《辛格顿船长》中的金子与18世纪英国国家身份的悖论

The“Gold”in Captain Singleton and the Paradox of English National Identity in the 18 Century

笛福的小说《辛格顿船长》讲述了英国商人辛格顿在非洲等地通过海盗式贸易掠夺金子并带回国储藏的经历,由此揭示了18世纪英国晚期重商主义货币政策的两幅面孔。晚期重商主义一方面重视在国内缔造货币和商业秩序,另一方面又鼓励英国商人在海外从事掠夺性贸易,使得这一时期的英国国家身份在现代普惠式商业国家与海盗式帝国之间游移。辛格顿结束其海外探险以商人面目回归英国的过程可以理解为英国净化自身形象,凸显其现代商业社会特征的象征。小说并不止步于勾连货币政策与国家身份的建构。更为重要的是,笛福借助一种糅合传奇和写实的新的虚构体裁解构了18世纪英国人所宣扬的英国推动了全球经济发展的观点,强调了18世纪英国国家身份挥之不去的阴暗面。总的来说,《辛格顿船长》对金子的描写揭示了18世纪英国国家身份悖论的经济根源,具有鲜明的文化批判功能。

Defoe’s novel,Captain Singleton,tells the story of the English merchant Singleton’s experience of plundering gold in Africa and other places through piratical trade and bringing it home for storage,thus revealing the double faces of the English late mercantilist monetary policy in 18^(th) century.On the one hand,late mercantilism emphasized establishing monetary and commercial order at home;on the other hand,however,it encouraged English businessmen to engage in predatory trade overseas.All this made English national identity vacillate between a modern patronizing commercial country and a piratical empire.The process of Singleton’s return to England as a businessman after putting his overseas exploration to an end can be understood as an embodiment of England’s efforts to purify its image and highlight its characteristics as a modern commercial society.The novel does not stop at combining monetary policy with the construction of national identity.More importantly,Defoe deconstructed,by using a new fictional genre that blends romance and realism,the English claim in the 18^(th) century that England promoted the global economic development and underscored the lingering dark side of the English national identity in the 18^(th) century.Generally speaking,the description of"gold"in Captain Singleton reveals the economic origin of the paradox of English national identity in the 18^(th) century and,therefore,has a distinctive function of cultural criticism.