伦敦腔、都市情怀与帝国中心——文学消费市场中的《匹克威克外传》

The Pickwick Papers in the Literary Market

狄更斯在《匹克威克外传》中使用伦敦腔来塑造城市下层人物形象,迎合了19世纪前期英国读者的阅读需求。他选择社会中下层人士作为主要读者群,利用伦敦都市情怀和帝国情结为他们编制了一个温婉的美学幻象。《匹克威克外传》每期均制成文学册页售卖,以连载形式激发读者的好奇心与获得感,迅速打入文学快速消费品市场,唤醒和刺激了中下层民众潜藏已久的文学消费欲望,推动了英国文学市场的大繁荣。

Cockney,an accent spoken in the East End of London,was used by Charles Dickens in The Pickwick Papers to characterize a man of lower class to cater to the readers of his age.Dickens chose the middle class and the lower class as his target readers and created a gentle and aesthetic illusion which was based on affections for cosmopolitan London and the Empire.The Pickwick Papers,as a form of fast-moving consumer goods,was serialized in the form of cheap pamphlets to trigger and keep the curiosity of the readers.It wakened and aroused the hidden desire for the consumption of literature,contributing to the expansion and prosperity of the nineteenth-century literary market in Britain.