vision of nature: placing the primary, unfallen nature of innocence above the secondary, fallen nature of experience, opposing human art or nurture to divine art or nature, and making his comedies or tragedies and histories or romances according as man's good natures or bad natures prevail in the fallen world. Meanwhile, we find this humanist vision of nature allows for the Neoclassic principles of moderation and of morality and yet recognizes the Romantic principles of change and of contrariety.莎翁?自然∕本性詩人。「自然∕本性」?《李爾王》之主題。劇中呈現許多兩面的對立，說明了人心善惡的永恆爭鬥。有兩個李爾：一愚蠢自私，一明智無私；一個不自然∕非本性，一個很自然∕即本性。但李爾始終不知「自然的正義」不等於「人?的正義」。不過，他相信「自然∕本性」勝過∕先於「人?∕法術」。其實，莎翁在《李爾王》及其他許多劇本中，都提供一種人文主義的自然∕本性觀，一方面讓良心嚮往原始無?的自然∕本性，一方面卻認知墮落後的、有?的自然∕本性，把人擺在「大存在鏈」的中間，上通神性，下接獸性，而把人生視?好壞人性不斷更替造成的悲劇或喜劇、歷史或傳奇

Kingship and Counterfeit: Shakespeare's Deconstructionist Vision in Henry Ⅳ

Unlike its supposed sources, Henry IV does not uphold “the Tudor myth,” the providential view of historical causation. Instead, it advocates the Machiavellian view of interpreting history in terms of practical politics. Shakespeare agrees with Machiavelli that to gain power and keep it the prince needs to be both a lion and a fox. Within the two parts of Henry IV, Shakespeare has shown a pervasive deconstructionist vision based on this view. He has deconstructed the logocentrisms connected with such ideas as kingship, honor, justice, truth, order, and name. And he has torn down a good number of “violent hierarchies”: serious/comic, Work/play, Rule/Misrule, order/disorder, Court/tavern, statesmen/highwaymen, father/son, sovereign/subjects, friends/foe, name/substance, truth/falsehood, patriot/traitor, sword/word, strength/skill, martial/rhetorical, genuine/counterfeit, etc. but all his deconstructive ideas can be summed up in the vision of a political jungle, where the most foxy lion reigns, believing kinship is no other than counterfeit