文学的真实性新探

A New Probe into Truthfulness of Literature

传统的文艺学认为文学的真实性就是指文学作品通过艺术形象反映社会生活所达到的准确程度。尽管这一观点似乎已成为文艺理论工作者的共识并被写入全国高校汉语言文学专业的教学大纲 ,但笔者仍然认为这一提法很值得商榷。在对文学的本质属性进行重新的审视之后 ,我们认为关于文学的真实性应该作这样的解释 :它是指作家经过对一定的社会生活现象或假定的生活现象进行艺术概括而创造出来的具体生动的艺术形象 ,从而表现出人性的特征或内容 ,展示出社会生活的本质规律以及人生理想等。它是现象与本质、真相与假象、合情与合理的统一。

Traditional literary theory believes that the truth in literature lies in the fact that literary works accurately reflect social life through characters. Although this has been unanimously agreed among critics, and has been put into teaching program of the Chinese department of colleges and universities,this paper throws its doubts upon such a statement. After re-considering the nature of literature, we believe that the truth in literature refers to those specific and lively characters portrayed by writers after they artistically generalize some social phenomena and assumed phenomena in life. They show humanity, human ideal,and essential law of social life, etc. It is the unity between phenomenon and essence, truth and illusion, reasonableness and fitness.