出刊年月/Date of Publishing

2007.03

所屬卷期/Vol. & No.   第37卷第1期 Vol. 37, No. 1

類型/Type                 研究論文 Research Article

篇名/Title
Mapping Knowledge and Power: Cartographic Representations of Empire in Victorian Britain
帝國、地圖與文化——英國維多利亞時期

作者/Author
顏淑娟 Shu-chuan Yan

頁碼/Pagination
pp. 1-34

摘要
本文探討維多利亞時期的大英帝國如何透過地圖意象，建立自身主體性及呈現其在世界版圖中的文化霸權地位。首先介紹維多利亞時期地理知識的培育和製圖文化的過程，藉以說明地圖並不只是英國人民認識與瞭解世界地理的媒介而已，它同時也是一個海外探險與殖民文化的產物。本文亦透過維多利亞時期另一文化產物——小說，針對狄更斯、蓋斯格爾、與康拉德等小說家所描述的地圖意象，闡釋地域想像與殖民／帝國文化之間的關係，同時進一步瞭解英國人民如何構成「中心」與「邊陲」或「文明」與「蠻荒」的世界地理畫面。

Abstract
This paper seeks to examine how cartographic representations of empire in Victorian Britain created a powerful stock of public images of foreign territories that helped consolidate the process of imperial rule. To probe deeper into the formation of the imperial nation, I argue for a consideration and analysis of the nature of maps as visual and narrative texts, of their connection to knowledge and power, and of their authority within the culture. Maps are textualized for reading so as to invite further reflections on the ideological dimensions of cartography and nationhood. The first two sections of the paper provide an outlook on how maps worked and how they were consumed in Victorian popular culture and also, investigate how the process of mapping reflects the state of cultural and imperial activity and contributes to the vision of the British Empire as a result. The third section of the paper looks at the ways in which maps and mapping add a further dimension to studies in literature, the novel in particular. Taking Charles Dickens’s Life and Adventures of Martin Chuzzlewit as a starting point, and moving through Elizabeth Gaskell’s Mary Barton and Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness in their chronological order, I explore how these Victorian novelists turn the so-called terra incognita into bounded territories. Taken together, then, making a connection between mapping impulse and literary imagination in the novel may allow us to visualize the Empire more spatially and dissect the imperial context more fully.

關鍵字/Key Word
帝國、地圖、文化、小說、英國維多利亞時期
empire, maps, culture, novel, the Victorian period

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DOI
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學門分類/Subject
文學 Literature