论文学研究范式转变:从“文学”到“文学性”

On the Paradigm Shift in Literary Studies from Literature to Literariness

从斯达尔夫人和马修·阿诺德等人开始的现代文学观念,沿袭了传统的文学研究范式,即在主体性理论的基础上把文学作为主体的一种活动方式和活动成果来认识文学,因而他们通过文学研究揭示的不是文学自身的真相,而是主体的真相:主体是如何在文学活动中建构起来的。俄国形式主义者提出了"文学性"的概念,将文学的对象界定为作品的文学性,从而改变了文学研究的范式,使得对文学的探讨摆脱了宏大叙事的影响和制约,转向了具体的实证研究;摆脱了哲学、社会学、历史学、心理学等学科的牵缠,而回归到文学本身来探讨作品所以成为文学的特质;摆脱了因果决定论的束缚,而能在历史的具体的语境中把握文学的实质。

The ideas of modern literature from Madame de Stael to Matthew Arnold were developed on the traditional paradigm of literary studies, which approaches literature from the perspective of the theory of subjectivity and takes literature as the ways and products of the individual subject~ activities. As a result, what is revealed through literature studies is not the truth of literature but the truth about the subject, which is essentially about how the subject is constructed through literary activities. Russian for- malists put forward the concept of literariness and defined the object of literature as literariness of the works, and thus the para- digm of literary study is changed. The exploration in literature studies is set free from the conditioning of grand narratives and em- pirical studies on literature become possible. As literary studies free themselves from philosophy, sociology, history and psychol- ogy, the exploration of literature may be focused on the specific features of literariness. When literary study is freed from causal determinism, it is possible to examine the essential characteristics of literature in its specific historical context.