【作者】 谢青；

【导师】 乔国强；

【作者基本信息】 上海外国语大学 ， 英语语言文学， 2008， 硕士

【摘要】 美国自由主义大师约翰·罗尔斯(John Rawls)曾经用“无知之幕”(Curtain of Ignorance)来假设人类在社会尚无等级划分而个人也不知道自身的社会等级等先置概念的原初状态下,所可以达到的社会公正与评判公正状态。这是一个相当理想主义的正义前提,在社会学上往往被斥为过于理想主义。然而,将这个理论运用到本文的写作上,却是非常合适的。《丛林故事》是笔者最早阅读到的吉卜林的作品,其阅读状态完全可以用“无知之幕”来形容,也就是说,直到阅读结束并把整个作品翻译成了中文,笔者依然对其作者的个人情况无所了解——既不知道他是第一位获得了诺贝尔文学奖的英国作家,也不知道他在英国文学史中诸多充满矛盾的名声。笔者完全折服于书中一个个精彩的故事,以及蕴涵于其中的,对于人类世界和普遍人性的真知灼见。以不同形式为外壳写现实的世界是英国学者的传统。这并不奇怪,因为盎格鲁——撒克逊民族一向以对世界、人类社会,以及人本身有着深刻认知而著称。因此,在他们的写作中无一不流露出现实主义的犀利。当然,她也是一个充满理想的民族,因此,在对现实嘲讽而深刻的描写中,又不乏理想主义的光芒。吉卜林的《丛林故事》也时时刻刻流露着这样的信息。《丛林故事》是吉卜林最受欢迎的作品之一,共分两部,含十五个短篇故事,多数由描写印度狼孩莫格利丛林历险的系列故事组成,此外,还包含了少数独立成篇的小故事。《丛林故事》向来被归为儿童文学之列,在西方,尤其是孩子们中,家喻户晓。然而,在精彩的故事背后,它却是一部现实的神话(a myth of reality)。它从完全自然的生物的角度对世界(包括自然世界和人类社会)和人性进行了生动描述和深刻剖析。同时,它也是一部理想主义的高歌。因为,吉卜林在《丛林故事》中,既传达了上至古希腊时代,人类对世界认知的现实主义思想,也承载了盎格鲁——撒克逊民族自启蒙时代以来所承传的理想主义情怀。其中,亦蕴涵了吉卜林本人对康德式道德律令的渴望。作为一位诺贝尔文学奖的获得者、一位在英国文学史上如此惹人争议的人物,国外对吉卜林的研究可谓汗牛充栋。然而,由于种种原因,这个领域在国内却处于明显单薄的状态。同时,一些先置因素的存在,导致了在对吉卜林本人的思维和其文本进行分析时,存在着一定的模式化倾向。本文则努力从一个新的视野,以吉卜林的“丛林法则”为中心,以人文思想史中现实主义和理想主义两大流派为线索,对吉卜林的这两部有代表性的文本进行新的、比较全面的阐释。本文分为三大部分:第一部分探讨了存在于吉卜林所谓的“丛林世界”中的两个隐喻,着重阐释其文本中的现实主义色彩,并将其思维的理论根基追溯至古希腊时代,以及其后沿革至英国启蒙时代思想家对世界的认知。以此,表明吉卜林深邃的现实主义眼光;第二部分着力探讨吉卜林在《丛林故事》中所体现的理想主义情怀,这既有吉卜林本人的性格因素使然,更来自于盎格鲁——撒克逊民族传统的人文关怀;第三部分则从后殖民主义理论出发,结合《丛林故事》中的《虔诚信徒的奇迹》,重点解析吉卜林在文本中所流露出的东西文化融合情结,及其对东方文化的理解。从根本上而言,本文的写作是一种跨学科的尝试,将文学故事文本和人文思想史相结合进行考察,以“形而上”为主,“形而下”为辅,透过文本的壳,解析作品以及作者的灵魂,力图将一部历久弥新的作品和一个伟大的作家呈献给还未了解他们的读者。更多还原

【Abstract】 John Rawls, the American giant on liberalism, once used Curtain of Ignorance to be the hypothesis for an unbiased judgment and the accomplishment of social justice, i.e. people were put in a primitive situation without knowing either their social classifications or prefixed social identities. Unarguably, it is a very ideal hypothesis; therefore it has been under attack of being too ideal to be utilized in sociology. However, the conception is quite useful in the writing of this thesis. The two Jungle Books are the first contact between Kipling and the author of the thesis. In fact, the author performed the reading under the Curtain of Ignorance, simply fascinated by the thrilling plots, the master of language usage, and the keen insight into human nature presented in the two books, while without any knowledge of the writer himself, neither his great fame as a winner of Nobel Prize for literature, nor his controversial notorieties in the history of English literature. Not surprisingly, since the Anglo-Saxon has been enjoying its great fame for the genuine knowledge of the human world and the human nature, describing a real world in diversified forms has been a tradition in the British scholars. In this case, the works from this nation are undoubtedly full of realistic sharpness, while sparkling with idealism and optimism in the light that the Anglo-Saxon also has been called a mild nation. So is true with Kipling’s works.The two Jungle Books are two of the most popular works from Kipling, which consist of two volumes, including fifteen short stories, most of which are serial stories about the adventures of an Indian wolf-boy called Mowgli. There are also some other independent short stories unconnected to the Mowgli stories in the two books. Traditionally, the two Jungle Books have been classified in children’s books, well-known to the readers, particularly to the children, in the western world. The two Jungle Books are an integrated project, a myth of reality indeed behind the fascinating plots and narrations, for it is an excellent anatomy to human world and human nature from a pure natural creature’s perspectives. It is also an ode for idealism, for Kipling not only used them to convey the sharp realism which can be dated back to the ancient Hellenic time, but also used them to carry on the humanitarian care in idealism of his own nation down from the Enlightenment era, in which Kipling revealed his longing for a Kantian Morality.As a winner of Nobel Prize for literature and meanwhile a highly controversial figure in English literature, Kipling has been a hot topic for foreign critics. Compared with that, the studies in this field seem quite backward in China, for which historical subterfuges can be an explanation. Moreover, some premises have oriented the studies of the analysis both on Kipling’s thoughts and his works. The thesis endeavours to offer a relatively new and comprehensive analysis on the two Jungle Books from new perspectives, with Kipling’s Law of the Jungle as the core and the two major schools--realism and idealism--in humanitarian thoughts as the thread.The thesis consists of three parts: the first part discusses the two metaphors lying in Kipling’s jungle world by tracing their theoretical base in Hellenic time and the enlightenment era in Britain, thereby, to show Kipling’s keen insight to the real world; the second part emphasises the idealistic passion presented by Kipling in virtue of his stories in the two Jungle Books, which, of course, partly comes from Kipling’s personalities, moreover, from the humanitarian cares in Anglo-Saxon heritage; the third part starts with postcolonialism theories, combining with a key story, The Miracle of Purun Bhagat in The Second Jungle Book, to analyze Kipling’s complex on the East-West reconciliation and his understanding to the eastern culture.In essence, the writing of the thesis is a cross-disciplinary endeavour. It is a combined survey of the texts and the history of humanitarian thoughts, with the refined theories as the main argumentations while the details in the texts as the supportive materials, in the hope to penetrate the outlook of the two Jungle Books into the deep soul concealed in the two great works, as well as into the soul of the individual called Kipling; thereby presenting the two Jungle Books and their author, both of whom have secured a lasting charm through the test of time, to the readers who are not familiar to them yet.更多还原