ABSTRACT

Soon after his move, in 1855, to the Channel island of Guernsey, Victor Hugo bought a large house, which he called Hauteville House after the quarter of Saint Peter Port in which it was located. Over the next six years, he led a massive decoration campaign, during which he transformed the interior of the house into what many contemporaries saw as an ultimate form of self-expression. One of the main characteristics of the Hauteville House interior was that it was furnished entirely with antiques and bric-à-brac that Hugo had acquired in Guernsey as well as on the European continent. The poet was a passionate collector who scoured the antique shops in Guernsey for old chests, furniture, fabrics, etc. These he brought home not to restore them to their former glory but to take them apart and make new pieces of furniture out of them. In this article I link Hugo’s process of fragmentation and reformulation to his writing method, especially his historical novels and historical dramas, as well as to contemporary historiography. I also link his process to Claude Lévi-Strauss’s concept of bricolage in an effort to show that Hugo’s opportunistic strategy of using available fragments of earlier cultural epochs and remaking them into new forms is analogous to the process of mythical thought. Indeed, I argue that Hugo’s bricolage process in Hauteville House was a conscious process of self-mythologizing.

摘要

维克多·雨果（Victor Hugo）1855年迁居根西岛（Channel Island）的根岛后不久，就买下了一座大房子，在圣彼得港（Saint Peter Port）所在的地区四分之一之后，他将其称为Hauteville House。在接下来的六年中，他领导了一场大规模的装饰运动，在此期间，他将房屋的内部改造成许多当代人所认为的自我表达的终极形式。Hauteville House内饰的主要特征之一是，它完全装有古董和金砖四国雨果（Hugo）在根西岛（Guernsey）以及欧洲大陆收购的股票。这位诗人是一位热情洋溢的收藏家，他在根西岛的古董店里搜寻过旧的箱子，家具，布料等。他带回家不是为了使它们恢复昔日的光彩，而是将它们拆散并用它们制成新的家具。在本文中，我将雨果的分裂和重新制定的过程与他的写作方法（尤其是他的历史小说和历史戏剧）以及当代史学联系起来。我还将他的过程与克劳德·列维·史特劳斯（ClaudeLévi-Strauss）的“贿赂”概念联系起来，以表明雨果（Hugo）利用早期文化时期的可用片段并将其重新编成新形式的机会主义策略类似于神话思想的过程。的确，我认为雨果的Hauteville House的贿赂过程是自我神话化的自觉过程。