麦尔维尔短篇小说“书记员巴托比”中的艾伦·坡元素(英文)

The Poe-esque Elements in Melville's "Bartleby the Scrivener"

发表于1853年的"书记员巴托比"是麦尔维尔最为人称道的短篇小说之一,一直引发学界纷纭解读,是一个典型的具有多面性的难懂文本,任何解读都不可能获得唯一正确的意义。对于一些评论家而言,小说人物巴托比是一个患有妄想狂的精神分裂者,有些学者则视之为基督一样的人物,还有人把他看作是梭罗一样的消极抵抗的践行者、华尔街资本家监狱受压迫的工人,甚至是作为远离尘俗的作者麦尔维尔自身的自传性投射。本文的目的不是去获得对巴托比这一人物的某种新的阐释,而是去详尽梳理艾伦.坡在麦尔维尔作品中毫无疑问的在场。尽管麦尔维尔没有提及过他的这位饱经非议的前辈,但不可能不明白坡在短篇小说领域的作为,不可能不意识到通过对它加以改造即可服务于自己的目的。麦尔维尔希望为杂志写一些适销的故事,在这一点上他不逊于坡,甚至同样可能思考着既成的惯例对他意味着什么。本文旨在探讨麦尔维尔的短篇小说"书记员巴托比"与坡的后期作品(如"商人"、"跳蛙"、"渡鸦"等)文本之间的多种联系,试图证明坡的作品为麦尔维尔的第一篇在杂志上发表的短篇小说提供了写作技巧和引人入胜的叙事策略。

Herman Melville＇s 1853 tale, ＂Bartleby the Scrivener,＂ is one of his most highly ac- claimed works of short fiction. Melville＇ s short story has generated remarkably diverse interpreta- tions and has served as an ideal example of multifaceted, unreadable text that makes it impossible to produce a single correct meaning. To some critics Bartleby is a paranoid schizophrenic; to oth- ers he represents a Christ-like figure; to still others a Thoreau-like practitioner of passive resist- ance, the exploited worker in the Wall Street＇ s capitalistic prison, or an autobiographical projec- tion of Melville as alienated author. This study is less concerned with producing any new interpre- tation of Bartleby＇ s character than with investigating in detail the unmistakable presence of Poe in Melville＇ s story. Although Melville makes no mention of his notorious predecessor, Melville could hardly have failed to see what Poe was doing in the field of short story, or to realize that it was a- daptable to his literary purposes. Melville, no less than Poe, wanted to write salable magazine tales, and was as likely to consider what an established convention had to offer him. In this pa- per, I intent to explore various inter-textual connections between Melville＇ s ＂Bartleby＂ and Poe＇ s later works such as ＂The Business Man,＂ ＂The Literary Life of Thingum Bob,＂ ＂Hop-Frog,＂ and ＂The Raven. ＂ In so doing, I will demonstrate that Poe＇s writings provided Melville＇s first magazine tale with the artistic craft of writing and a compelling narrative strategy to build upon.