出國報告
（出國類別：■開會(宣讀論文) □研究 □進修
□其它： ）
Fashioning the Self as the Other: Contested Zone in John Dryden’s The
Conquest of Granada
本計畫組別：卓越研究中心
項下（研究中心）單位/系所：文學院外文系
姓名職稱：王儀君
派赴國家：南韓首爾
出國期間：99年 8月14日至 8月20日
報告日期：99年 9月15日
摘要
The year 1492 is a very significant year in the western world; this is the year when Christopher Columbus discovered America, when Ferdinand and Isabella of Spain had the Moors driven out of Granada. The conflicts between the Moors and the Christians had a long history but the expulsion of the Moors signified not only the victory of the Catholic but also a shame for the Muslims. Since Boabdil (Abu 'abd-Allah Muhammad XII) surrendered the key to the door of Granada, Moorish people’s suffering and religious persecution began. In the territory of Ferdinand and Isabella, Jews and Muslims were forced to convert, and the Inquisition was established to persecute the heretics who clang to their old religions. The conquest of Granada launched by Isabella and Ferdinand involves the fall of the Moorish Empire and the dawning of the modern age and the territorial reclamation of Christianity. In 1492, with the last sigh of the Moorish king Boabdil, the Islamic Granada encountered drastic change. Literature is replete with works about the city Granada: Sophia Lee’s Almeyda, Queen of Granada (1796), Lord Porchester’s narrative poem ?The Moor? (1825), Goeroge Hughes’s The Last Sigh of the Moor (1830), Charles Hood’s Gonzalvo, or the Fall of Granada (1844), Washington Irvine’s The Chronicle of the Conquest of Granada (1851) and The Tales of Alhambra (1840), Edward Bulwer Lytton’s Leila, or the Seige of Granada (1839), and Lydia B. Smith’s Songs of Granada and Alhambra (1836). Granada is one of the cities witnessing the conflicts between the Islamic and Christian civilizations; Granada is also among the cities cultivated the renegades. In western literature and Christian history, renegades are considered as abhors. Under the depiction of John Dryden, a valiant young man who sides with the threatened city Granada, constructs himself as an alterity, while King Ferdinand of Portugal prides himself subduing the Moor.
1
目 次
摘 要…………………………………………………………………………………………………1
目 次…………………………………………………………………………………………………2
目 的…………………………………………………………………………………………………3
過 程…………………………………………………………………………………………………3
部分論文 ……………………………………………………………………………………………4
心得及建議…………………………………………………………………………………………12
照 片 ………………………………………………………………………………………………12
附錄
2
目的
本次出國參加第19屆國際比較文學會議(南韓首爾)，除宣讀論文?Fashioning the Self as the Other: Contested Zone in John Dryden’s The Conquest of Granada?之外，也接受大會邀請，主持一場會議，並於中世紀研究工作坊宣讀第二篇論文?The Imagined World of the Orient: Prester John, Alexander the Great and Medieval Geopolitics?。
過程
國際比較文學會議(ICLA)是比較文學領域最重要的會議，此一會議每三年舉辦一次，今年舉辦的地點在韓國，是第19屆的會議。去年大會在籌辦並徵求論文時，本人就提出了?Fashioning the Self as the Other: Contested Zone in John Dryden’s The Conquest of Granad?的摘要，今年因應大會的邀請，特別和西班牙教授DOMINGUE聯合組成中世紀研究的工作坊，因此，此趟行程除需主持一場會議之外，另外需要宣讀兩篇論文。工作坊的論文題目為?The Imagined World of the Orient: Prester John, Alexander the Great and Medieval Geopolitics?。
此次會議共七天，從8月15日到8月21日。8月14日辦理報到，15日負責主持會議，宣讀論文的教授共有三位: Cesar Dominguez宣讀論文 ?World-Systems, Medieval Literature and Literary History: A Research Program?， Ann-marie Hsiung宣讀論文 ?Xixiang Ji in Contemporary World Context – A Case Study of Gender and Reception?和由Benjamin Liu宣讀論文 ?Travel and the Tabrizi Gaze: Viewing the Orient in Late Medieval Castile?。17日在Byoung Chun Min主持下，宣讀本人論文 ?Fashioning the Self as the Other: Contested Zone in John Dryden’s The Conquest of Granada?。19日則在中世紀研究工作坊宣讀論文 ?The Imagined World of the Orient: Prester John, Alexander the Great and Medieval Geopolitics?。
大會期間聆國外學者演講及論文發表，國際會議中經常可以得到許多收穫，也遇見許多熟識的學界朋友。部分學者曾經參加國立中山大學人文中心所舉辦的研討會，本校獲得極優的評價，8月20日返國。
3
部分論文
A: Congress Session Writing the Conflicts and Otherness
Fashioning the Self as the Other:
Contested Zone in John Dryden’s The Conquest of Granada
I-Chun Wang
National Sun Yat-sen University, Taiwan
The year 1492 is a very significant year in the western world; this is the year when Christopher Columbus discovered America, when Ferdinand and Isabella of Spain had the Moors driven out of Granada. The conflicts between the Moors and the Christians had a long history but the expulsion of the Moors signified not only the victory of the Catholic but also a shame for the Muslims. Since Boabdil (Abu 'abd-Allah Muhammad XII) surrendered the key to the door of Granada, Moorish people’s suffering and religious persecution began. In the territory of Ferdinand and Isabella, Jews and Muslims were forced to convert, and the Inquisition was established to persecute the heretics who clang to their old religions. The conquest of Granada launched