春光三月，万物生长，春风习习中我们又迎来国际劳动妇女节。国际妇女解放运动发展至今，已有二百多年的历史；西方的女作家们也在其中贡献着自己的力量，孜孜不倦地用她们的作品诠释着女性力量。今天为大家推荐的正是她们其中一位的作品：《南方与北方》，其创作者盖斯凯尔夫人，透过女主人公玛格丽特的眼睛对英国工业文明崛起展开独有的女性观察，以女性视角阐述这一宏大的历史变革，引发我们的别样思考。

作品简介

《南方与北方》是英国小说家伊丽莎白·盖斯凯尔的代表作。小说讲述了英国南部的玛格丽特一家因父亲忠于信仰而辞去职务，举家搬迁到全然陌生的北方小镇米尔顿的故事。在故事中，作者把经济落后的南方与工业发达的北方进行了对比，塑造了一个理想化的资本家形象——棉纺厂厂主桑顿先生，通过玛格丽特与桑顿之间的爱情故事，展现了维多利亚时代英国工业发展与阶级斗争的恢宏历史，是一部充满人文关怀和历史深度的文学作品。

 

作者简介

伊丽莎白·盖斯凯尔（Elizabeth Gaskell，1810-1865），又被称为盖斯凯尔夫人，英国维多利亚时期小说家。1810年出生于伦敦一个牧师家庭，并在斯特拉特福德镇接受教育。1832年与曼彻斯特一名牧师结婚，因孩子早夭而开始尝试写作。1848年，其第一部小说《玛丽·巴顿》问世，引起公众关注。盖斯凯尔夫人的作品大多表现了十九世纪英国工业化引起的诸多变化和冲突，充满了对劳动大众的同情。代表作有《玛丽·巴顿》《南方与北方》《妻子和女儿》。

英国女作家伊丽莎白·盖斯凯尔

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Margaret looked with an anxious eye at Mr Thornton while he was thus occupied. It was considerably more than a year since she had seen him; and events had occurred to change him much in that time. His fine figure yet bore him above the common height of men; and gave him a distinguished appearance, from the ease of motion which arose out of it, and was natural to him; but his face looked older and careworn; yet a noble composure sat upon it, which impressed those who had just been hearing of his changed position with a sense of inherent dignity and manly strength. He was aware, from the first glance he had given round the room, that Margaret was there; he had seen her intent look of occupation as she listened to Mr Henry Lennox; and he came up to her with the perfectly regulated manner of an old friend. With his first calm words a vivid colour flashed into her cheeks, which never left them again during the evening. She did not seem to have much to say to him. She disappointed him by the quiet way in which she asked what seemed to him to be the merely necessary questions respecting her old acquaintances in Milton; but others came in -- more intimate in the house than he -- and he fell into the background, where he and Mr Lennox talked together from time to time.

BBC改编电视剧《南方与北方》剧照

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词汇学习

• occupy  n. 占，占用；占据，占领；使忙碌，使从事

• distinguished  adj. 卓越的，杰出的；高贵的，尊贵的

• composure  n. 镇静；沉着

• inherent  adj. 固有的，内在的，天生的

• disappoint  vt. 失望；（希望等）破灭，挫败（计划等）

  （单词注释来自有道词典）

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本书以英国维多利亚时期作家伊丽莎白·盖斯凯尔的小说为研究对象，重点关注了她的三部代表作《克兰福德镇》《北方与南方》和《妻子与女儿》，通过叙事学理论和文化政治批评视角，深入发掘了盖斯凯尔在作品中如何为建构维多利亚时期女性地位所做出的努力，而同时又表现出相当程度的保守性；指出了作者生活与其虚构作品之间的密切关联：生活中的盖斯凯尔在性别意识形态立场上的不确定性使她的作品隐含着难以摆脱的、不同程度的保守特质，导致作品中不断出现叙事的两重性，这些两重性也深刻反映出维多利亚时期叙述女性地位与力量这一文化议程所面临的重重困境。

This book addresses a critically neglected genre used by women writers from Gaskell to Woolf to complicate Victorian and modernist notions of gender and social space. Their innovative short stories ask Britons to reconsider where women could live, how they could be identified, and whether they could be contained.

 

文案策划及录音：图书借阅部 李圣昭

编辑：宣传策划小组 宋丙秀