（英语语言文学专业论文）福斯特小说的生态批评.pdf

南京航空航天大学硕士学位论文 i 摘 要 摘 要 福斯特是一位有着自由人文主义理想的中产阶级知识分子， 其思想主要表现 为“唯有连接”的乌托邦理想，即认为人际关系和艺术是人生中最为重要的事 情。福斯特的连接观发轫于剑桥，并受到布卢姆斯伯里学术团体的影响，成为其 一生所恪守和追求的信念。福斯特认为，英国中产阶级主流社会在公立学校的规 训下， 有着“一颗发育不良的心灵”， 成为建立良好人际关系过程中的障碍。 福 斯特的自由人文主义理想与当时主流社会的帝国主义理想格格不入。他逆流而 行，在他所属的时代发出自己独特的声音。当以吉卜琳为代表的帝国主义者和帝 国作家为其白人的负担和传播文明的使命大唱赞歌并洋洋自得时， 福斯特背道而 驰，批判帝国主义的丑恶行径及其对跨种族的人际关系的破坏。福斯特追寻人与 自然的和谐共存， 以及人与人之间美好和睦的关系， 反对任何形式的独裁与压迫。 本论文试图通过运用生态批评理论来分析福斯特，通过研究福斯特的六部小说， 天使不敢涉足之地 ， 漫长的旅程 ， 看得见风景的房间 ， 霍华德庄园和 印度之行 ，考察生态批评的浪漫主义渊源及作家的绿色思想和社会关怀来说 明福斯特的生态思想。 本论文共分五章，第一章是引言，简要介绍可以运用生态批评的福斯特小说 的主题，生态思想的研究现状，以及预设论点：福斯特是一位具有环境意识和生 态思想的作家。 第二章追溯生态批评的浪漫主义渊源，强调人类对于自然环境的自发反应， 并说明人类心灵与景色的互动性可以实现自我认识。 第三章展示福斯特渴望归隐田园、 归隐山林以躲避工业化的威胁以及人们对 异常性取向的歧视，表现了自然使人物回归自我的救赎力量。 第四章运用生态女性主义及社会生态主义的理论，表现福斯特对于帝国主 义，殖民主义，种族歧视，性别歧视等社会问题的关注。 福斯特通过反对帝国 主义和资本主义，提倡文化多元化，阶级多元化来反对各种形式的独断专制。 第五章是结论， 认为福斯特的环境意识和生态思想奠定了他卓越的自由人 an ecological approach to forsters novels ii 文主义作家的地位。 关键词：关键词： 永恒的时刻， 山林，自然，反帝国主义，反资本主义，反中心化，多 元化 南京航空航天大学硕士学位论文 iii abstract forster is a british middle-class intellectual with liberal humanistic ideal, mainly expressed in his “only connect” motto. in his eyes, personal relations and art are the most important things in life. forsters “only connect” ideal develops at cambridge under the great influence of the bloomsbury group, and later becomes his life-long creed. he holds the belief that the british middle class is hypoplastic in mind in the public-school system which turns out to be a barrier in the establishment of good personal relations. forsters liberal humanistic ideal is incompatible with the ambition of the contemporary imperialists. he goes against the stream and airs out his unique voice in his time. while the imperialistic writers and the empire builders, represented by rudyard kipling, are enthusiastically praising the empire building efforts and feel complacent with the white mans obligation and glorious mission of civilizing the dark continent, forster takes the opposite road, criticizing the inhuman imperialism and condemning it for undermining the interracial personal relations. he quests for harmonious coexistence of man and nature as well as harmonious relationship among human beings, and rejects to every form of domination in the world. all these ideas are embodied in his environmental consciousness shown in his works. an ecological study of his novels may lead to an in-depth understanding of forsters novels, and to decoding the imperialist world. this thesis makes a careful research on where angels fear to tread, the longest journey, a room with a view, howards end, a passage to india and maurice from the perspective of ecology. by exploring the romantic ecology, the green moral and his social concern by illustrating forsters ecological philosophy the thesis aims at revealing the true nature of imperialism, and contributing to ecocriticism. this thesis is divided into five chapters. the first chapter is an introduction, in which a brief account is given of the theme of forsters novels to which ecological approach can be applied, the present situation of the study of ecocriticism and the intended conclusions that forster is a writer of environmental consciousness and an ecological approach to forsters novels iv ecological ideology. chapter two traces ecocriticism to its romantic pastoral origin which emphasizes humans spontaneous spiritual reaction to his environment and explains that the interactivity of landscape and mind may lead to self-consciousness. chapter three illustrates the countryside as a refuge to protect the tradition threatened by industrialization and modernity, and the greenwood as a shelter for deviant sexual orientation. it argues for the redemptive and unifying force of nature, through which the character may discover his intrinsic self. in chapter four, forsters social concern about such problems as imperialism and colonization, racial and gender discrimination is dealt with by social ecological and eco-feministic approaches. in terms of the subject of anti-imperialism and anti- capitalism, forster celebrates culture and class diversity, and opposes all forms of domination on grounds of race, culture, class and sexual orientation. the last chapter concludes that it is due to the environmental consciousness and ecological philosophy that forster exceeds other liberal humanistic authors in his age. key words: eternal moment, greenwood, nature, anti-imperial, anti-capitalism, decentralization, diversity 承诺书 本人郑重声明：所呈交的学位论文，是本人在导师指导下，独立 进行研究工作所取得的成果。