by Isabella and Ferdinand involves the fall of the Moorish Empire and the dawning of the modern age and the territorial reclamation of Christianity. In 1492, with the last sigh of the Moorish king Boabdil, the Islamic Granada encountered drastic change. Literature is replete with works about the city Granada: Sophia Lee’s Almeyda, Queen of Granada (1796), Lord Porchester’s narrative poem ?The Moor? (1825), Goeroge Hughes’s The Last Sigh of the Moor (1830), Charles Hood’s Gonzalvo, or the Fall of Granada (1844), Washington Irvine’s The Chronicle of the Conquest of Granada (1851) and The Tales of Alhambra (1840), Edward Bulwer Lytton’s Leila, or the Seige of Granada (1839), and Lydia B. Smith’s Songs of Granada and Alhambra (1836). Granada is one of the cities witnessing the conflicts between the Islamic and Christian civilizations; Granada is also among the cities cultivated the renegades. In western literature and Christian history, renegades are considered as abhors. Under the depiction of John Dryden, a valiant young man who sides with the threatened city Granada, constructs himself as an alterity, while King Ferdinand of Portugal prides himself subduing the Moor.
John Dryden’s capability of making observations on the trends of colonial expansion of the imperialist powers was exemplified in his renowned plays such as Amboyna, The Indian Queens, Aureng-zebe and The Conquest of Granada. The Conquest of Granada represented the war between the Muslims and the Spanish. Dryden’s young warrior brought up among the Moors not only confirms the religious tolerance inside the city Granada but also devotes himself to the battle fighting against the Spanish patriots. 4
This paper, by exploring the possibility of cross-cultural communication and the hero’s confirmation of his chosen identity, this paper will discuss the self-constructed identity that subverts the discourse of alterity as represented by the Orientalists like King Ferdinand.
Dryden’s Almanzor and Almahide, or the Conquest of Granada (1670), sets its background against Granada, a historic city in Andalusia. In the beginning of the play, the last Moorish king in Andalusia, Mahomet Boabdelin (commonly known as Boabdil in history) is challenged by King Ferdinand’s general and messenger, Duke of Arcos. Boabdelin in the play confronts struggles between two powerful factions, Abencerrages and Zegrys and from the outset, the monarchs of Castile and Arragon, threaten him to claim authorities over the Moorish kingdom, and Granada has become Boabdelin’s last stronghold. Out of his surprise, however, a young man named Almanzor swears to defend the Moorish kingdom, trying to restore the united force of the two sects of power. The siege of Granada is a significant battle in the western war history; the battle was fought over for several months and was finally captured by the joined forces of Isabella and Ferdinand. The keys to the city were surrendered by Boabdil, and when the Christian world was hilarious for the success, the moors were expelled from the Iberian Peninsula1 and a lot of priceless manuscripts were put into flames (Carew 248). The fall of Granada in 1492 brought to the end of the Muslim rule which lasted for almost eight hundred years, and it was the year that drew the end of the ‘dark age’ of medieval Europe. In European history, 1492 not only signifies the age of exploration but also manifests the glory of Christian civilization. Granada is a historical city. In its prehistoric period, it was known as Ilbyr; upon it, the Romans established City Illibris. The Arab settled here in the eighth century and then Moorish kings started to construct and expand Granada. The splendor of Granada reached its zenith under the rule of the Moorish Nasrites, but the Moorish rule over Andalusia can be referred to the eighth century when the Moorish general Tarik and his African army crossed Gibraltar from Africa, capturing a number of Spanish towns along the coast during the reign of Visigothic King Roderick (Jackson 85). Chandler notes that the Arab/ Moors in Spain were benevolent so the natives retained their Romance language and independent jurist and religious systems. During the reigns of the Abassid, Umayyad and Almoravid dynasties, the Moors cultivated high quality of architecture, philosophy and arts, bringing many Europeans in servitude. In culture, the period was called the light of Europe’s Dark Age, but in politics, the Moors, joined by Arabs, became a threatening force to the European countries (144). Mediterranean Sea that has been a significant crossroad of civilizations became a passage of expelled Jews and two hundred thousands of moors.
