试论《坎特伯雷故事》的多元与复调

Plurality and Polyphony in The Canterbury Tales

《坎特伯雷故事》包容复杂的矛盾和冲突,可以说是当时英国各社会阶层、各种政治力量、各种利益集团、各种新旧思想、各种性格的人物之间的对话。乔叟笔下的香客———叙述者们是个性化的人物,既代表各自的阶级或阶层的利益,又拥有充分独立的主体意识,他们在朝圣旅途上各抒己见,用故事表达他们不同甚至相互对立的思想意识。作者并没有试图把他们的观点统一起来,而是兼收并蓄,造成了《坎特伯雷故事》的多元与复调。同时,狂欢化的朝圣旅途也进一步加强了作品结构上的开放性与意义上的多元。

The Canterbury Tales, embracing all sorts of contradictions and conflicts, can be taken as a dialogue among various social classes, interest groups, old and new ideas, and people of different characters. Chaucer＇s pilgrim-narrators are individualized characters both representing their own classes and possessing independent consciousnesses and individual voices. On their pilgrimage to Canterbury they voice different and often even conflicting views through their stories. However, the poet does not impose a unity on these views but presents them as they are, thus creating plurality and polyphony in this work. At the same time, the carnival pilgrimage further increases the openness of the work＇s structure and plurality in its meaning.