白人的负担
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《白人的负担》(The White Man's Burden)是英国诗人魯德亞德·吉卜林的作品,最初在1899年刊登于流行杂志《麥克盧爾》(McClure's),标题为美国与菲律宾群岛(The United States and the Philippine Islands)。[1]吉卜林藉着此詩,含蓄地警告英国人,进行扩张将会带来代价。左派——以及後起的第三世界反殖民理論家——却认为,吉卜林在描述新帝國主義的特征:将向外扩张称为高贵举措。[2][3][4][5][6]
![肥皂广告,以the White Man's Burden, 鼓励白人去教其他的种族学会清洁。](http://images.weserv.nl/?url=//upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/9/95/1890sc_Pears_Soap_Ad.jpg/220px-1890sc_Pears_Soap_Ad.jpg)
简介
吉卜林创作《白人的負擔》是为了纪念维多利亚女王鑽禧,他后来却写了另一首诗《曲終人散(Recessional)》来代替这一作品。他修改了《负担》,将美菲战争定为主题。[7]此詩由七个詩節和一个采用普通押韵格式的段落组成。表面上是在呼吁白人为所有人的利益,征服和殖民野蛮国家。作品因其主题,成为了欧洲中心主义、种族主义和帝国主义的象征之一。[8][9][10]作品在推出多年后,仍然备受世人关注,受到不同学者以多种角度分析。
解读
其中一种观点认为,吉卜林觉得白人有义务统治有其他文化背景的人,并且推动他们发展,直到他们拥有一定的能力独立为止。一些种族主义者认为,“白人的负担”是比喻,指对落后文化、经济居高临下的视点。一些人将这种观点视为欧洲中心主义、文化帝国主义的体现。另一种观点认为,吉卜林是在说明,富人有义务强制帮助穷人。[11]
![The white man's burden -讽刺的图片](http://images.weserv.nl/?url=//upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/f/f2/The_white_mans_burden.gif/220px-The_white_mans_burden.gif)
作品表面上传达了一种支持白人传播文明、开化野蛮民族的观点。诗人称菲律宾人为“剛被抓到的、又急躁又野蠻、又慍怒、一半像邪魔一半像小孩一樣的人們”。这种观点在当时虽然十分流行,但也不乏反对者。吉卜林发表了这一作品后,美国文坛发生了有关争论,著名的美国作家马克·吐温和亨利·詹姆斯都是这场论战的参与者。[12]也有人认为吉卜林是借作品讽刺帝国主义和殖民主义。但是,也有另一部分学者认为,吉卜林并不是在讽刺帝国主义;相反,他是支持帝国主义的人,他在其他作品中已经表达了自己的观点。
诗作第三至第五行说明,投入殖民主义事业的人在提升其他不幸野蛮民族的时候,可能不幸遇害身亡。当时没有集中研究殖民官员社会地位和背景的报告。而当时在殖民地十分活跃的传教活动,也是如吉卜林所描述的那样,着重于帮助不幸的人认识耶稣基督。
部分学者认为,吉卜林作诗的目的是说服一些反对帝国主义的美国人支持西奥多·罗斯福。[13][14]吉卜林关于英属印度的著作在美国十分流行,《负担》有可能是他分享自己观点的渠道。1898年9月,吉卜林向罗斯福写信,请求他“将所有力量集中在菲律宾。美国已经把十字镐插入一座危楼的地基之中,她可以负起责任重建这座楼房,或者任由它倒塌。”[15]他在同年11月,更将诗作送给刚刚获选为纽约州州长的罗斯福。
诺顿英国文学选集(Norton Anthology of English Literature)认为,诗作的内容合符吉卜林的帝国主义思想,他认为开化野蛮人是“统治神在地上的国的神圣负担”。[7]史提芬·达比希尔(Steve Sailer)声称他是“一个完全不知道成为帝国主义意味着什么的帝国主义者,所以,可以说,他不是一个真正的帝国主义者。”[16]
不少后人都使用了诗作的主题,或者是模仿了诗作的形式。比如说亨利·拉布谢尔(Henry Labouchère)的作品《棕色人的负担》(The Brown Man's Burden),又或者是埃德蒙·毛莱尔(Edmund Morel)批评刚果自由邦的文章《白人的负担》。[17][18]欧内斯特·克罗斯比(Ernest Crosby)也有一篇题为“真正白人的负担”的诗作。[19]帕斯卡尔·布吕克内(Pascal Bruckner)也有名为“白人的眼泪”(Le Sanglot de l'Homme blanc)的作品。
内容
原文 | 中譯 |
---|---|
Take up the White Man's burden— Send forth the best ye breed— Go bind your sons to exile To serve your captives' need; To wait in heavy harness, On fluttered folk and wild— Your new-caught, sullen peoples, Half-devil and half-child. Take up the White Man's burden— In patience to abide, To veil the threat of terror And check the show of pride; By open speech and simple, An hundred times made plain, To seek another's profit, And work another's gain. |
