比较文学的文本细读与实证研究——兼论克劳德·罗森的学术创新

Towards Close Reading and Empirical Research in Comparative Literature: A Review of Claude Rawson’sAcademic Innovation

自20世纪九十年代起,盛行于美国的各种文学理论和文化批评理论开始在美国学界遭受冷遇,国外的文学研究开始走上一条文本细读与实证研究紧密结合的务实的批评之路。美国艺术与科学院院士克劳德·罗森的专著《上帝、格利佛与种族灭绝》堪称是这一研究范式的典范。这部研究18世纪比较文学的学术著作,举凡所见均依据细致的文本分析以及大量的旅行和探险文献资料。作者的学术眼光独到高远,从文学人类学批评的角度切入,将格列佛、上帝与种族灭绝三个貌似毫不相干的概念置于"野蛮与欧洲想象"这一框架中进行了精辟的比较与分析。作者对斯威夫特、蒙田、萧伯纳、王尔德等作家笔下有关野蛮和杀戮的书写进行了精细的解读,透过浅层的言语修辞来窥视暴力行为的实施过程,试图撩开欧洲有关野蛮"他者"的文化想象面纱。全书博大精深,视野开阔,字里行间流露出罗森敏锐的问题意识和极为精湛的分析问题的能力。罗森的论述并不轻易指向结论,但在丰富的资料比照和精细的文本分析中,读者不难发现他思想的锋芒。他不是一个非此即彼的二元论批评家,也不是一个立场中立的中庸主义者,他的观点常常发人之未发,令人耳目一新。从学术批评的角度来看,罗森的研究有三大亮点:一是言之有物、不故弄玄虚;二是视野开阔,勇于创新;三是以微发著,思维活跃。这种扎实的研究方法和学术创新精神值得我国比较文学和外国文学研究者认真借鉴。

Since the 1990s, various literary and cultural theories have been faced with cold reception in American academia and literary studies tend to move towards empirical research combined with nuanced textual analysis instead of the bygone theory-for-theory bubbling. Claude Rawson＇s God, Gulliver and Genocide, a masterpiece of the 18th century studies, is an exemplary book written in this mode of research. Based on delicate textual analysis as well as rich travel and exploration writings, this book puts the three seemingly irrelevant terms, God, Gulliver and Genocide, within the framework of barbarism and European imagination and attempts, from the perspective of literary anthropology, an insightful study on the depictions of barbarism and the writings about killing in the works of Swift, Montaigne, Bernard Shaw, Oscar Wilde and others, trying to subvert the prevailing assumptions of 18th-century studies and unveil some unknown aspects of barbarism and European imagination. Profound and wide-ranging, this book manifests the author＇s acute problem consciousness and his power of exquisite analysis on both fictional and non-fictional materials. In its treatment of the relationship between encounter literature and fiction, especially in its exploration of the religious aspects of barbarism and savagery, this book exhibits the author＇s meticulous erudition while showing his sharp sense of the complexity of historical causation and his academic ability to see through historical phenomenon. As probably the most accomplished Swift specialist, Claude Rawson exhibits his power of academic innovation in comparative literature. Readers would find Rawson neither a dualist who makes conclusions with binary opposition nor a theorist nor a Golden Mean relativist who compromises his ideas. Although Rawson deals with racism, barbarism, cannibalism and females, he refuses to employ those post-colonial jargons and dreary literary theories, which explains the readability of this illuminating book. Rawson＇s empirical research methodology, his power of nuanced textual analysis, his broad academic vision and his humane writing style merit serious attention of Chinese literary scholars.