上海圣约翰大学时期林语堂英语短篇小说研究——以《南方小村生活》和《善波》为例

A Study of Lin Yutang’s English Short Stories in St.John’s University in Shanghai:With A Life in a Southern Village and San-Po as a Case Study

林语堂在上海圣约翰大学时期发表的《南方小村生活》(1914年)和《善波》(1915年)等两篇英语原创性短篇小说是其小说创作学徒时期的主要代表,也是其一生致力于向西方“讲好中国故事”的起点。这两篇短篇小说体现了林语堂早期英语小说创作在叙事视角、内容、结构、修辞和用语等方面的叙事特征和写作特色,是其后期长篇英语小说创作的雏形。

Lin Yutang’s two original English short stories,A Life in a Southern Village and San-Po,published in 1914 and 1915,are the most representative works in his apprenticeship in fictional creation at St.John’s University in Shanghai,which is also the starting point of his lifelong commitment to“telling the story of China well”to the West.A close reading of the two short stories reflects the narrative features and writing features of Lin Yutang’s early English fictional creation in terms of narrative perspective,content,structure,rhetoric and language,which are the embryonic form of his later English novels.