克林思·布鲁克斯的小说理论与批评实践

Cleanth Brooks' s Theory of Fiction and His Critical Practice

克林思·布鲁克斯在小说批评上取得了卓越的成就,尤其是在对威廉·福克纳小说的研究上。布鲁克斯认为小说批评与诗歌、戏剧批评之间没有本质性的区别。在小说批评中,布鲁克斯仍然保持对反讽、悖论与象征等文字技巧的强调,并认为小说是一个有机体,应该独立于社会生活与政治宣传,反对浪漫的感伤主义。当然,布鲁克斯在小说批评中也注重对历史与地理环境的考虑,注重作者的生活经历与他的全部作品对特定小说的影响,重视读者的作用,这反映了他对新批评的非历史主义与反对生平传记式批评的文本中心主义的一种修订。最后,从三个方面对布鲁克斯的小说批评进行了反思:主张对小说进行细读,从逻辑上来讲存在困难;其批评模式最终可能会与哲学纠缠不清;为了应对"一元论"的指责,布鲁克斯可能走向了另一个极端,即文化批评。

Cleanth Brooks＇ critical study on fiction, especially on William Faulkner＇s, is a remarkable achievement. Brooks claimed that there is no essential difference between fiction criticism, poetry criticism and drama criticism. In fiction criticism, Brooks＇ emphases remain on textual skills such as irony, paradox and symbol, taking.fiction as an organism that should be independent of the social life and political propaganda, and opposing Romantic sentimentalism. Nevertheless, Brooks also lay great weight to the historical context and geographical environment of an author, emphasizing the influence of an author＇s life experience and entire body of works on a particular fiction, and attaching importance to the role of readers. This shows Brooks＇ revision on the text centrism of the New Criticism. The paper reflects Brooks＇fiction criticism from three aspects ： the logical difficulty in close reading of a fiction, the entanglement between the critical pattern and philosophy, and his potential slipping into cultural criticism as his effort to fend the accusation of monism.