安徒生对英国文学的影响

1、The Impact of Hans Christia n An derse n on Victoria n Ficti onJacqueli ne Ban erjee, PhD, Con tributi ng Editor, UKThis is the third of three edited and updated excerpts from an essay entitled Hans Christian Andersen and the Victorians,which appeared in translation in Literature, Culture and Histor

2、y in Victorian England: A Festschrift for Professor Matsumura 仃 okyo: Eiho-sha, 1999. 68-89).Of Hans Christian Andersenstwo hundred and more short pieces, less than twentyappeared in volumes subtitled Told for Children, and these volumes were the first few, published whe n the young and impec unious

3、 Danish author was desperate for a share of the market (see De Mylius, 168-69). His dedicati ons to Dicke ns soon con firmed that he had no intention of limiting his audienee to children. In the event, many other eminent Victoria ns besidesThackeray were greatly take n with his work. Not all were pu

4、t off, asDicke ns even tually was, by his pers onal gauche nessand egotism. In deed, ElizabethBarrett Browning s last poem, in spired by An derse ns visit to Italy in 1861, extols him not only as a seer with a poets ton gue, but also as a man of men (The North and the South). Con seque ntly, An ders

5、e n as well as the Grimms had a pervasive and profo und effect on Victoria n fictio n throughout the period. Fairy tales were writte n even by major figures like Ruski n (The Ki ng of the Golde n River) and eve n the major no vels are moulded by fairy-tale themes and structures (Wullschl?ger 101). L

6、ike the dren ched girlwho kno cks on the city gate in a storm at the begi nning of An derse ns The Prin cess and the Pea, the plainly dressed Jane Eyre wins the hero by her extraordinary sensitivity; likeThe Mill on the Floss is onethe ungainly chick in The Ugly Duckling, Maggie Tulliver in of many

7、plain or tomboyish young heroines who turn into beauties. And even though successive Victorian translators sought to push his tales further and further into the nu rsery, one of the writers most directly in flue need by An derse n was work ing at the very end of the period. This was Oscar Wilde , wh

8、ose own fairy tales play more elaborately, sometimes less successfully, but always intriguingly on ideas, themes and motifs in troduced by the Danish author.As for Thackeray himself, he adopts a very similar n arrative pers ona to An derse n, shak ing his head over the follies of his characters and

9、sigh ing slightly mock in gly with them over their disappo in ted loves. If this sta nee is egotistical, it is someth ing the two writers share. The later chapters of Vanity Fair, written after Thackerays first enthralled acqua intance with An derse ns work, ofte n echo his work. The gree n-eyed Bec

10、ky Sharpe is memorably depicted in Chapter 64 as a siren with a fishy tail, the product of an un dersea world as horribly evil as that in habited by the sea-witch in An derse ns Little Mermaid, and there is someth ing of An derse n, too, in the Ion g-sufferi ng Dobb ins famous criticism of Amelia in

11、 Chapter 66 as unworthy of his great love. Like Andersens The Young Swin eherd, the clumsy Dobb in has in deed tur ned out to be a prince in disguise, and Amelia deserves some home truths for faili ng to resp ond adequately to him, just as the Emperors silly daughter does in that story. Signi fica n

12、tly, Geoffrey Tillots onfinds anallusi on to An derse ns The Sno w-Quee n in a letter justify ing the dissatisfy ing ending of Vanity Fair (208; see Letters 2: 423ff.). After this, fairy tale devices came to dominate Thackerays plots more and more, with heroes like George Esmond in The Virginiansbei

13、ng rewarded for their struggles by sudde n cha nges of fortune. Thackeray made fun of the fairy tale genre in The Rose and the Ring: A Fireside Pan tomime for Great or Small Children , but his serious novels were deeply permeated by it.The same can be and has bee n said of Dicke ns . Harry Stone has

14、 dem on strated convincin gly how, through the magic and tech nique of fairy tales, Dicke ns found that he could con vey life in its exactitude, while at the same time dramatiz ing and comme nti ng on that deceptive exactitude and depict ing its in tricate mystery (69). The result, in a no vel like

15、Great Expectations , is a more profound and complete realism (197). Like Stone, most critics concen trate on the in flue nee on Dicke ns of his childhood readi ng. Q. D. Leavis, however, pays special atte nti on to Dicke nss readi ng of An derse n as an adult. In stead of simply recalli ng the no ve

16、lists relief after his Danish house-guests departure, and dismiss ing the whole thing as rather a comic in terlude, Leavis suggests that Dicke nss familiarity with An derse ns work made its own subtle and valuable con tributi ons to his art.For example, Leavis no tes Dicke nss rapture at, and con fe

17、ssed con sta nt re-read ing of, An derse ns tale The Old House (131-32). This is not one of the popular tales at all. It tells of a young boy who becomes fasci nated by a dilapidated old house opposite his own, and at len gth pays two visits to the lonely old man who lives there, tak ing him a littl

