《心城》描寫主角馬修的邂逅戀情和著墨他平日對倫敦市景的冥想。兼具建築師專業和都市行人特質使他更能洞察倫敦，而其城市冥想和四位時代的敘述者交替更迭，《心城》編織出層層刮覆式和萬花筒般視界。若簡化看待交錯的今昔倫敦時空，《心城》不是被視為情節貧乏空有冥想，就是被冠上賴芙莉以往作品中貫有特色的印記─即強調歷史和記憶。因此本論文企圖利用馬修的城市經驗來重新檢視《心城》，並漸次引申城市論述中互為錯綜的三面向：現代性、空間和心靈。 本論文第一章說明賴芙莉的研究價值和生平、摘要小說、回顧評論，和闡述如何以城市經驗的三面向為研究重心。第二章探討《心城》的現代性面向，馬修扮演和修飾波特萊爾型和班雅明式的漫遊者(the flâneur)，以簡克斯提出的「步行方法論者」(walking methodologist)強化馬修和現代性的聯繫。第三章探討《心城》的空間面向，以傅柯的「異質空間」(heterotopias)和列斐伏爾的「空間生產」(production of space)討論馬修的空間經驗，而《心城》不僅是倫敦的城市文本並呈現特殊「時空壓縮」(time-space compression)型態的空間文本。第四章探討《心城》的心靈面向，以齊莫爾提出的「神經刺激的強化」(intensification of nervous stimulation)和班雅明對現代都市反省出的「震驚」(shock) 和「憂鬱」(melancholy)輔助論述城市和馬修的心靈互動，並指出馬修的心理狀態與四位倫敦歷史人物亦互相映照。希冀透過檢視《心城》能從中反省文學作品中的城市形象和城市經驗。 / City of the Mind (hereinafter CM), Penelope Lively's ninth novel (1991), is about Matthew Halland's budding love story and his meditation on London. As an erudite walking architect, Matthew gives a portrait of a metropolis. Due to the textured images of the cityscape, his narration is periodically punctuated with the episodes of four different historical figures. Lively builds up a palimpsest and kaleidoscopic web where time and space collide. However, most book reviews and scholar critics either regard CM as a novel with a thin plot or think of it as a repeat of Lively's consistent concern, the operation of memory and history. I think otherwise. Since CM is a book about the city of London, Matthew's urban experience braids together from modernity displayed by walkabouts, the production of urban space, and a metropolitan mind. The first chapter clarifies the scholarly value of the Lively study, marks the influence of her unusual childhood in WWII Egypt, gives a summary of CM in a palimpsest and kaleidoscopic vision, discusses previous approaches to CM, and points out the scaffoldings for a troika of my study—modernity, space, and mind. In Chapter Two, I first explain the Baudelairean poetic flâneur and the Benjaminian Marxist flâneur, and support Chris Jenks's walking methodologist or the flâneur in the (post)modern city with which Matthew modifies the flâneur and revisits modernity or contemporaneity. In Chapter Three, I notice Matthew-as-architect walker with a flair for the spatiality of the urban spectacle. The influence of space piques Matthew to experience Michel Foucault's “heterotopias” and Henri Lefebvre's “production of space.” Because space and time are not mutually exclusive, I propose a concept of time-space compression with which CM as a spatial text represents a particular sort of urban space. In Chapter Four, as the book title suggests, I explore how the city sophisticates mental life. I take Georg Simmel's “intensification of nervous stimulation” and Walter Benjamin's “shock” and “melancholy” to describe how a metropolitan mind like Matthew's subtly interacts with a metropolis. Especially, four different historical figures resonating in London are counterparts of Matthew's psyche. A final concluding chapter emphasizes that the trio of my study on CM reflect upon urban representations and upon metaphors and metamorphosis in city fiction.

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