挑起白种男人的負擔 把你們最優秀的品種送出去 捆綁起你們的儿子们將他們放逐出去 去替你們的奴隸服務 挑起白种男人的負擔 讓他們背負著沉重馬韁 去伺候那些剛被抓到 又急躁又野蠻,又慍怒 一半像邪魔一半像小孩一樣的人們 挑起白种男人的負擔 堅持著耐心 掩飾起恐懼 隱藏起驕傲 用公開與簡易的語言 不厭其煩的說清楚 去替別人謀福利 去為別人爭利益 |
参考文献
引用
- ^ "The White Man's Burden". McClure's Magazine 12 (Feb. 1899).
- ^ Zwick, Jim. Anti-Imperialism in the United States, 1898–1935. December 16, 2005. (原始内容存档于2002年9月16日).
- ^ Miller, Stuart Creighton. Benevolent Assimilation: The American Conquest of the Philippines, 1899–1903. Yale University Press. 1982. ISBN 0-300-03081-9. p. 5: "...imperialist editors came out in favor of retaining the entire archipelago (using) higher-sounding justifications related to the "white man's burden."
- ^ Judd, Denis. Diamonds are forever: Kipling's imperialism; poems of Rudyard Kipling. History Today. June 1997, 47 (6): 37.: "Theodore Roosevelt...thought the verses 'rather poor poetry, but good sense from the expansionist stand-point'. Henry Cabot Lodge told Roosevelt in turn: 'I like it. I think it is better poetry than you say'."
- ^ Examples of justification for imperialism based on Kipling's poem include the following (originally published 1899–1902):
- Opinion archive, International Herald Tribune. In Our Pages: 100, 75 and 50 Years Ago; 1899: Kipling's Plea. International Herald Tribune. February 4, 1999: 6. (原始内容存档于2005年10月27日).: "An extraordinary sensation has been created by Mr. Rudyard Kipling's new poem, The White Man's Burden, just published in a New York magazine. It is regarded as the strongest argument yet published in favor of expansion."
- Dixon, Thomas. The Leopard's Spots – A Romance of the White Man's Burden 1865–1900. 1902 [2013-05-29]. (原始内容存档于2021-03-03).. Full text of a novel by Thomas Dixon praising the Ku Klux Klan, published online by The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
- ^ Pimentel, Benjamin. The Philippines; "Liberator" Was Really a Colonizer; Bush's revisionist history. The San Francisco Chronicle. October 26, 2003: D3. (原始内容存档于2011年6月29日).: charactising the poem as a "call to imperial conquest".
- ^ 7.0 7.1 Stephen Greenblatt (ed.), Norton Anthology of English Literature, New York 2006 ISBN 978-0-393-92532-6.
- ^ "Eurocentrism". In Encyclopedia of the Developing World. Ed. Thomas M. Leonard, Taylor & Francis, 2006, ISBN 978-0-415-97662-6, p. 636.