尽我所知，除文中已经注明引用的内容 外，本学位论文的研究成果不包含任何他人享有著作权的内容。对本 论文所涉及的研究工作做出贡献的其他个人和集体， 均已在文中以明 确方式标明。 本人授权南京航空航天大学可以有权保留送交论文的复印件， 允 许论文被查阅和借阅,可以将学位论文的全部或部分内容编入有关数 据库进行检索，可以采用影印、缩印或其他复制手段保存论文。 (保密的学位论文在解密后适用本承诺书。) 作者签名： 日 期： 南京航空航天大学硕士学位论文 1 chapter i. introduction e. m. forster, an important cultural critic as henry david thoreau, “actively reinvisioned environmentalist dissent within western culture.” (buell, 1995: 22) like thoreau, forster analyzes different environmental issues-literary, ecological, sexual-that all the british authors pastoral novels addressed. under the broad sign of the “natural”, forsters “greenwood” concept balances the national homosexual subject of english pastoral romance against the connotation of englishness in an imperial world system. the theme of where angels fear to tread, forsters first work, is the effect of a foreign country and a strange culture upon insular ideas and provincial personalities. since the renaissance, and especially in the 18th century, it has been a common phenomenon of moralists and intellectuals to admire the exotic flavor of foreign lands. the 19th century is the great age of travel. the intellectuals surrendered gratefully to the ways of the strange countries and plunged into the criticism of their own culture. the charm they found was no doubt sentimental, however, it was also moral. this is a story of the conquest of commonplace suburban english respectability by italian charm, by cheerful, graceful and rather brutal paganism. in another italian-setting novel a room with a view, he illustrates the conflict between naturalness and conventionality, the conflict between the inward promptings of the self and conformity to external codes of behavior. the blood on the photographs is symbolic. nothing could be more artful, more suggestive than it in this story about naturalness and the body. it begins the destruction of the bonds of george and lucy. lucys insistence on convention starts to give way before the possibility of passion. “one doesnt come to italy for niceness, one comes for life.” （rwv，3） both of the italian-setting novels evoke the atmosphere and spirit of italy with special intensity. in a room with a view and where angels fear to tread, the juxtaposition of italy an ecological approach to forsters novels 2 and england serves as a major structural principle for contrasting two approaches to life: the instinctive and the conventional. in the english novels, the longest journey, howards end and maurice, the structure rests on contrasts within english society; consequently communities and houses play a more important symbolic role than in the italian novels. the tripartite division of the longest journey into cambridge, sawston, and wiltshire corresponds to three different responses to life, and also marks the main stages in the development of the hero sensitive to places. in howards end there is no similar formal division, but mrs. wilcoxs house howards end is contrasted with london to symbolize the conflict between continuity and change in english society in the edwardian period. this theme is the continuity of the english tradition, and the question is who shall inherit england, which all three novels specifically ask. each attempts to give an answer in a final pastoral code. nature through earth and place functions as redemptive power. margaret in howard end is aware of the superhuman reality which can never be fully comprehended by man, like tony failing who trusts in human brotherhood, and like stephen wonham who finds in earth a unifying force. hence, though the transcendent and physical realities for margaret remain separate, the earth relationship affords a sense of linkage between them. a passage to india, forsters best-known novel, bears obvious marks of originating from two different periods in the uneasy social history of indian and anglo-indian relationships. the theme is separateness. the separation of race from race, sex from sex, culture from culture, even of man from himself, is what underlies every relation. race has sucked each of the friends in opposite camps into his own background. each race is to the other “people whose emotions they could not share.” they offend one another. it is a case of mass misunderstanding, of the