斯宾塞《仙后》与西方史诗玄幻的叙事传统

Edmund Spenser’s The Faerie Queene and the Narrative Tradition of Western Epic Fantasy

斯宾塞《仙后》被认为是西方文学中第一部重要的玄幻文学,但其中的玄幻叙事成分却未得到充分的讨论。事实上,《仙后》有效地吸收了西方史诗文学和浪漫传奇文学的玄幻叙事手法,创造了充满魔力和超自然力的玄幻文学第二世界特征,在宏大的时空背景中,构筑了线性追寻和圆形追寻的叙事模式,并展开了意义深广的善恶大战。这些特征奠定了《仙后》作为西方第一部史诗玄幻的地位,为西方现当代史诗玄幻开辟了一种持续有力的叙事传统。

Edmund Spenser＇s The Faerie Queene has been treated as the first major fantasy of the western literature. The elements of fantasy in the work, however, have not yet been fully explored. The Faerie Queene has effectually borrowed fantastic heritage from preceding epics and romances so as to create a magic and supernatural secondary world, where the heroes＇ linear or cyclic quests and the furious battles between virtues and vices occur in a spectacular space and time setting. All these features make The Faerie Queene the first major epic fantasy, from which comes a narrative tradition for modern western epic fantasy to follow.