殖民者还是被殖民者:司各特《罗布·罗伊》中的苏格兰民族身份悖论

The Colonizer or the Colonized:The Paradoxical Identity of the Scottish Nation in Scott’s Rob Roy

作为一部历史小说,《罗布·罗伊》同时反映了18世纪苏格兰所面临的两个历史语境——1707年的英苏联合和苏格兰的海外殖民,因而在“英格兰对苏格兰的统治”和“苏格兰对西印度群岛的统治”之间建立了一种同构关系,赋予了苏格兰以殖民者与被殖民者的双重身份。由于苏格兰获得海外殖民者身份是以成为英格兰殖民地为代价的,因而《罗布·罗伊》中同时交织着支持与反对英格兰殖民主义的话语,造成了文本的含混性。不过,小说对英格兰“国内殖民主义”的反对,也进一步启发司各特反思苏格兰海外殖民活动的“正当性”,最终使得司各特在其后期的苏—印小说中,开启了对苏格兰帝国主义的反思与批判。

As a historical novel,Rob Roy foregrounds two historical contexts of the 18th century Scotland:the 1707 Union between England and Scotland and the Scottish colonial expansion.It establishes a homologous relationship between“England’s dominance over Scotland”and“Scotland’s dominance over the West Indies”,giving rise to Scottish dual identities as“the colonizer”and“the colonized”.Since Scotland acquired its overseas colonies at the cost of becoming an internal colony of England,the text of Rob Roy displays an ambiguity in its attitude,interwoven with discourses both for and against English colonialism.However,England’s“internal colonization”of Scotland further inspired Scott to reflect on the“legitimacy”of Scotland’s overseas colonial enterprise,and finally led to his critical reflection on Scottish imperialism in his later Scottish-Indian novel.