《暴风雨》的后殖民解读与挪用

Postcolonial Interpretation and Appropriations of The Tempest

莎士比亚的《暴风雨》在后殖民批评中被看作是殖民主义寓言,其中普洛士帕罗和卡力班分别是殖民者和被殖民者的象征。这个批评视角的形成与加勒比海地区原殖民地作家对《暴风雨》所进行的解读和挪用具有前因后果的关系。文章一方面从加勒比海地区作家莱明、雷塔马、塞萨尔等人的作品中,看殖民地作家在反抗殖民主义、寻找自我意识的过程中,如何对《暴风雨》和西方学者的研究加以挪用,另一方面回到莎士比亚原著,寻找使挪用成为可能的线索。

While Shakespeare’s The Tempest has been interpreted as a colonial fable by New Historicists and Postcolonial critics since the 1970s,it should be acknowledged that writers from the former colonies in the Caribbean had already undertaken the task of re-interpretation and appropriation of the play in the 1950s and 1960s.Since these writers are descendants of the colonized peoples,their perspective can best be described as that of Caliban,who is interpreted as symbolic of the oppressed and abused slaves.A review of the interpretations and appropriations by prominent Caribbean writers,such as Lamming,Retamar,Aime Cesaire,can show us how The Tempest can be used in the culture of resistance against colonialism,and in the building of self-awareness of the colonized.A careful reading of Shakespeare indicates that the anti-colonialist interpretations are made possible by the astonishing adaptability of Shakespeare’s play and characters.