本·琼森《变形的吉卜赛人》中的异位区域书写与不列颠想象

本·琼森宫廷假面剧《变形的吉卜赛人》是对詹姆士一世关于英格兰和苏格兰"联合计划"的检阅和对大不列颠想象的书写。作品充斥着大量与吉卜赛人有关的法律书写,与早期现代不列颠"联合计划"语境下针对吉卜赛人身份与活动颁布的公告和法规形成呼应,并指向吉卜赛人异常活跃的"异位区域",即边界等"异常法律区域"和"魔鬼之尻"等"特殊地理区域"。吉卜赛人在这些区域颇具异质性和颠覆性的活动使他们成为"联合计划"中不列颠想象的恰当转喻,昭示着以"完美联合"为旨归的不列颠想象的脆弱与虚妄。

Ben Jonson’s court masque The Gypsies Metamorphosed is a review of the Jacobean "Union Project" and a manifestation of the British imagination.There are many legal references in it and they work in accordance with the proclamations and statutes against gypsies in early modern Britain under the"Union Project",which takes readers into such "anomalous legal zones" as the borders and special geographic places like "The Devil’s Arse".They are "atopias",where gypsies used to be very active.Their heterogeneous and subversive activities in these areas make them an appropriate metonym for the British imagination under the "Union Project",suggesting its fragility and illusiveness in pursuing a perfect and seamless Union.