Ex-centric Voices: The English Language Short Story in Wales

外中心的声音：威尔士的英语短篇故事

• 批准号: AH/F00236X/1
• 负责人: Anthony Brown
• 金额: $ 3.68万
• 依托单位: Bangor University
• 依托单位国家: 英国
• 项目类别: Research Grant
• 财政年份: 2007
• 资助国家: 英国
• 起止时间: 2007 至 无数据
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://gtr.ukri.org/projects?ref=AH%2FF00236X%2F1
• 关键词: Ex; centric; Voices; English; Language

The short story has been a major form of literary expression for the English-language writers of Wales, especially as an English-language literary tradition emerged in the first-half of the twentieth century; a number of Wales's most distinguished writers including Alun Lewis, Dylan Thomas, Rhys Davies and Gwyn Thomas have used the form extensively and successfully. But there has as yet been no systematic consideration as to why this should be, what it is about the form that appealed, and continues to appeal, to the Anglophone Welsh writer. Nor has there been an examination of what this short fiction reveals, directly and indirectly, about the experience of Welsh identity in English (the experience of some 75-80% of Welsh people) in the period. The present study will be the first book-length analysis of the significance of the short story form in Wales, by a theorized examination of the work of a range of the major practitioners in the genre, with a view to establishing recurring features of the genre, including literary techniques as well as thematic concerns, and to suggesting reasons for such features.In his influential study of the genre, The Lonely Voice (1963) Frank O'Connor, himself a distinguished short story writer, suggested that the short story characteristically expresses the experience of what he sees as marginalized communities, and individuals within such communities, groups with a sense of limited social, political and cultural power. Later theorists writing on the short story have tended to follow and develop O'Connor's view. In particular, Clare Hanson (Re-reading the Short Story, 1989) has suggested that the short story frequently deals with what she sees as 'ex-centric' cultural groups, 'outside the main centers of power [...] not part of official or 'high' cultural hegemony'; she suggests that the short story seems frequently to have been the form of expression of the exile, 'The writer who longs for a return to a home culture which is denied him'. This seems directly relevant to the experience of the Welsh writer in English; s/he feels a sense of marginality, geographically, culturally and politically; s/he is English-speaking, yet not English, and is also aware of being 'unhomed' from his/her native tradition by being unable, because of social change and English-language education, to speak the language spoken by their ancestors and, frequently, older members of their families. They write in English, but the Welsh language and culture remain in earshot. The study interrogates and develops Hanson's notion of the the short story writer as being 'unhomed' by considering the short story in Wales in terms of Freud's essay on the Unheimlich, usually translated as the 'Uncanny'' or the 'unhomely'. Freud sees the experience of the Uncanny as being rooted in a sense of unease in one's identity, an insecurity as to how one relates to one's surrounding world, an unease which might be momentary or more deep-rooted. The Uncanny, as Freud and his recent British commentator, Nicholas Royle (The Uncanny, 2003) indicate, can result from a sense of that which is familiar becoming unfamiliar or vice versa. This sense of defamiliarization from the surrounding world is indeed repeatedly manifested in the short story in Wales, e.g. in the surrealism of Dylan Thomas and Glyn Jones, and in the repeated insecurity of identity experienced by the protagonists of Alun Lewis. It is a manifestation, the study argues, of the wider sense of marginality and cultural insecurity experienced by the Welsh writer in English. This marginality is also manifested, for instance, in a thematic concern with states of isolation or 'homelessness' and use of hybrid registers--literary English, local colloquialism, vernacular elements of residual Welsh--which may be be seen to relate this writing to modes of hybridity which critics like Homi Bhabha have seen as characterising postcolonial literatures.

短篇小说一直是威尔士英语作家的一种主要文学表现形式，尤其是作为一种英语文学传统出现在世纪上半叶;一些威尔士最杰出的作家，包括阿伦刘易斯，迪伦托马斯，里斯戴维斯和格温托马斯，都广泛而成功地使用了这种形式。但迄今为止，还没有系统地考虑为什么会这样，是什么形式吸引了讲英语的威尔士作家，并继续吸引他们。也没有人研究这部短篇小说直接或间接地揭示了这一时期英语中威尔士人身份的经历（大约75-80%的威尔士人的经历）。本研究将是威尔士短篇小说形式的意义的第一本书的长度分析，通过对该类型的主要实践者的工作进行理论化的检查，以期建立该类型的反复出现的特征，包括文学技巧以及主题关注，并提出这些特征的原因。《孤独的声音》（1963）弗兰克·奥康纳，他自己也是一位杰出的短篇小说家，认为这部短篇小说典型地表达了他所认为的边缘化社区的经历，以及这些社区中的个人，这些群体感到社会、政治和文化权力有限。后来的短篇小说理论家倾向于遵循和发展奥康纳的观点。特别是，克莱尔汉森（重读短篇小说，1989年）提出，短篇小说经常涉及她所认为的“非中心”文化群体，“在主要权力中心之外。她认为，短篇小说似乎经常是流亡者的表达形式，“作家渴望回到一个被拒绝的家乡文化”。这似乎与威尔士英语作家的经历直接相关;他/她感到一种地理、文化和政治上的边缘感;她/他是讲英语的，但不是英语，也意识到由于社会变革和英语教育，无法说他们祖先所说的语言，他们的家庭中的年长成员。他们用英语写作，但威尔士的语言和文化仍然在听力范围内。这项研究的质疑和发展汉森的概念的短篇小说作家作为“无家可归的”考虑在威尔士的短篇小说在弗洛伊德的论文Unheimlich，通常被翻译为“Uncanny”或“无家可归”。弗洛伊德认为神秘的体验植根于一种身份的不安感，一种关于一个人如何与周围世界联系的不安全感，一种可能是短暂的或更根深蒂固的不安。正如弗洛伊德和他最近的英国评论员尼古拉斯·罗伊尔（Nicholas Royle）（The Uncanny，2003）所指出的那样，神秘感可能源于一种熟悉的感觉变得不熟悉，反之亦然。这种来自周围世界的陌生感确实在威尔士的短篇小说中反复表现出来，例如在迪伦托马斯和格林琼斯的超现实主义中，以及在阿伦刘易斯的主人公反复经历的身份不安全感中。这项研究认为，这是威尔士英语作家所经历的更广泛的边缘感和文化不安全感的一种表现。这种边缘性也表现在，例如，在一个主题的关注状态的孤立或“无家可归”和使用混合寄存器-文学英语，当地口语，残余威尔士的白话元素-这可能被视为将这种写作模式的杂交批评家，如霍米巴巴已经看到的特点后殖民文学。