Dryden’s city Granada is a cultural frontier; as one of the prominent cities in Iberian Peninsula, it was characterized by a cultural landscape composed of ethnic 5
diversity and linguistic differences2, and its cultural phenomenon such diaspora, creolization and conflicting ideologies also cultivated cultural diversities. To justify the inevitable fall of Granada, Dryden represents his Moorish leader, Boabdelin, as a figure not easily subdued by foreign forces. From appearance he is a king with centralized power, discussing tournament and male prowess with his men but he fails to see the turmoil within. He does not know his bride to be is secretly in love with the handsome hero Almanzor, and he fails to see his own brother has constructed his base in Alhambra. When he is threatened by Duke of Arcos, the general of the army of Spain, he claims that he will ?die a king?, no matter whatever arms that Isabella and Ferdinand will use to conquer his land (I. 429), but his Boabdelin’s brother Abdalla, encouraged by Lyndaraxa from Zegrys tribe, tries to dislodge and dethrone Boabdelin. Lyndaraxa proves herself a treacherous and ambitious woman who watches Abdalla stepping toward self-destruction, without casting her sympathy to her lover who has sacrificed his honor to win her the crown. Dryden’s focus in this play is the hero Almanzor who firstly helps Abdalla, then takes sides with Boabdelin, and swears to fight for Granada to his death, but to his own surprise, his real father is Duke of Arcos and he himself is the love child of a Moorish king’s sister and Don Arcos. Almanzor’s mother died when the two lovers were on exile and Almanzor was reduced to a subject. The identity of Almanzor is always a question. As Tupper says, the mighty hero holds in his hands the fortunes of the city and the fates of the Spaniard and the rival factions (7). Dryden’s The Conquest of Granada has been criticized as a paradox or a play of absurdity. Alan S. Fisher even criticizes it as ?the most complicated, the most extravagant, the most unreal, and the most incomprehensible? play (414), since mutability has taken the destiny of the Moorish kingdom while Almanzor swears to stand firm:
The word which I have giv’n shall stand like Fate;
But now he shall not veer: my word is past:
I’ll take his heart by th’roots, and hold it fast. (III.I.9-14)
Throughout the play, Almanzor vows himself a stranger who rules by himself only:
But know, that I alone am king of me.
I am as free nature first made man,
Ere the base laws of servitude began,
When wild in woods the noble savage ran. (I. 427)
When Boabdelin threatens to kill him because of his arrogance, he dares to retort at Boabdelin as a ?despicable thing? without being aware of the impending danger within his empire (Part I, I. 428). However, he devotes himself to what he has promised, driving away Boabdelin’s enemies and restores Boabdelin’s throne from Abdalla. 6
Towards the end of the second part of the play, Almanzor’s undaunted bravery was manifested through the commentary and admiration of the Spanish generals. However, when Almanzor was in Alhambra, the ghost of his mother appears to him, revealing that he was born a Christian and his father was descended from ancient blood while his mother from ?stems of kings? (Part II, ). Dryden’s Boabdelin is represented as an obstinate king, who is quick to make a decision, careless to discern his situation and foolish enough to wrong his fiancé Almahide as a fickle woman without perceiving that Almahide keeps her virtue and Almanzor keeps his promise to protect Granada. Granada, however, becomes turmoil and toward the end of the play, when Boabdelin laments his disgrace about Almahide, more than half of Granada is already gained by Ferdinand’s army. Almanzor is described by Ferdinand as valiant Moor but in order to rescue his father Duke of Arcos at the battle, Almanzor is severely wounded. When he awakes, he is forgiven by Isabella and the two lovers are reunited. Throughout the whole play, Almanzor is seen performing his prowess and insight into Boabdelin’s endangered empire; however, his identity remains enigmatic because on the one hand, Almanzor, bred in Africa, associates himself with the Moorish kingdom but detaches himself from the entanglement of power. On the other hand, he fights against the invading troops of Ferdinand. However, after he realizes the history of his own family, he defends his father and after…
(附上四頁論文，全文共十五頁)
B: The Imagined World of the Orient: Prester John, Alexander the Great and Medieval Geopolitics
I-Chun Wang
Professor
Director, the Center for the Humanities
National Sun Yat-sen University
Humans are never tired of imagining the lands that we do not now. Throughout the human history, terra incognita has signified wanderlust or a longing to discover a new land and even a utopia. Cathay, India, Timbuktu and El Dorado have drawn imagination of the westerners in different periods of European history; the imagined land or territory are represented in legends, folktales and pseudo-historic writings. The earliest surviving report of the wonders of the East is by Herodotus (Wittkower 159); Strabo of Amasia, the first-century geographer, was popular with his account of Hindustan (Jackson 1). Among the most notable travel accounts are Marco Polo (1254-1324), who wrote about his travel to China, and Ibn Battula (1304-1377) who traveled to Arabian Peninsula, Somalia, Swahili Cast, Byzantine Empire Anatolia and 7
even China.
