进化,世界系统,世界文学

Evolution,World-Systems,Weltliteratur

莫莱蒂从生物进化论的角度入手分析,提出了世界文学是一个“不平等的整体”这一论点。文章将从扩散、分化(多样化)和融合三个角度描述世界文学系统的进化过程和现状。莫莱蒂引入“树”和“波浪”两种隐喻并贯穿全文,波浪隐喻指文学的形式从核心地区到边缘地区的传播,树的隐喻则指文学在历时和共时平面上的分化。而小说作为一种混合形式,在这种世界文化格局下,情节和风格的分离成为可能。最后,莫莱蒂展望世界文学的未来发展,认为研究过去的文学与现在的文学需要完全不同的理论方法,这也是21世纪世界文学的学术挑战。

Moretti started his analysis from the perspective of biological evolutionary theory and put forward the thesis that world literature is one but unequal.The essay described the evolutionary process and the current state of the world literary system from three perspectives:diffusion,variation(diversity)and amalgamation.Moretti introduced the metaphors of“tree”and“wave”throughout the text,with the wave metaphor referring to the spread of literary forms from the core to the periphery,and the tree metaphor referring to the divergence of literature on both the ephemeral and diachronic levels.And the novel,as a hybrid form,makes possible the separation of plot and style in this world cultural landscape.Finally,Moretti prospected the future development of world literature,arguing that studying the literature of the past and the literature of the present requires the completely different theoretical approaches,which is the academic challenge of world literature in the21 st century.