西方文学-英美文学

Scottish Fantasies: Other Worlds

Novelist and presenter of the Writing Scotland television series, Carl MacDougall, introduces an online learning journey on fantasies and the other worlds of Scottish literature.

The tradition of invoking other worlds is older than literature itself; and Scotland has a rich store of folklore which relies on the idea of an encounter with someone from another world, or journeying into other worlds, journeys that change the people who make them, or from which they may never return.

Some ballads go back to prehistory, while others record real events, people and places. Their influence on Scottish writing has been absolute. James Hogg was the first Scottish writer to put the fantastic at the centre of his vision, and though it wasn't critically recognised for over a hundred years, his novel The Private Memoirs and Confessions of a Justified Sinner, is now seen as one of the great masterpieces of Scottish writing. It is also, I believe, a masterpiece of world literature.

Burns's 'Tam O'Shanter' is the best-known piece of Scottish supernatural writing, so familiar its subtleties and initial message have been obliterated. And the same is true of Robert Louis Stevenson's The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde. Because of their familiarity, it's easy to overlook the fact that both pieces reveal a world which runs parallel to our own, that there are points where the two worlds mingle and that one can spill into the other.

With Ian Maclaren (pseudonym of the Rev. John Watson) and S.R. Crockett, James Matthew Barrie was part of the Kailyard school, a commercially successful movement which exploited all that was mawkishly sentimental and escapist in Scottish writing. But Barrie's main success was in the theatre, and his play Peter Pan is the story of a strange, dysfunctional boy who refuses to grow up, a boy who lures children from the safety of their beds to the moral chaos of 　　Never Land, a magical place beyond the stars where Peter lives with the Lost Boys, protected by a tribe of Red Indians. The story invokes the tradition of fantastic journeys. Never Land is a quite explicit faerie kingdom. But there is a profound difference. Travellers don't go there to be changed. Like James Hogg's poem 'Kilmeny', they remain as they are, forever.

The fear of human contact is central to Alasdair Gray's novel 'Lanark'. Deprived of love and sunlight, the citizens of Unthank develop a hideous skin condition called Dragonhide. Those afflicted can't be touched even if they want to be. Only love can heal them. 　　Iain Banks' The Bridge reverses the fantasy tradition by journeying from dream to reality. The book's hero lies in a coma, his character fragmented into multiple split personalities following a car crash on the Forth Road Bridge.

在苏格兰，幻想另外世界的传统甚至早于文学本身；苏格兰的很多民间故事都源自这样一些奇异的幻想：偶遇来自另外世界的人；进入另外的世界旅行，旅行者或被改变，或永远不能返回。

一些民谣讲述的是史前时代的故事，而其他一些则记录了真人真事。他们对苏格兰文学的影响巨大。詹姆士•豪格是第一个以幻想为中心视角的作家。尽管在一百多年里，批评界对的作品并不认可，但他的小说《一个被认为有罪的犯人的私人记忆及悔过》现在已经被公认为是苏格兰的经典作品。我相信，它同样也是世界文学的经典。

彭斯的《汤姆•奥桑特的故事》是最著名的苏格兰超自然主义作品。也许是人们对他太过熟悉，其中的微妙之处和独创信息往往被人忽略。同样的情况也发生在罗伯特•路易斯•斯蒂文森的《化身博士》上。对于这两部作品，人们很容易忽略一个事实：它们都揭示了另外一个世界，这个世界与我们的世界即平行存在又相互交错、影响。

詹姆士•马修•巴里和伊恩•麦凯莱伦（约翰•华生的笔名）、ＳＲ•克罗克特同为菜园派的成员。这是个商业上非常成功的运动，它发挥了苏格兰文学史上所有情感主义和避世主义的传统。巴里的成就主要在喜剧方面。他的剧作《彼得•潘》讲述了一个举止古怪、拒绝长大的男孩的故事。他把小孩子从安全的床上吸引到道德杂芜的“永无岛”上。那是另外一个星球上的一片神奇的土地，彼得•潘和其他迷失的男孩一起，被一群印第安人保护着生活在那里。“永无岛”作为一个仙人的王国，再次呼应了幻想旅行的传统。但是，它与传统又有着显著的不同。“永无岛”上的居民并不会因为这片奇异的土地而改变，像豪格的《基尔莫尼》中的人物一样，他们永远保持着原来的样子。

惧怕与人类接触是阿拉斯代尔•格雷的小说《拉纳克》的主题。没有阳光和爱情的眷顾，昂桑克居民的皮肤变成了丑陋的“龙皮”。他们不能接触人类，只有爱情能够治愈他们的伤痛。艾恩•班克斯的《桥》与传统的幻想故事正好相反，它讲述了一个从梦境回到现实的故事。书中的主人公在四号公路桥的一起车祸之后昏迷，其人格陷入了多重的分裂状态。