叙事学与伦理批评:同床异梦,抑或携手联姻

Narratology and Ethical Criticism:Strange Bed-Fellows or Natural Allies

叙事学与伦理批评的研究路径既非同床异梦,亦非相互忽视、格格不入。本文将叙事理论与伦理批评视为携手联姻的同盟者,认为二者的概念及视角可以相互补充、相互启发,从而更加有效地解读叙事形式的伦理与政治。文章在简述叙事学和伦理批评的不同发展轨迹以及近期学界之于二者整合研究的基础上,重点讨论伦理叙事学架构的基本前提和核心概念。伦理叙事学将叙事理论用于叙事虚构作品的分析和阐释,聚焦于叙事之于传播规范与价值的作用。两种批评方法的整合势必能给当下文学研究的再概念化以及文学伦理批评的不断发展提供重要的动力和支撑。

To explore the relation between narratology and ethical criticism, this paper argues that these two approaches to the study of narrative fiction are neither strange bed-fellows nor as incompatible as the fact that most of their respective practitioners tend to ignore what each other＇s work may suggest. It is argued that narrative theory and ethical literary criticism could and should be seen as natural allies in that their respective concepts and perspectives present complementary and mutually illuminating approaches to an understanding of the ethics and politics of narrative form. This paper provides a brief overview of both the different trajectories of narratology and ethical literary criticism, and of recent attempts at reconciling and synthesizing narratological and ethical approaches. Moreover, it attempts to sketch out some of the premises and concepts of an ethical narratology that puts the analytical toolkit developed by narrative theory to the service of context-sensitive interpretations of novels that focus on the question of how narratives serve to disseminate norms and values. An alliance between the two approaches could arguably be an important force in the current reconceptualisation of literary studies and the ongoing development of new forms of ethical literary criticisro.