布斯的伦理修辞与当代西方伦理批评

Wayne Booth's Ethical Rhetoric and Contemporary Western Ethical Criticism

作为当代西方著名修辞学家和文学批评家,韦恩.布斯是将修辞视角引入文学批评实践和文学理论建构的成功典范。布斯还是当代西方伦理批评的理论旗手,他有关伦理批评的主张也深受其伦理修辞观的影响。在《我们的交流圈子——小说伦理》一书中布斯"以书喻友",并不否认伦理批评的一个中心是对叙事的伦理价值做出评判,但他也主张伦理批评还应该将读者已有的伦理观念考虑在内。这一主张充分地表明,布斯已接受了后现代主义、后结构主义思潮以及读者反应批评理论的影响,从《小说修辞》中只关注作者如何通过修辞手段影响并控制读者这一单向模式向文本、语境与读者之间的互动这一双向模式过渡。

As a well-known contemporary Western rhetorician and literary critic,Wayne C.Booth successfully applies his rhetorical theory in his literary theorization and critical practice,with the former exerting a strong impact upon the latter.As one of the advocates of contemporary Western ethical criticism,Booth maintains in his The Company We Keep that one of the concerns of ethical criticism is to judge the narrative value inherent in novels,with readers＇ ethical judgments being taken into consideration.All this means that Booth,while upholding intrinsic criticism in his The Rhetoric of Fiction,has gradually upon the influences from both post-structuralism and reader-response theories,stepped forward in the direction of extrinsic criticism.