作为世界文学的科幻文学

在当今这个全球化的时代,伴随着严肃文学日渐式微的,是一种新的文体的异军突起,并且迅速进入比较文学和世界文学研究者的视野:科幻小说。这一现象不仅出现在有着悠久传统的西方世界,近十多年来它也凸显在中国的语境中,成为一道靓丽的文学风景线。它向人们昭示:文学并没有死亡,而是以新的形态获得了新生。我们过去经常说,科学无国界,现在看来文学也无国界,只是文学的传播需要翻译的中介。在这方面,中国当代科幻小说一经出现在中文语境中,很快就经过国外译者的主动译介而走向世界。如果按照美国学者达姆罗什的“解构式”世界文学定义,科幻文学也应被视为世界文学。它不仅用富于幻想的科学想象力和优美的文学笔触使当代读者通过阅读科幻文学而了解世界,而且也通过文学的描写建构了一个可能的虚拟世界。我们从科幻文学的世界性特征和世界性传播及影响可以得出这样一个结论:“地球村”或人类命运共同体的建构是完全可能的。科幻文学也应该是一种世界文学形态,它以科学与文学联姻所显示出的力量推动了人类命运共同体的构建。

Along with the decline of serious literature in the age of globalization,a new genre has emerged and is rapidly entering the vision of scholars of comparative and world literature:sci-fi literature.This phenomenon not only appears in the Western world which has a long sci-fi tradition,but also appears in current Chinese context and has become a remarkable literary scenery line in the past ten years.It indicates that literature is not dead,but it has got a new form of life.We used to say that science knows no borders,but now it seems that literature knows no borders either,and it only needs translation.In this regard,once contemporary Chinese sci-fi literature appears in the Chinese context,it has soon been translated and introduced to the world by foreign translators.According to the“deconstructive”definition of world literature by David Damrosch,science fiction should also be regarded as a form of world literature.It not only enables contemporary readers to understand the world by reading science fiction,but also constructs a possible virtual world through literary description.Thus we can draw a tentative conclusion from the world character and international dissemination and influence of science fiction:the construction of the“global village”or the community of shared interests for humanity is entirely possible.Science fiction should also be regarded as a form of world literature,which promotes the construction of a community of shared interests for future by the force of the combination of science and literature.