18、e tin soldier for compa ny. Leavis suggests that An derse ns ability to recapture his little heros con scious ness in this story in spired the ope ning chapters ofDavid Copperfield .In deed,The Old House appeared in A Christmas Greet ing to My En glish Frie nds before it eve n appeared in Denm ark,

19、and it was in the year follow ing its publicati on in 1847 that Dicke ns bega n to tur n his mind in creas in gly to his own childhood past. He bega n the novel which was to be his favourite child at the end of February 1849, and wrote with a new in ward ness of David Copperfields very earliest memo

20、ries of his first home. Critics have long won dered how Dicke ns came to achieve this in ward ness, in sist ing that he must have read the Bront ?s despite his own disclaimers (see Ackroyd 837). But if any literary expla nati on is n eeded, surely his avowed enjoyme nt of The Old House provides a mu

21、ch better one. Leavis could have picked out more specific and dist inct echoes of An derse n, too. As a chilled, anxious, ragged child, Jenny Wren in Our Mutual Friend , for example, cries out to the an gels, Take me up and make me light! (290), a curious way of ask ing for release which may well ta

22、ke something from The Little Match Girl, first published about twenty years before.Likely and specific (rather tha n gen eral) examples of An derse ns in flue nee can alsobe found in other major authors works. One such is inSilas Marner, which George Eliotsaid in a letter of 24 February 1861 came to

23、 her as a sort of lege ndary tale (Letters 3:382). Here, Silass years of Ion eli ness and desolati on are bani shed by the happ in ess of cari ng for a child, much as Ibs are in An derse ns Ib and Little Christi na; like Ibs little charge, Silass too is associated with gold, sunshine and joy. Even h

24、er name, Eppie, carries a hint of Andersens story about it. A. S. Byatt claims that George Eliot was a writer who used or reworked incidents and themes from her early reading more than most (548), and the ending of The Mill on the Flossprovides ano ther example. Sibli ngattachme nt is sublimated her

25、e in a sce ne which could have come straight out of An derse n: whe n Maggie and Tom Tulliver are borne dow n by the flood through the gold water, and sink ben eath it i n an embrace n ever to be parted, it is a supreme mome nt like so many in An derse ns work whe n death comes in a radia nt burst o

26、f overwhel ming love (542).However, li nks betwee n An derse n and Victoria n literature are no where clearer tha n in the writings of Oscar Wilde. Extraordinary as it may seem, this young, brilliant and fashi on able fin de si cle aesthete found a soul-mate in the poorly educated, socially in ept a

27、nd strikingly ugly Danish writer. The two writers tones of voice are sometimes indistinguishable. Naturally, this is most obvious in Wildes fairy stories, where, like An derse n, he ofte n uses ani mals, pla nts and inani mate objects to express the affectati on of officialdom, the limited world-vie

28、w of the literati, and (above all) the bitter-sweet and ofte n un recog ni zed sacrifices of the truly sen sitive soul. Perhaps a sense of victimizati on is what binds the two writers work most closely. At first sight, Wildes The RemarkableRocket about the self-importantfirework whose only impact is

29、 on a silly goose, readsmost like one of Andersens tales. But here Wilde seems to be mocking himself, someth ing which An derse n only rarely does. Closer in spirit to the An derse n of, say, The Steadfast Tin Soldier are The Happy Prince and The Nightingale and the Rose. In these well-k nown works,

30、 Wilde prese nts the theme of self-sacrifice through a statue and two birds whose hearts are moved by others, but whose efforts to alleviate their sufferi ngs pass un recog ni zed in an un grateful world. Both An derse ns tin soldier and Wildes statue are throw n into fires in the end; but, much as

31、the former melts to a heart-shaped lump, so the latters lead heart survives, to be taken (together with the dead swallow which had comforted him) straight to God. It is worth poin ti ng out that Wildes stories are take n very seriously by the critics; only a few, no tably The Happy Prin ce and The S

32、elfish Gian t, are see n as tales specifically for childre n.sought shelter behind the cake-womans petticoats , by Honor Appleton, from the Nelson edition ofHans Andersens FairyTales, 1932. Right: The Transformation. Great God! Can it be! Theatrical Poster for an American performance of R. L. Steven

33、sens The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde , from the Library of Congress Digital Image gallery, late 1880s.Wildes version of The Little Mermaid, entitled The Fisherman and his Soul, dema nds special atte nti on. It is more elaborate tha n An derse ns, and its con voluti ons suggest that the fai

34、ry tale form was now too con stra ining for Wilde. But the main problem may be that he had ano ther of An derse ns stories in mind here as well. This was The Shadow, a reworki ng of an earlier n arrative to which An derse n actually refers in his tale, though not by name this was Peter Schlemihl (18

35、14), by the German writer Adelbertvon Chamisso. Andersen greatly shortens the original, and uses it to take vicarious revenge on his patr ons son Edvard Colli n, who had a great hold over him and yet refused to address him familiarly. The mai n protago nist is a lear ned man (presumably based on Col

