解剖维多利亚时代的资产阶级:《资产阶级经验》评述

Anatomy of the bourgeoisie in Victorian Age:a review of Peter Gay’s Bourgeois Experience

彼得·盖伊的《资产阶级经验》探讨从维多利亚到弗洛伊德时期的资产阶级经验,是在解剖特定时代的特定阶级。盖伊注重整体性的研究,以自己独特的观察视角涉足启蒙运动、资产阶级等诸多社会文化史领域,以倡导运用精神分析方法的文化史而闻名,留下鸿篇巨制。《资产阶级经验》根据历史的意义来把它界定为1837-1914年,对19世纪历史的本质进行总体把握,通过对具体问题的深入解释来力图反映历史发展的全貌。资产阶级具有多样性,盖伊概括他们的相似特征,描绘其集体传记。盖伊将精神分析、传记与历史相互结合起来,展示宏观时代脉络和微观的个体生平的纵横交织,完成了一个阶级的文化史,其著作开阔了关于维多利亚时代资产阶级经验的视野。

Peter Gay’s Bourgeois Experience,which explores bourgeois experience from Victoria to Freud,purports to examine the bourgeoisie in a particular era.Gay attaches great importance to the holistic research,and has set foot in many fields of social and cultural history such as the Enlightenment and the bourgeoisie class,with his unique observations and perspective.He is renowned for advocating the use of psychoanalytic methods in the cultural history,leaving behind him a series of masterpieces.Gay defines the Bourgeois Age as from 1837 to 1914 according to its historical significance in Bourgeois Experience.He attempts to grasp the essence of 19th century history in general and tries to reflect the overall development of history through in-depth interpretation of specific issues.While the bourgeoisie is diverse in its representations,Gay summarizes their similar characteristics and portrays their collective biography.Gay succeeds in combining psychical analysis,biography and history to show the interweaving of macro context of the times and micro pictures of individual lives.In his completing the cultural history of a class,his works broaden our horizon in our understanding of bourgeois experience in Victorian periods.