“后学”之后的文学批评与莎士比亚研究的转向

Literary Criticism After Post-isms and Shakespeare Studies

莎士比亚研究作为文学批评的重要领域,一直以来都是各种文学思潮的试验场,也是某些流派的发源地。本文评述1970年代后期以来一些主要文学批评流派介入莎士比亚研究的情况,主要考察它们如何在"后学"语境下看待莎士比亚及其早期现代文本。莎士比亚研究承载了文学批评领域的重要理念变迁。这种转变在各学派对待莎士比亚文本的方法中得以充分体现:从专注文本细读转向文本内外的话语分析。受后结构主义思想影响的文学批评以及莎士比亚研究把注意力转向文本产生和接受过程中的历史、政治、文化等意义构成的背景因素。批评者不仅把莎士比亚及其作品放到历史背景中去理解,更试图使用莎士比亚与时代文化谈判所采取的策略来分析文本内外的矛盾话语,找出文本及其批评参与特定历史背景下的意义构建的可能性,而关注早期现代文化意义不稳定性的落脚点都在于他们在后现代生活中的抗争。

As a significant site of literary criticism, Shakespeare studies have always been the field of experiment for variegated critical schools. This paper reviews how the major critical trends have approached Shakespeare since the late 1970s, examining the ways in which they treat the Bard and his early modern texts under the influence of post-structuralism. To be sure, Shakespeare criticism has carried all the crucial conceptual transformations in literary research. Critical trends of post-structuralist turn from close reading of the text to studies of historical, political, and cultural context in which Shakespeare＇s texts have been created and received. Such critics move steps even further by adopting Shakespearean strategies of negotiation with contemporary culture in their analyses of conflicting discourses within and beyond the text, attempting to find out possibilities of textual and critical participation in the process of meaning construction in certain historical moments. In fact, their concerns about uncertainties of early modern cultural meaning are rooted in their struggles in postmodern life.