市民社会对福斯塔夫骑士主体性的消解

Civil Society’s Deconstruction of the Subjectivity of John Falstaff as a Knight

中世纪后期,从封建生产方式中游离出来的骑士在进入资本主义生产方式时面临困境:一方面,他们的思维和行动受到封建骑士生产方式建构的骑士主体性的影响;另一方面,他们因为无法参与到资本主义财富生产过程,因而无法获得生存需要的物质资料,不得不依靠不法手段获得物质财富。尽管经历着价值理性和工具理性以及灵魂和肉体之间的矛盾,福斯塔夫获取生存资料的方式和人们对他作为骑士和新教教徒的文化期待之间仍存在差距。之所以如此,是因为骑士精神和新教伦理对福斯塔夫的制约作用无法抵制物质财富对他的吸引力。因此,福斯塔夫一方面利用一切机会获得物质财富;另一方面通过幽默、智慧和俏皮等消解个人和社会以及人之所是和人不得不成为其所不是之间的尖锐对立。《亨利四世》通过一系列情境揭示了社会变革时期福斯塔夫如何消解自身和社会之间的对立以及市民社会如何消除封建骑士生产方式建构的骑士主体性的过程。

In the Late Middle Ages,the knights alienated from the feudal mode of production were confronted with a dilemma when entering the capitalist mode of production.On the one hand,their ways of thinking and behaviors were influenced by the subjectivity as the knights that were constructed by the feudal knight mode of production;on the other hand,they had to rely on the illegal means to obtain material wealth because they could neither participate in the production process of capitalist wealth nor obtain the material goods for their survival.Although Falstaff was experiencing the contradictions between value rationality and instrumental rationality as well as soul and body,a gap existed between the way Falstaff acquired the materials for his survival and the cultural expectations people had for him as a knight and a Protestant,because the constraints of chivalry and Protestant ethic on Falstaff failed to conquer the appeal of the material wealth to him.Therefore,Falstaff,on the one hand,exploited every opportunity to gain the material wealth;on the other hand,he dispelled the sharp opposition between the individual and the society,as well as why man was what he was and why man had to be what he was not,by means of humor,wisdom and sally.A series of situations in Henry IV reveal how Falstaff resolved the antagonism between human individuals and the society,and how civil society dispelled the subjectivity as a knight that was constructed by the feudal knight mode of production.