《湖上夫人》:如画旅行中的多重凝视

Gazes over the Picturesque Tour in The Lady of the Lake

沃尔特·司各特被誉为英国历史小说之父,但其选材角度、写作手法及民族史观与审美观等均形成于他早年的诗歌创作,并成熟于他最得意的叙事长诗《湖上夫人》。在《湖上夫人》中,司各特通过呈现陌生来客在苏格兰高地如画旅行引发的多重凝视图景,复现了一幅16世纪苏格兰地理景观图。这一景观图通过浪漫化和美化苏格兰高地的自然与人文景观述说了诗人对苏格兰传统满怀眷恋,同时又以浓郁的人文关怀与帝国情怀陈述了苏格兰与英格兰之间边缘与中心、地方与中央的挣扎关系,表达了诗人渴望构建一个以英格兰为中心、尊重各民族差异的、统一的大不列颠民族的宏愿。

Walter Scott is considered the father of English historical novels,yet his aesthetics,writing angle selection and techniques,historical views on ethnics,etc.are all formed from his early poetry creation,and mature in his most proud poem The Lady of the Lake.This poem reconstructs a 16 th century Scottish world,through illustrating multi-visions rising from the picturesque tour travelers and travellees’external,internal and inter-gazes.This world,recurring in Scott’s novels from time to time,expresses Scott’s sentimental attachment to Scottish tradition by mapping a romantic and beautified highland landscape,his cognition of the struggling relation between centered England and marginalized Scotland with humanistic care and empire feelings,and his hope to develop an England-centered,ethnic-differentiated,and kingdom-unified Great Britain.