近三十年西方文学理论研究的新动向——以晚近的米勒和伊格尔顿的著述为案例

New Trends in the Study of Western Literary Theory in the Past Three Decades: A Case Study of J. Hillis Miller’s and Terry Eagleton’s Later Theories

正像很多西方当代思想理论家指出的,20世纪末西方哲学思想和理论批评领域发生了一次重大转型:崇尚文化话语和理论的时代悄然逝去,重视事物和实践的时代赫然来临。在这股实践转向大潮中,当代英美批评界的领军人物希利斯·米勒和特里·伊格尔顿最引人注目,从上世纪80年代中期开始他们不约而同地抛弃了曾一度热衷和力挺的后结构主义,转向言语行为理论。他们异口同声地指出,文学不是一种记事工具,而是一种做事行为,文学产品形态不是有机统一的,而是多元混合的。他们就文学性质、功能、结构形态等问题提出了全新的看法。从他们后期的文学观探索过程和成果可以明显看出,当下西方的文学理论研究已彻底突破了工具论的藩篱,迈向行为论的广阔天地。

As many Western contemporary theorists have pointed out,at the end of the 20 th century,a major transformation occurred in the fields of Western philosophical thought and theoretical criticism:cultural discourses and theories lost their dominant position and the significance of things and practice has become the center of attention.In this wave of practical turn,the contemporary British and American leading critics,J.Hillis Miller and Terry Eagleton are the most prominent figures.From the mid-1980 s,they started to abandon post-structuralism which they once favored and supported and turned to the Speech Act theory.They declared in unison that literature is not a recording tool but a performing behavior,and the form of literary products is not organic and unified but multi-dimensional.Accordingly,they put forward a new perspective on the nature,function and structure of literature.It is obvious from the exploring process and achievements of their later literary views that the current Western literary theory research has completely broken through the barriers of instrumentalism and is heading towards the broad realm of behaviorism.