十八世纪英国文学中的茶叶书写——茶与帝国野心(观察之一)

Tea Writing in Eighteenth Century English Literature——Tea and Imperial Ambition

茶叶作为中英贸易、文化交流之重要商品与物质,是英国早在18世纪前后就想要占有的重要物质资源,同时作为该时代下英国文学书写的一重要元素屡被提及。本文采用比较文学的视角,以18世纪诗歌、文章、小报等文学形式对茶叶的书写为切入点,深度分析自茶叶进入英国之初有产阶级颂诗嫁接于中国民间传说之起源,嵌入西方众神之辩论;到茶叶在英国社会各阶层风行,乃至传入欧洲民间的饮茶风气;再到英国社会各界人士对于茶叶的批判,及其最终无可阻挡的发展趋势。并试图辅助以同一时期英国乃至欧洲的史料及艺术资料,提炼其中蕴含的英帝国渴望发展文化融合,以及占有他国茶叶生产资料的政治与贸易野心。

As an important commodity and object of China and Britain's trade and cultural exchange, tea was an important material resource that Britain wanted to possess as early as the 18th century and was also mentioned repeatedly as an important element of British literary writing in that period. In this article, a comparative literary perspective will be adopted from the writing of tea in 18th-century poetry, essays, tabloids and other literary forms as a starting point. The essay will analyse in depth from the origins of the ode grafted on Chinese folk legends and embedded in the debates on the Western gods at the beginning of tea's entry into Britain;to the popularity of tea among all social classes in Britain, and even the spread of the tea-drinking culture to European society;to the critical materials on tea by people from all sectors of British society, and the tea's eventual unstoppable trend to be popular. The essay also attempts to use historical and artistic sources from the same period in Britain and Europe to distil the political and trading ambitions of the British Empire to develop cultural fusion and to take possession of the tea resources of other countries.