薇拉·凯瑟的印象主义美学追求

Willa Cather's Aesthetic Pursuit of Impressionism

文学印象主义是近年来凯瑟研究的一个新声部,但文学印象主义的概念笼统、模糊。印象主义作家吸收了印象派的绘画技巧后,在创作中表现对外界光、色等的直觉;注意捕捉转瞬即逝的感觉印象及这种感觉经验如何转化为主体的情感状态,通过片断的印象来展现完整的世界。但关键的、至今被忽略的本质点是印象派绘画和文学印象主义的共同内核:二者都是画家、作家用其主体的目光去审视世界,作品是其主体生命、情感和审美的承载,是主体意识萌生的表征。凯瑟无论在题材的选择上还是描绘视觉状态下的色彩,都带有强烈而鲜明的主体意识,包融了她的审美情感和价值观念,正是这种强烈的主体意识使其作品所负载的意蕴和内涵得以深化。

Literary impressionism is a new field of research s works. Yet, the definition of literary impressionism is rather general and vague. After having absorbed the techniques of the impressionist painters, the writers strive to present human perception, focusing on a fleeting moment to provide the fragments of impression, upon which the whole can be constructed. However, the essence of their similarities, which has been neglected, is the common core of impressionist painting and literary impressionism： both the painters and the writers observe the world with their subjective eyes, and their works are the carriers of their life, passion and aesthetic standard as subject and the representation of the germination of the subjective consciousness. Cather observes the world with her own eyes and the world takes on a color of her own, which brings a strong and distinctive consciousness of subject in her selection of the material and her description of the perception. This consciousness of subject embodies her aesthetic standards and value conceptions. It is owing to this consciousness of subject that the connotation of her novels is widened.