people with different complexion, different language, and different mind staring at one another myopically across a ravine. they are great races with different heritage and history, 南京航空航天大学硕士学位论文 3 unwilling to understand others. by analyzing the themes of these novels, we may discover forsters idea that humans should seek for self realization by getting rid of the external code, and it is through the displacement of location that characters reach their transfiguration. forster quests for a peaceful life, especially with focus on spiritual activities such as reading and listening to music in the countryside which is prevented from the invasion of industrialization and urbanization. he is looking for the harmonious relationship among human beings regardless of their gender, race and class difference all the time. however, the edwardian situation is not as ideal as forsters imagination. the peaceful country life was threatened by the impending of industrialization, and the connection between humans cannot be achieved because of imperialism, colonization and discrimination. all these issues above become the concerns of ecocriticism. the term related to “ecocriticism” emerged in 1970s. american scholar joseph meeker used the term “literary ecology” in the comedy of survival: studies in literary ecology in 1974. he suggests that literary criticism should explore the relations between humans and other beings revealed by literature and examine the influence of literature on human behaviors and natural environment. we may see that meeker pointed out the two tendencies of ecocriticism as early as 1970s. in the same year, another american scholar william kroeber introduced the concepts “ecology” and “ecological” into literary criticism in his the ascendant green literary study: ecocriticism. in 1978, kroeber used the term “ecocriticism” first in his article “literature and ecology: an experiment in ecology” published in iowa review. he combined clearly literature with ecology. in 1985, american scholar frederick o. wage collected the course descriptions of nineteen teachers of environmental literature in teaching environmental literature: materials, methods, resources, which “plays an important role in stimulating american professors to offer a course in ecoliterature and study it.”(wang, 2002: 49) ecocriticism, as a theory of literary an ecological approach to forsters novels 4 criticism, began to flourish in 1990s in europe and america. it has received more and more attention of western scholars. in 1991, bate, british professor in liverpool university, also used the term “literary ecocriticism” in romantic ecology, a monograph of romantic literature from ecological perspective. some scholars think that the publication of the book marks the beginning of british ecocriticism. in october 1992, the association for the study of literature and environment (asle) was founded to promote the exchange of ideas and information about literature and other cultural representations regarding human relationships with the natural world. ecocriticism opens up a new field in literary studies. with its appearance in 1990s, various opinions occurred on how to define the term “ecocriticism”. up till now the definition often quoted by most scholars has been the one given by cheryll glotfelty, the first professor of literature and environment in america: ecocriticism is the study of the relationship between literature and the physical environmenttakes an earth-centered approach to literary studies. literary theory, in general, investigates the relations between writers, texts, and the world. in most literary theory, the world is synonymous with society - the social sphere. ecocriticism expands the notion of the world to include the entire ecosphere.” (glotfelty, 1996: 18) jonathan bate, the writer of the song of the earth also gives a meaningful definition ecocriticism which includes two aspects. first, it refers to the influence of literature or culture on nature, in other words, human attitudes toward nature influenced by literature or culture lead to the change of nature or ecological degradation. environmentalist claims as above make crucial contributions to modern politics and culture. the second aspect of the definition is that ecocriticism is to explore the relations between humans and nature by analyzing literary works from the ecological perspective. william rueckert suggests that ecocriticism should apply ecology and the concepts related to ecology to literary studies. he advocates that 南京航空航天大学硕士学位论文 5 literary critics should have the ecological vision. ecocriticism is to “the broad rethinking of the relations between humans and nature.” (heise,1997: 35) as a theoretical discourse, it negotiates between the human and the non-human. ecocriticism is “the critical and pedagogical broadening of literary studies to include texts that deal with the nonhuman world and our relationship to it.”