- ^ Chisholm, Michael (1982). Modern World Development: A Geographical Perspective. Rowman & Littlefield, 1982, ISBN 978-0-389-20320-9, p.12.
- ^ Mama, Amina (1995). Beyond the Masks: Race, Gender, and Subjectivity. Routledge, 1995, ISBN 978-0-415-03544-6, p. 39.
- ^ David Cody, The growth of the British Empire (页面存档备份,存于互联网档案馆), Associate Professor of English, Hartwick College, (Paragraph 4)
- ^ John V. Denson. The costs of war: America's pyrrhic victories. Transaction Publishers. 1999: 405–406. ISBN 978-0-7658-0487-7(note ff. 28 & 33).
- ^ Wolpert, Stanley (2006)
- ^ Brantlinger, Patrick (2007) Kipling's 'The White Man's Burden' and its Afterlives English Literature in Transition 1880-1920", 50.2, pp. 172-191
- ^ Kipling, Rudyard (1990) The Letters of Rudyard Kipling, ed. Thomas Pinney London, Macmillan, Vol II, p. 350
- ^ Sailer, Steve (2001). "What Will Happen In Afghanistan? (页面存档备份,存于互联网档案馆)". Published by United Press International. 26 September 2001.
- ^ Labouchère, Henry (1899). "The Brown Man's Burden" (页面存档备份,存于互联网档案馆)
- ^ Morel, Edmund (1903). The Black Man's Burden (页面存档备份,存于互联网档案馆). Fordham University.
- ^ Crosby, Ernest. The Real White Man’s Burden. Funk and Wagnalls Company. 1902: 32–35 [2013-05-31]. (原始内容存档于2017-10-12). Published online by History Matters, American Social History Project, CUNY and George Mason University.
来源
- A Companion to Victorian Poetry, Alison Chapman; Blackwell, Oxford, 2002.
- Chisholm, Michael (1982). Modern World Development: A Geographical Perspective. Rowman & Littlefield, 1982, ISBN 978-0-389-20320-9.
- Cody, David. The growth of the British Empire (页面存档备份,存于互联网档案馆). The Victorian Web, University Scholars Program, National University of Singapore, November 2000.
- Crosby, Ernest (1902). The Real White Man’s Burden. Funk and Wagnalls Company, 32–35.
- Dixon, Thomas (1902). The Leopard's Spots – A Romance of the White Man's Burden 1865–1900.
- Encyclopedia of India. Ed. Stanley Wolpert. Vol. 3. Detroit: charles Scribner's Sons, 2006, p. 35-36. 4 vols.
- "Eurocentrism". In Encyclopedia of the Developing World. Ed. Thomas M. Leonard, Taylor & Francis, 2006, ISBN 978-0-415-97662-6.
- Greenblatt, Stephen (ed.). Norton Anthology of English Literature, New York 2006 ISBN 978-0-393-92532-6
- Kipling (页面存档备份,存于互联网档案馆). Fordham University. Full text of the poem.
- Labouchère, Henry (1899). "The Brown Man's Burden".
- Mama, Amina (1995). Beyond the Masks: Race, Gender, and Subjectivity. Routledge, 1995, ISBN 978-0-415-03544-6.
- Miller, Stuart Creighton (1982). Benevolent Assimilation: The American Conquest of the Philippines, 1899–1903. Yale University Press. ISBN 978-0-300-03081-5.
- Pimentel, Benjamin (October 26, 2003). "The Philippines; "Liberator" Was Really a Colonizer; Bush's revisionist history". The San Francisco Chronicle: D3.
- Sailer, Steve (2001). "What Will Happen In Afghanistan?". United Press International, 26 September 2001.
- "The White Man's Burden." McClure's Magazine 12 (Feb. 1899).
- "The Shining" Jack Nicholson's character Jack, uses the phrase to refer to whiskey.