批判性坎普：约翰·阿什伯里的《世俗的国度》政治维度(英文)

Critical High Camp:The Political Dimension in Ashbery's A Worldly Country

本文旨在探讨约翰·阿什伯里在2007年出版的诗集《世俗的国度》,尤其是其书名和内容所勾勒出来的政治面向,两者皆隐晦地呼应了他一直以来所讽刺和批判的美国态度。本文也通过探讨此诗集中的政治维度,阐明阿什伯里的诗作不仅止于自娱娱人,更具备在社会政治上关注性的批评,进而反驳对其泛泛的抑或轻蔑的解读,包括那些倾向于将他的作品或同性恋性向与毫无相干的唯美主义硬性关联的评论。通过论证阿什伯里诗性语言中的坎普风格,文章指出,诗人将形形色色的互文性与论述相互交织于社会场域,而绝非只是形式上的语意展演,只求跳脱语言的陈规旧律。他将这种坎普风格建立在意象与态度上,由衷体现一种批判的在场性。这与苏珊·桑塔格的坎普定义截然不同,因为后者旨在刻意展现社会中那些隐而不显的特质。阿什伯里的政治维度具有一种"反阐释学"的态度,强调诗性语言的困顿源自阐释学与其单一性——一个索绪尔留给后结构主义的遗产,即意义指涉的钳制与联结逻辑的制约是为保存中产阶级式的论述基础及其消费型态,但此举却忽略了对多元的社会关系的审视:一是巴赫金所谓的"众声喧哗",一种在社会交流、价值交换传播的互存依赖关系中体现的独特音调语气;二是福柯式的"三度空间思维",一种取决于权力关系机制中主体客体交相互动错置所衍生出意义的辩证更新。处于消费社会中的我们将不难察觉阿什伯里的诗因何被误解为哗众取宠之作。同时,他诗中自我蔑视的语言,也正是对美国社会与帝国主义的讽刺。

This essay argues that John Ashbery＇s A Worldly Country （2007）,both in terms of its title and its poems,has brought the political dimension,often intimated in the tone of his earlier poems satirizing America,into the foreground. Moreover,recognizing this dimension allows criticism to overcome reductive and dismissive readings of Ashbery as simply entertaining—readings which often depend on associating his openly gay sexuality with inconsequential aestheticism. Rather,here it is argued that the campy mode evident in his voice,as it modulates and fuses various intertexts and joins disparate discursive vectors with ties to the social realm,is not simply formal semantic play designed to inhibit closure. Contrary to Susan Sontag＇s influential definition of camp as exhibiting an absence of critical social concern,Ashbery takes the camp mode and develops imagery and attitudinal stances that embody a heartfelt critical presence and ultimately intimates a political dimension in his poetry. It is argued that the difficulty in framing this political dimension derives from the hermeneutical focus dominating literary studies：a Saussurean legacy in poststructuralism that focuses,like New Criticism,on referential signification,so as to preserve and regulate bourgeois discursive horizons and conforming consumption. This legacy tends to inhibit us from considering social relations,firstly,in a Bakhtinian sense of reliance on implied others to prepare our critical articulations,and secondly,in a Foucaudian sense of discursive practices that are interactive and relational,often leaving the referenced object about which a discourse emerges tertiary. Similarly,insofar as we allow ourselves to be immersed in consumer societies today,we can see Ashbery＇s poetry as sometimes being misunderstood as vapid buffoonery,when it is more often a politely self-deprecating language satirizing American society,especially during these times of imperialist extremes.