语境化:西方文学批评的发展脉络

Contextualization: A Clear Pattern of the Western Critical Evolution

两千多年的西方文学理论和文学批评历史呈现一个清晰的发展脉络,即围绕现实-作者-作品-读者这四个要素不断创建建构意义的语境,期间经历了三次大的转型,使得文学批评从判断作品的价值逐步向意义解读过渡。本文大致勾勒了这一发展趋势,并认为自接受美学之后,读者的主体地位不断强化,文学批评走向围绕语境建构意义的趋势还将持续,因为这与当今世界呼吁多元文化主义、强调多样性和差异的后现代哲学精神是完全契合的。

Over two thousand years,Western literary theories and criticisms have manifested a clear pattern of development by respectively contextualizing the world,the author,the text,and the audience so as to generate meanings of a literary work.Literary criticism develops by the waves of the phases of contextualization,and gradually focuses on interpreting rather than judging the works.This article outlines this evolutionary pattern,and argues that since the Reception Aestheticism came into full play,the audience as a context has acquired the status of a subject;hence interpreting texts replaces traditional criticism.We also believe that this trend will continue,given the fact that it fully accords with the spirit of multiculturalism,diversity and differences in the contemporary world of intellectuals.