Journal of Economic Studies in Literature
JESL, Vol. 1, No. 1, 2026, pp.129-139.
Print ISSN: 3107-3492; Online ISSN: 3107-3506
Journal homepage: https://www.jesljournal.com
DOI: https://doi.org/10.64058/jesl260109mucis
程文（Cheng Wen），叶可（Ye Ke）
摘要：从文学经济学视角解读济慈叙事长诗《拉米亚》，可揭示英国浪漫主义时期文学经济思想为人忽视的侧面。杰文斯边际主义的主观价值论、边际效用递减原理与动态均衡原理，虽形式化于济慈身后半个世纪，但浪漫主义与边际主义对主观欲望的共同关切足以弥合这一时代落差。文学经济学的互构、同形、同归三个层次，依次聚焦诗的生产、诗中的消费与诗中的交易。其一，新历史主义视角下文学与历史的互构：诗人的财务焦虑与摄政英国的商业转型彼此塑造，诗作的经济潜文本是其存在的条件。其二，文学与经济学的同形（isomorphism）：利西乌斯痴迷欲望的递减回报与边际效用曲线构成同一过程结构的两个实例，拉米亚宫殿东方化、女性化的奢华则是一种待戳穿的幻象。其三，微观经济学与浪漫主义文学对理想国度愿景的同归：拉米亚、赫尔墨斯与仙女之间的谈判以自利之扰动打破克里特田园与科林斯城邦的均衡，悲剧结局表征诗人对无节制消费主义的拒斥。诗作以否定的方式勾勒出使价值重归真实需要、使相反力量重归动态均衡的理想国度。
关键词：约翰·济慈；《拉米亚》；文学经济学；边际效用递减；同形；动态均衡；理想国度
作者介绍：程文（通信作者），副教授，宁波大学，硕士生导师，研究方向：英美文学、比较文学，电子邮箱：chengwen@nbu.edu.cn；叶可，宁波大学，硕士研究生，研究方向：英美文学，电子邮箱：1184926692@qq.com。
Title: Marginal Utility and the Construction of an Ideal State in Keats’s Lamia
Abstract: Reading Keats’s narrative poem Lamia from the perspective of literary economics brings into view a neglected facet of the economic thought of British Romantic literature. Although the subjective value theory, the principle of diminishing marginal utility, and the principle of dynamic equilibrium of Jevonsian marginalism were formalized half a century after Keats, the shared attentiveness of Romanticism and marginalism to subjective desire suffices to bridge the temporal gap. The three levels of literary economics—mutual construction, isomorphism, and convergence—focus in turn on the production of the poem, the consumption it stages, and the exchange that drives its plot. First, the mutual construction of literature and history under New Historicism: the poet’s financial anxiety and the commercial transformation of Regency Britain shaped each other, making the poem’s economic subtext a condition of its existence. Second, the isomorphism between literature and economics: the diminishing returns on Lycius’s obsessive desire and the marginal-utility curve emerge as two instances of one process-structure, while the Orientalized, feminized opulence of Lamia’s palace is an illusion awaiting disenchantment. Third, the convergence of microeconomics and Romantic literature upon the vision of an ideal state: the negotiation among Lamia, Hermes, and the nymph disrupts, through the perturbation of self-interest, the equilibrium of both the Cretan pastoral and the Corinthian city, and the tragic denouement—Lamia’s vanishing and Lycius’s death—signifies the poet’s rejection of unrestrained consumerism. By negation, the poem delineates an ideal state in which value is reattached to genuine need and opposing forces are restored to dynamic equilibrium.
Keywords: John Keats; Lamia; literary economics; diminishing marginal utility; isomorphism; dynamic equilibrium; ideal state
Author Biography: Cheng Wen (corresponding author) is an associate professor and supervisor of postgraduate students at Ningbo University, specializing in British and American literature and comparative literature. E-mail: chengwen@nbu.edu.cn. Ye Ke is a postgraduate student at Ningbo University, specializing in British and American literature. E-mail: 1184926692@qq.com.
Received: 01 May 2026 / Revised: 10 May 2026 / Accepted: 20 May 2026 / Published online: 15 Jun. 2026 / Print published: 25 Jun. 2026.
