审美的社会维度:莫里斯《闲谈泰晤士河上游的老房子》的美学思想

Beauty's Social Dimension:Aesthetic Ideas in William Morris's"Gossip About an Old House on the Upper Thames"

“泰晤士河上游的老房子”是威廉·莫里斯在《闲谈泰晤士河上游的老房子》一文中对他的乡间住所——凯尔姆斯哥特庄园的称呼。这座修建于16世纪后半期的老房子地处偏远的英格兰乡村,是莫里斯生前最钟爱的居所,同时也代表了莫里斯“生活艺术化”的思想,融入了他从个人到社会、从审美到政治的理想。本文借助列斐伏尔的空间理论,分析莫里斯试图运用该房子的象征性价值弥合资本主义所带来的种种裂痕——时间与空间、社会与自然、城市与乡村的裂痕,从而推行他的简朴生活和有机社会的政治理想。

"An old house on the upper Thames"is how William Morris in one of his essays refers to his country home,Kelmscott Manor.Built in the second half of the 16"century and located in the out-of-way English countryside,this favorite residence of Morris represents his idea of aesthetics and society and fuses his many ideals,from personal to social,from aesthetic to political.This essay uses Henri Lefebvre's theory of space to analyse Morris's attempt to use the old house's symbolic values to fill up the gaps created by capitalism-gaps between time and space,city and country,man and nature,and to implement his ideals of simple livingand organic society.