ABSTRACT

Critical attention to D. H. Lawrence’s two Italian novels has focused on themes of sexual politics and leadership politics, and few critics have noted their engagement with colonial politics. Informed by postcolonial studies, this paper argues that Lawrence’s representation of Italy in The Lost Girl and Aaron's Rod is overloaded with Orientalist imagery in that Italy is imagined as an Other within Europe that contrasts with the industrialised and civilised North. Italy is portrayed as alternatively redemptive and destructive. While the Italian landscape is idealised as an exotic Other, its people and culture are demonised as a savage Other. Both representation modes are trapped in the logic of imperialist discourses. The celebration of the landscape marginalises Italy from the modern world and the demonisation of the community affirms the racial and cultural inferiority of Italy. Lawrence’s representation of Italy indicates that in the cultural imagination of Britain the racial and national others within Europe are often subject to the colonising gaze of the ‘imperial eyes’.

摘要

对DH劳伦斯的两本意大利小说的批评引起了人们的关注，这些小说集中于性政治和领导政治的主题，很少有评论家指出他们参与了殖民政治。在后殖民研究的指导下，本文认为劳伦斯在《失落的女孩》和《亚伦的杖》中代表了意大利。东方主义的意象重载，因为意大利被想象成欧洲的另一个国家，与工业化和文明的北方形成鲜明对比。意大利被描绘成是救赎性的和破坏性的。虽然将意大利景观理想化为异国情调的“他者”，但将其人和文化妖魔化为野蛮的“他者”。两种表示方式都陷入帝国主义话语的逻辑中。对景观边缘的庆祝使意大利脱离了现代世界，对社区的妖魔化证实了意大利的种族和文化自卑。劳伦斯在意大利的代表作表明，在英国的文化想象中，欧洲内的种族和民族其他人经常受到“帝国之眼”的殖民凝视。