症候阅读、表层阅读与新世纪文学批评的革新

Symptomatic Reading,Surface Reading,and the Renovation of Literary Criticism in the New Millennium

新世纪以来,美国文学界涌现出了一系列新的批评方法,有力地挑战了以症候阅读和"怀疑诠释学"为主导的文学批评范式。本文以贝斯特和马库斯2009年提出的表层阅读为中心,梳理了这一阅读模式兴起的背景、核心观点、代表性著述、学术反响和后续发展。表层阅读的提出与美国文学研究近年来所遭遇的各种外部和内部危机密切相关。随着当代社会、政治和技术环境的急剧变化,文学研究赖以为生的基础假设和理念也在发生转变。美国学界从症候阅读到表层阅读,再到描述的探索轨迹或有助于我们审视当下中国文学批评所面临的问题,并反思本土理论建构的焦虑。

The new millennium has witnessed the emergence of a series of new approaches to literary criticism in the United States that have posed serious challenges to the dominant paradigm of symptomatic reading and the ＂ hermeneutics of suspicion. ＂ Focusing on surface reading proposed by Stephen Best and Sharon Marcus in 2009, this article examines the background, basic ideas, representative works, academic responses, and recent development of this new interpretative practice. It argues that the rise of surface reading is closely tied to the external and internal crises that American literary studies have undergone in recent decades. With rapid changes in contemporary social, political and technological environments, the underlying assumptions and beliefs of literary studies have also been evolving accordingly. The shift of critical attention from symptomatic reading to surface reading and description in American literary studies might shed light on problems confronting Chinese literary critics and stimulate reflections on the domestic anxiety of theoretical construction.