Landscape and Nationalism in Tobias Smollett's Humphry Clinker

10.30095/SYJH.200812.0001

陳國榮(Kuo-Jung Chen)

地景 ； 國族主義 ； 史摩立特 ； 韓福瑞•克林克 ； landscape ； nationalism ； Tobias Smollett ； Humphry Clinker

中山人文學報

26期（2008 / 12 / 01）

1 - 16

英文

史摩立特(Tobias Smollett)的《韓福瑞•克林克遊記》(The Expedition of Humphry Clinker)雖然在1707年〈聯合法案〉通過後的半世紀才出版，然而他仍試圖藉由一次環遊英格蘭和蘇格蘭的虛構旅程來重申蘇格蘭的國族上義史摩立特利用一個表而上客觀的威爾斯鄉紳布籣伯(Mattew Bramble)的來評論英格閑與蘇格蘭的社會、文化與民族。而此種評價則藉著各種不同的地景（市容或是自然景觀）來呈現。英格蘭盧飾與腐化的生活型態主要是由倫敦與巴斯等大都市代表，而蘇格蘭與其國族精神則山格拉斯哥與蘇格蘭高地爲表徵。史摩立特利用傳統上都市與鄉間的對立來帶出穌格蘭國族主義這個更重要的議題。雖然蘇格蘭的政治權力被剝奪，經濟上也幾乎完全仰賴英格蘭，然而經由此種不同地景的呈現，史摩立特試圖恢復並發揚蘇格蘭的國族主義。因此布蘭拍個人追求身體上的健康，逐漸地被轉化成蘇格蘭對國族精神的集體探求。

Written over half a century after the Act of Union, Tobias Smollen's The Expedition of Hrumphry Clinker (1771) tries to reaffirm Scottish nationalism through a fictive circular journey through England and Scotland. Smollett employs a seemingly objective outsider (Matthew Bramble, a Welsh country squire) to appraise the society, culture, and people of England and Scotland. Such assessment is positioned in the context of various kinds of landscapes-cityscape as well as natural scenery in the novel. England and its shady lifestyle are represented mainly by cities like London and Bath. whereas Scotland and its national spirit are best exemplified in Glasgow and the Arcadian Highlands. Smollett uses the conventional city-vs.-country subject to bring about a more important theme of Scottish nationalism. To Matthew Bramble, the almost undisguised spokesman of Smollett himself, London is ”an overgrown monster” and ”one vile ferment of stupidity and corruption”; it ”has no idea of elegance and propriety” and forms ”an immense wilderness,” a contemporary wasteland. Likewise, Bath is swarmed with the mob-”a mass of ignorance, presumption, malice, and brutality” Both London and Bath, with their extravagance, insanitation, and degeneration, are employed not only to serve as a contrast to the idyllic Wales (Bramble's country) but also to underscore the superiority and uniqueness of Scotland (Smollett's country) anti its culture. Unlike the monstrous London and Bath. Glasgow's cityscape, represents an architectural ideal and a structural order Different from the social squalor as well as the pretentious and sordid urban living in London and Bath, the Scottish Highlands (though blighted by poverty and diaspora after the Union) and ”the most ravishing prospects in the whole world” it offers bring to light an entirely different national image. Though deprived of its political power and oppressed by its financial dependence on England. Scotland and its national spirit are recuperated and further developed through such representations of distinctive landscapes. Bramble's personal quest for health is eventually transformed into Scotlands collective quest for nationalism.

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