Marco Polo, Ibn Battula and many travelers all claim to have eye-witnessed the foreign countries they visited. It is very interesting, however, that Edward Webbe, a soldier, a galley slave and a traveler in the early modern period, explored the East. In his work, The Rare and Most Wonderful Things (1590), he described his adventures, narrating what he witnessed and heard about the lands that he visited, such as Constantinople, Jerusalem, and many other places. What makes him extraordinary is his mentioning of Ethiopia, the lost Kingdom of Prester John. Webbs retold the legendary supporter of Crusades. According to him, Prester John, the legendary medieval African Christian king, is the ruler in a realm beyond the Persian mountain and his fertile land stretched across India, reaching the border of Cathay. However, Webbs is not the only traveler or writer who claims to know the realm of Pester John. The realm of Prester John has been alluded to Mongolian conqueror Yeh-lti Ta-shih, (Ye-lu Dashi, 1142-50) founder of the Central Asian empire of Qara-Khitay, Don Pedro of Portugal related the mystic land of Prester John to the Indies, and Jordanus de severac refers it to Ethiopia. However, all explorations of the realm of Prester John in the following centuries were all based on a letter widely circulated in the medieval Europe. However, Zarncke in 1883 listed more than one hundred manuscripts of the letter of Prester John throughout the whole world, owing to the fact that this famous letter in Latin has been translated, copied and reproduced in different languages (Letts 21). The content of these manuscripts are more and less in common and the most popular version is the one dated 1165, and implemented version is dated 1500. In the letter ?sent to Emanuel of Constantinople?, the pseudo writer, assuming the name of Prester John, represented the marvels of India as the home of elephants, dromedaries, camels, crocodiles, white lions, men with horns, centaurs, giants and cyclopses. The realm as represented in the letter is somehow similar to the letter of Alexander the Great to his teacher Aristotle, especially when the crystals or gems are mentioned. Except for informing his teacher of the news that he had overcome King Darius of Persia at the river Gande, he focuses on the description about India. The medieval imagination of the East in the chronicles of Prester John parallels the ?Letter of Alexander to Aristotle? (,Epistola Alexandri ad Aristotelem)a pseudo letter representing the realm of Alexander the Great (356–323 BC), who conquered Persia and as this letter says, ?our dominions stretched from the Caspian Sea to the Persian Gulf? ( ). This letter also confirms, owing to the threatening from the barbarians, conquers are necessary. In both letters mentioned above, imagination of the East is intertwined with exploration and knowledge of geography. Although Prester John was a legendary figure and Alexander the Great was a hero in war history, pseudo letters attributed to them demonstrated codes for imagination and identity construction. This paper, by representing the medieval conception of the world, will discuss the geopolitical imaginations of the East represented in pseudo-letters by 8
the legendary Prester John and heroic figure Alexander the Great.