(cokinos, 1994： 89) ecocriticism also provides a political mode of analysis. ecocritics generally tie their cultural analysis explicitly to a green moral and political agenda. in this respect, ecocriticism is closely related to the environmentally oriented developments in philosophy and political theory. developing the insights of earlier critical movements, ecofeminists, social ecologists and environmental justice advocates seek a synthesis of environmental and social concerns. environmentalism is relatively young as a social, political and philosophical movement, but a number of eco-philosophies have already created an organic theoretical system. each approach understands environmental crisis in its own way, and each one provides the basis for a distinct ecocritical approach with specific literary or cultural affinities. of the four radical forms of environmentalism, deep ecology is the most influential, inspiring many activities such as friends of the earth, earth first! norwegian philosopher arne naess sets out eight key points of the deep ecology in george sessions definitive anthology deep ecology for the 21st century. the crucial ones are as follows: deep ecology is concerned with encouraging an egalitarian attitude on the part of humans not only toward all members of the ecosphere, but even toward all identifiable entities or forms in the ecosphere. thus, this attitude is intended to extend, for example, to such entities as rivers, landscapes, and even species and social systems considered in their own right. (sessions 1995:270) an ecological approach to forsters novels 6 the advocates of “deep ecological” practice do not strive to protect the non- human world because human life depends upon natures wellbeing. the deep ecologists concern for nature springs from the knowledge that all creatures deserve human respect and care because, as “teleological centers of purpose,” (hargrove, 1992: 128) they are valuable of themselves regardless of their uses. deep ecologys critique of anthropocentric systems of value that instrumentalize non-human creatures and natural environments has led some of its practitioners to advocate an alternative mode of identification with nature. according to naess, human beings must adopt an ethic of “identification” with all things, a mode of relationship involving “an extension of sympathy that reaches so far and becomes so constant that the self loses any desire to differentiate between itself and the world” (pite, 1996: 362) in order to avoid tyrannizing over the non-human realm. in this “return to a monistic, primal identification of humans and the ecosphere” (garrard, 1998:113) in which the ecosphere is understood as an extension of the human self. deep ecology certainly challenges the oppositional dualism subject/object which inspires enlightenment science. but such a profound identification with nature also leads to giving up critical “self-reflexivity” that may arouse political implications. deep ecology identifies the anthropocentric dualism “humanity/nature” as the ultimate source of anti-ecological beliefs and practices, while eco-feminism also blames the androcentric dualism “man/woman”. the first distinguishes humans from nature on the grounds of some quality such as possession of an immortal soul or rationality, and then assumes that this distinction confers superiority upon humans. the second distinguishes men from women on the grounds of some quality such as larger brain size, and then assumes that this distinction confers superiority upon men. ecofeminism recognizes that these two arguments share a common “logic of domination” or underlying “master model”, that “women have been associated with nature, the material, the emotional, and the particular, while men have been associated 南京航空航天大学硕士学位论文 7 with culture, the nonmaterial, the