色情文学:越界的想象与迷恋——苏珊·桑塔格论色情小说

Pornography:Transcendental Imagination and Enthrallment——Susan Sontag on Erotic Novel

古今中外",色情"饱受非议,乃至遭到抛弃。而在正统文学中,它要么根本不被看作文学,要么被打上否定或负面的标签。桑塔格却发现了色情文学其实是文学的一种——与色情作品不同,色情文学本身包含了较多的思想性和拓展性因素。同时,借助于萨德和巴塔耶对色情小说的研究,桑塔格发现了色情文学的重要价值,也赞赏了他们在人类意识和思想的可能性之开拓方面所做出的努力。当然,桑塔格并非要引发一种色情实践或色情泛滥。毋宁说,桑塔格实际上是想告诉人们:我们需要直面"色情"和"色情文学"本身。只有如此,我们才能不被道德判断阻隔自己的眼界,不被外物迷惑和干扰自己的判断,也才能发现色情文学的真正价值和意义。事实上,在桑塔格看来,色情文学既是越界和超越性想象,也是自由的象征。

Eroticism gains extreme notoriety. It is either reproached or abandoned. And in the orthodox literary history, the erotic literature is not considered as literature, or is labeled as negativity. However, as Susan Sontag contends, the erotic literature is in fact a kind of literature. Different with pornographic works, the erotic literature contains more thoughtful and expansive elements in itself. Meantime, Sontag endows important value to the erotic literature through the study of Sade and Bataillean＇ s erotic theory, and she compliments their great efforts to expand the possibility of human consciousness and thoughts. Sontag, of course, does not want to induce some sorts of erotic practice or the flooding of eroticism, in fact, she intends to tell people that we should directly face the eroticism and erotic literature themselves, because only in this way, our horizons would not be impeded by the moral judgment, and our decisions would not be confused and interfered by the foreign objects any more, thus, we can find the true value and meaning in the erotic literature. Actually, in view of Sontag, the erotic literature is both the transgression and the transcendental imagination, but also a symbol of freedom.