《刘易斯与克拉克探险日志原本,1804—1806》中的西部镜像、扩张话语与帝国意识

Western Mirror Images, Expansion Discourses and the Imperial Consciousness in Original Journals of The Lewis and Clark Expedition (1804-1806)

"刘易斯与克拉克探险"是杰斐逊发起的19世纪美国规模最大、时间最长的首次进入北美西部的探索,被称为美国人的"奥德赛"。《刘易斯与克拉克探险日志原本,1804-1806》是此次官方探险的直接产物,日志作者站在扩张主义视野下形成了关于美洲西部的镜像,通过将军事远征美化成"英雄史诗"、对西部的自然风景重新编码、以"美洲贸易帝国"构想介入帝国间的争霸,西部被纳入白人中心主义的话语体系,与美利坚民族的"想象的共同体"相结合,从而形成了19世纪美国西部文学中的一种扩张话语。借助历史批判的眼光,从文学与国家发展之关系的角度出发,可窥探作者如何以"探险"和"开发"为名掩饰欧裔美国人的扩张意图,如何以话语的形式参与美国的西部扩张,并在文化思想层面大力宣传这一帝国意识。

For Americans,"Lewis and Clark Expedition"is the longest and largest exploration in the19 th century,which was launched by Jefferson.It is their first time to go into American Northwest,and it has been called as an American"Odyssey".Original Journals of The Lewis and Clark Expedition(1804-1806)is the outcome of this official expedition initiated by the American government.The authors produce western mirror images of America under the perspective of expansionism.By transferring the military expedition into the heroic epic,re-coding the landscapes of the West,and intervening into the struggle for hegemony between empires by the vision of"American Trade Empire",the West has been incorporated into the discourse of White Supremacism,and then combined with the"imagined community"of the American nation.Finally,the authors come up with an expansion discourse of American Western Literature in the 19 th century.With the perspective of historical criticism and the relationship between literature and national development,we can discuss how the authors disguise European Americans’"expansionism"with the"expedition",how they participate in American westward expansion by words,and how they spread and advocate the imperial consciousness in the culture.