托马斯·曼论小说艺术

Thomas Mann on the Art of Novel

托马斯·曼是德国批判现实主义的主要代表人物,他的文学思想主要表现在他的小说创作之中,然而,他作为杰出的批判现实主义小说家曾经专门论述过小说艺术或者叙述体文体。他认为,小说或叙述体文学具有巨大的生命力和创造力,叙述体文学的审美特征就在于整体性、客观性、嘲讽性、距离性(静观性)。他论述了叙述体文学的表征——客观的嘲讽,表明了他的批判现实主义的文学思想,而这种批判现实主义的嘲讽性是非常注意创作中的细节真实和整体真实的统一的。他论述了叙述体文学从古代诗体的史诗到现代散文体的小说的发展,并且指出这种发展的关键在于"内向化"原则,阐述了小说与现代生活、现代市民的密切关系,从而阐发了小说的现代性特质。

A major representative of German Critical Realism, Thomas Mann′s literary thought is mainly reflected in his no-vels.However, as an outstanding novelist of critical realism, he also discourses on the art of novel or the narrative style.He thinks that the novel or narrative literature has great vitality and creativity and the aesthetic characteristics of narrative litera-ture include integrity, objectivity, irony and distance（ disinterested contemplation） .His discussion of objective Irony, which reveals the critical realist bent of his literary thought, attaches great importance to the unity between the creation of details and the unification of the whole piece.He also traces the development of narrative literature from ancient verse epics to mod-ern prose fiction and points out the principle of“introversion” as essential to such development.He elaborates on the close relationship between the novel and modern life and modern citizenry, thus highlighting the modernity of the novel.