英美旅行文学与东方主义

Approaching Orientalism in British and American Travel Literature

作为＂休闲文本＂,英美旅行文学是一种非想象虚构的文类,看似涉及了一些有关异域的＂事实＂或＂真相＂,但除了编织异域＂风采＂和引发＂浪漫＂思绪外还有教育启迪的作用,具有鲜明的意识形态性。本文以后殖民主义理论为视角,通过具体的文本分析进一步阐述英美旅行文学的东方主义文化特征,即英美旅行文学基本上采用一种＂发现修辞＂肆意夸大或凸显旅行者/故事叙事者的主观臆断,以便迎合和满足西方白人的文化优越感和君临天下的观景方式。他们或美化环境,制造想象,进行殖民诱惑;或将西方文明国度先进的物品作为修饰语,赋予景物以丰富的物质涵义,使笔下景色具有英美文化特色,从而以西方文化为价值尺度,用一种形象而系统化的言说方式建构了他者的东方主义文化体系。

British and American travel literature is often perceived as a type of pleasure texts,belonging to the genre of non-fiction.It is believed to write about people and things that a traveler/narrator observes and reflects on while traveling.Featured by romantic experiences and vicissitudes of foreign lands,British and American travel writing is also ideologically at issue,serving educational and enlightening purposes.This article employs a postcolonial perspective to elaborate on the various features of Orientalism in British and American travel literature based on a close reading of particular texts.It is argued that these travel writers have adopted the ＂discovery rhetoric＂ to represent other cultures from their own cultural stance,enacting the narrative of British and American colonialism.Their reliance on the hierarchies of Western power and colonial discourse and their narrative strategies of managing the natives display their ways of either idealizing or degrading the Other in their observations.