文化的嬗变:从“书斋里的学者”到“实践学者”——论堂吉诃德形象的文化建构

Cultural Transmutation:From“Scholars in Study”to“Practical Scholars”——On the Cultural Construction of Don Quixote’s Image

在塞万提斯的笔下,堂吉诃德早期被塑造为“书斋里的学者”的形象,到了后期,他的文化身份随着他走出书斋,像骑士一样在现实生活中行侠仗义时,转变为“实践学者”的形象,进而完成了他文化身份嬗变的建构。通过堂吉诃德形象的文化建构,小说记录了从16世纪末到17世纪初期西班牙乃至整个欧洲在个人欲望狂欢后面临的一次社会文化修复和转型的图景,凸显了欧洲社会文化面临的失序危机。立足于文化历史整体性的思考,塞万提斯把所见的视野通过堂吉诃德形象的变化转化成文化思维的视域,提出了化解危境的文化思想实验,那就是:以古希腊的理性为核心、以中世纪的骑士精神为手段、以基督教的拯救精神为目标,建构起一种稳定且理性的社会文化秩序。此建构不仅为读者勾勒了一条从古希腊到文艺复兴时期的欧洲文化主流航线,并指向未来西方社会现代文明的进程,彰显了塞万提斯在文化整合上的艺术自觉。

In Cervantes’writing,Don Quixote’s early image as a“scholar in the study”was transformed into a“practical scholar”as he stepped out of the study and acted like a knight in real life,thus completing the construction of his cultural identity.Through the cultural construction of Don Quixote’s image,the novel records the social and cultural restoration and transformation of Spain and even the whole Europe after the carnival of individual desire from the end of the 16th century to the beginning of the 17th century,highlighting the crisis of social and cultural disorder facing Europe.Based on the overall thinking of culture and history,Cervantes transformed the vision he saw into the vision of cultural thinking through the change of Don Quixote’s image,and proposed a cultural thought experiment to resolve the crisis,that is,to construct a stable and rational social and cultural order with the ancient Greek reason as the core,the medieval chivalry as the means,and the Christian spirit of salvation as the goal.This construction not only outlines for readers a mainstream route of European culture from ancient Greece to the Renaissance,but also points to the future process of modern civilization in Western society,demonstrating Cervantes’artistic consciousness in cultural integration.