I. Geography Writing in The Letter of Alexander to Aristotle
The letter of Alexander to Aristotle is almost a version of the wonders of the East, with a focus on India. Alexander the Great was considered an explorer and a seeker of marvels, a ruthless and efficient conqueror in world history; he was also emulated as a city-founder who facilitates trade relations and opens routes to the East. Scholars are never tired of probing into the diary and the letters between Alexander and his contemporaries2. The letters in the Greek Romance of Alexander are fictitious, and Alexander’s letter concerning India was not genuine. Although Alexander remains a controversial figure and many legendary tales about him wait to be decoded, Alexander’s expedition to Persia provided him a chance to witness Oriental luxury (Hamilton 8-10), and his invasion to India left a strong impact upon the later descriptions of the East. The description about India starts with the description of the royal city of Porus, the king of Fasiacen. After mentioning the conquering of the city, the narrator describes the multitude of Porus’s troops and his embellished palace and royal quarters:
There were golden columns, very great, and mighty and firm….The walls
were also golden, sheathed with gold plates the thickness of a finger….I
saw a golden vineyard, mighty and firm, and its branches hung about the
columns….The leaves of the vineyard were of gold, and its tendrils and
fruits were of crystal and emerald, and jewels hung among the crystal.3
Porus, according to Bosworth, controlled a territory in Punjab, defined by two big rivers, was actually far smaller than Alexander’s Macedonia but the battle was exaggerated by referring to how the powerful king in India surrendered his three hundred populous cities and how Alexander showed his magnificence by treating Porus in a regal style. However, in history, Porus was brave enough to choose to confront the professional army of Alexander’s and that of Taxila, a former vassal of Alexander, from the west (9). Alexander established new order in Europe, constructed himself as Persian’s enemy, and in India he fought with Porus’s troops of elephants. Q Curtius Rufus’s account of Alexander in India includes the description of its location, its big river Ganges and Indus, its hot climates, the apparels of the Indians, the philosophers, and common customs (190-7), while the letter of Alexander to Aristotle describes more about wild beasts and the mystic revelation of Alexander’s fate and impending death. It is worth noticing that Alexander, as the letter reveals, came to be interested in the interior India, wishing to travel the dangerous paths and ways than the safe paths, so he could have cought up with Porus before the defeated Porus could escape into the deserted places (Orchard 257). The pseudo-writer of the 9
letter describes the tough mission Alexander and his troops had to undertake. They also encountered in the inner realm of India horrible water-monsters, serpents with three heads and at the left-hand region of India, beasts with pegs named quasi caput iuna, meaning crocodiles slew his soldiers (Orchard). The letter to Aristotle is almost like an adventurous story. However, the oracle trees in India, and the way the Indians worshipped gods signified the incomprehensible of this area. McFadden notes although India was represented as a wealthy kingdom, the pseudo-letter of Alexander demonstrates the sentiment of resistance via his description of the wild beasts, serpents and classical divinities, Alexander was forced to realize that he was ?incapable of containing divine power and the vast realm in the natural world of India? (91).
Alexander chased Darius, reaching the south coast of the Caspian Sea, but for Alexander, the Orient and Asia meant India (Erskine 236). However, ?Fin d’orient?, as Alexander told Porus, he was curious to know ?if I could go round the earth, which the ocean surrounds? (Text) The narrative in Alexander’s letter provides the concept of mapping and the geographical problems that Alexander encountered. It can be detected that the narrator of the letter knew very well that India was encircled by seas and mountains. There is description about the snow in the mountains and the hot climate in the valley. The most significant message in the letter is Alexander has constructed a model to see and to travel beyond. Furthermore, he has a magnificent mind to treat the defeated well and at the same time respects the heterogeneous culture in the East. Although Alexander is a conqueror, a person with a desire for world dominion, Pliny justifies:
King Alexander the Great being fired with a desire to know the natures
of animals and having delegated the pursuit of this study to Aristotle
as a man of supreme eminence in every branch of science, orders were
given to some thousands of persons throughout the whole of Asia and
Greece . . . to obey his instructions, so that he might not fail to
be informed about any creature anywhere. His enquiries addressed to
those persons resulted in the composition of his famous works on
zoology. (3: 46)
The letter of Alexander to Aristotle is like a geographic lore but information like this actually functions as reports or source of information in ancient times. As Romm notes, with Ptolemy’s Geography, more record of the earth started to take more objective form (6). When he intended to know what was beyond the ocean, the local inhabitants told him the sea and the ocean was too dark for any man to travel by ship (Text). Exploration and discovery are a part of activities of mapping in the antiquity. To understand peirar, or the ?extremities of the earth? (12), the people of 10
antiquity took the ocean or big river as the… (附上四頁論文，全文共十七頁)
11
心得及建議
本人在中山大學教書已有二十多個年頭，近年來深深感受到國際研究的趨勢。本次比較文學研討會有15位來自台灣的學者，但未曾見到國內大學的碩士班研究生於此大型的國際會議宣讀論文。但香港、中國、南韓、日本、新加坡都有碩士研究生擠進了國際會議的殿堂，因此感受到國內與國際研究上的差異性，此一差異性和教授層級無關，反而國內大學的學者均有極優的表現；令人憂心的是國內的研究生較少參與國際研討會，今後如何強化研究生的研究及輔導研究生則成為教育界必須省思與強化的議題。
照片
12
13