《克拉丽莎》中的笑与嘲讽

Laughter and Irony in Clarissa

《克拉丽莎》是英国18世纪小说家塞缪尔.理查逊写的一部著名的悲剧小说。迄今为止对该小说的评论大都从它严肃的道德和宗教议题入手。本篇论文揭示了该小说体现的狂欢化特点,比如男主人公拉夫雷斯的“笑”与嘲讽在精神上与狂欢化的笑有相似之处。狂欢化的笑表现了对痛苦的蔑视、对权威的质疑、挑战和颠覆,在18、19世纪的文学作品中经常弱化成了讽刺等形式,有时夹杂着戏谑与赞扬,有时带着反讽和自嘲的语气,但归根结底都是要打破现实的严肃性。这些特点在拉夫雷斯的叙述中都有体现。

Clarissa is a famous tragic novel by the 18th-century British novelist Samuel Richardson. Up to now, comments on the novel are mostly on its serious moralism or religious teachings. This paper tries to reveal the carnivalesque features embodied in this novel. For example, the laughter and irony of the hero Lovelace are on many occasions similar to those in carnivalesque works. Carnivalesque laughter can be a disdain to pain, a challenge to and a subversion of the authority. In the works of the 18th and 19th centuries, it often weakens into irony, sometimes with a tone of commendatory teasing and sometimes with that of selfmockery. But its ultimate purpose is to undermine the seriousness of reality. These features can be found in the narration of Lovelace.