伊什梅尔·里德和后现代讽刺小说

Ismael Reed and His Postmodernist Satirical Novels

伊斯梅尔·里德是一个重要但颇有争议的非裔美国作家,其小说虽然不能全部归入"后现代讽刺小说"的范畴,但却有明显的后现代讽刺特征。本文将里德的小说创作置于西方和非裔讽刺传统,审视其对文学传统的反叛、其讽刺的主题和策略(如戏仿、枝节叙述、百科全书写作和语言混杂等)。从后现代讽刺角度重新考察里德的作品,无论是澄清对里德作品的误读,还是重新思考后现代小说的本质和功能,无疑有着不容忽视的价值。

Ishmael Reed is an important but controversial African American writer whose fictional works, while not to be all neatly categorized as the ＂postmodernist satire,＂ displays salient features of this subgenre. Placing Reed＇s fictional writing in the broad context of Western and African American satiric tradition, this paper examines Reed＇s works by focusing on Reed＇s iconoclasm of forms, his penchant for satire as well as the strategies he employs, including generic and textual parody, digression, encyclopedism and language mixing. It argues that the significance in exploring Reed＇s fiction from the perspective of the postmodernist satire lies not only in clarifying misreadings of Reeds＇ works, but also in looking afresh at the nature and function of important postmodernist works as well.