36、li n) whose shadow (represe nting An derse n himself) en ters the abode of Poetry and takes on a separate life of its own. The shadow then becomes fleshed out, dresses elega ntly and gains power because of his in sight into the dark spri ngs of huma n behaviour. Then he retur ns to the lear ned man

37、and en slaves him, fin ally havi ng him killed so that he can enjoy his life without fear of being found out. Not one of An derse ns better known tales, and far from endearing, The Shadow is neverthelesspowerful and intriguing,and itevide ntly caught Wildes eye. I n The Fisherma n and His Soul, Wild

38、e makes it n ecessary for the fisherma n to give up his soul in order for him to en ter the mermaids world, and it is cut from him as his shadow. Then, like the lear ned mans shadow in An derse ns story, this one too begins to live a life of its own, eventually managing to get the fisherman to accom

39、pa ny him .In the end, the fisherma n dies as well, his heart break ing in an embrace with the mermaid he can no Ion ger rejoi n un der the sea. The water washes over them as it does over Maggie and Tom Tulliver at the end of The Mill on the Floss .No doubt both An derse ns and Wildes shadows expres

40、s somethi ng of their authors psychological depths, the sense they both seem to have had of another hidden and in cipie ntly unman ageable self; perhaps, in both cases, the authors sexual orie ntati on was in volved. While that eleme nt of the theme over-complicates Wildes The Fisherma n and His Sou

41、l, it also poin ted the way forward for him, allowi ng him to express his own worries about his inner life. From now on the theme of split ide ntity would particularly fasci nate him, emerging most forcefully in The Picture of Dorian Gray, his powerful novella for adults. This illustrates perfectly

42、An derse ns sem inal in flue nee on ano ther importa nt writer.The Shadow has bee n praised by such critics as Q. D. Leavis (133), and take n to illustrate the Hegelia n master/slave dialectic (Zipes 89-90). More broadly, it justifies the opinion of those who see Andersen himself as a progressive mi

43、nd, a child of the nin etee nth cen tury in its quest for the n ew, the hitherto un see n a quest for light andredempti on in effect, an early moder ni st (De Mylius 174, 176). Of course, the idea and tech ni cal ploy of the con flicted self, with its partial project ioninto a double and itsexpulsi

44、on from huma n society, goes far back in literary history, asdoes the search forsome kind of epipha ny or release. But from the mid-nin etee nth cen tury on wards, in other words, from the arrival on the literary scene of Andersenhimself, more and moreDoppelg ?n ger figures beg in to appear, from, s

45、ay, Tennysons Bali n and Bala n inIdylls of the King to, most famously, Robert Louis Stevenson s Jekyll and Hyde. The rise of the psychological and psychoa nalytical scie nces, in stigated respectively by Herbert Spencerand Freud, gave added impetus to this trend.This was someth ing that in filtrate

46、d literature right across the board, and for readersof every age. As for shadows, perhaps the best-k nown of all is the one left beh ind by Peter Pan, whe n James Barries little hero flies away too hastily from the Darlin gs win dow at the turn of the century. In this case, Wendy is able to reattach

47、 the shadow, so it never acquires a life of its own or becomes sini ster, but the in cide nt (i n a chapter en titled The Shadow) is just as much a sig n of a deeply split psyche as An derse ns and Wildes: Peter is visibly torn betwee n the outside world, adve nture and in depe nden ce, and his year

48、 ning for safety and shelter. The even deeper implicati on in such divisi ons and con tradict ions is that character is not fixed but con sta ntly in flux, con sta ntly at odds with itself and others .In no vels writte n for adults, the figure of the misfit, the wan derer, the crosser of boun daries

49、 and so forth becomes ever more prevale nt in the 1920s, in the hands of writers like Herman Hesse ( Steppenwolf) and Kafka (any of whose writings fit the bill). It might be said that Andersen just picked up and ran with a figure already literally fleshed out by Chamisso: as Jens An derse n says, fa

50、iry tale reflected the zeitgist like no other literary activity during the first half of the 19th cen tury (248). Still, the Dan ish writers in flue nee on Wilde is in disputable. How appropriate that the un easy and con flicted An derse n should have helped this figure on its way, opening up possib

51、ilities for the cultivation of uncertainty that marks the modern age (Miller viii). This alone should secure him an importa nt place in the history of adult as well as childre ns literature.Related Material Hans Christia n An derse n and His Victoria n Tran slators (Part 1) The Power of Faerie: Hans Christia n An derse n as a Childre ns Writer (Part 2) Joh n Rusk in on Fan tasy in Art and Literature Joh n Rusk in and the Rise of the Literary Fairytale Shadow as a Symbol in Dicke ns and Macd on ald( on Dicke nss Little Dorrit and GeorgeMacdonalds Phantases ) Guilt, Crim in ality and Dopple