美國早期國家論述中的自我與他者－－朗費羅「海額娃撒之歌」中的地域想像

The Environmental Imagination in Longfellow's The Song of Hiawatha

本論文試圖討論十九世紀美國詩人朗費羅的《海額娃撒之歌》(The Song of Hiawatha），分析此作品在建立國家意識過程中，如何界定國家自我（national ego）以及「他者」，進而檢視美國文化民族主義本身之反諷性。在此框架中，本文擬作兩方面之探討。首先，此文將分析朗費羅在《海額娃撒之歌》中如何挪用並收編印第安原住民的傳奇故事，為美國建構本土神話及歷史過去，進而為美國形塑一套嶄新的民族性格，建立獨立的國家認同。另一方面，本文將探究朗費羅於《海額娃撒之歌》如何暗示印第安人「未開化」、「原始」、「野蠻」的生存環境，如何極力頌揚白人基督教徒以救星之姿到來，進而傳播美國擴張主義與帝國主義之訊息。藉此探討，本文企圖指出原始荒野與印第安原住民一方面是美國建構民族自我之磐石，一方面卻亦是白人基督徒在征服荒野，建立文明時之「他者」。而此乃美國早期家論述最大的矛盾（ambivalence）及反諷。因此，美國的民族主義可能只是白人基督徒的民族主義。

After the successful outcome of the American Revo1ution, many American writers in the 18th and 19th centuries attempted to pursue cultural, intellectual and literary independence. These writers employed a literary strategy of “possessing” the land in order to establish a distinct literary tradition, thereby fostering a national literature. But what exactly was this strategy? And precisely how did they construct an autochthonous and independent cultural identity? This paper focuses on a 19th century writer---Henry Wadsworth Longfellow--examining how Longfellow in The Song of Hiawatha appropriated the American primeval environment and its primitive inhabitants, the Indians, in order to shape a distinct national character and establish an indigenous tradition. But in his construction of a national mythology, Longfellow defined the American “se1f” and its “other.” This here I am attempting to show how Longfellow appropriated the wi1d American nature and（”wi1d”） Indians for the purpose of constructing the American “national ego,” and how he depicted the destruction of the wilderness and of the Indians in order to convey the message of American expansionism and imperialism. Thus I am inquiring into the inherent ambivalence, or indeed contradiction, in 19th-century American cultural nationalism.