雷德本的英国之旅

Redburn’s Travel in England

梅尔维尔的小说《雷德本》记叙了美国青年雷德本在其英国之旅中见到的资本主义工业文明所造成的各种苦难,他理想化的英国形象随之幻灭。英国城市表现出现代都市生活的诱惑性、迷惑性和易逝性,已经和传统社会产生了断裂。英国之旅也是雷德本对美国民族身份的探索,英国腐朽的社会现实和制度让他感到美国不应该再效仿旧世界的文化,而必须文化独立。

Melville’s Redburn is a story about Redburn,an American young man,who witnesses all the pains and sufferings caused by the industrial capitalism during his travel in England,followed by the disillusionment with his idealized England.He experiences the seductiveness,labyrinth and transience of the modern urban society,which has come to a rupture with the traditional one.Red⁃burn also explores the American national identity in his travel to discover that America should create its own culture,instead of following the old world because of the latter’s corrupted social reality and institutions.