探析撒弥尔·理查生书信体小说《克拉丽莎》的现代性

On the Modernism in Samuel Richardson's Clarissa

尽管撒弥尔·理查生书信体小说《克拉丽莎》不是一部社会问题小说,但是它对社会的批评远比《帕米拉》尖锐、深刻。作品中理查生对爱情、道德、女性意识等问题的关注超过了对社会现实问题的关注。书信体小说使理查生成为心理现实主义和"视角小说"的开拓者,同时,《克拉丽莎》创造了一个多声部的世界,产生了一种类似于巴赫金所说的复调叙述效果。这部作品无论在内容上还是形式上都充分体现了现代意识。

Samuel Richardson＇s masterpiece Clarissa,with the feature of the epistolary form,is no more an essentially social novel than Pamela. Richardson probes through the social,to the ethical,to the religious,and the final volumes are concerned with dying to the core. The epistolary form of this novel focuses attention on the experience of writing and creates an effect analogous to the kind of narrative polyphony defined by Mikhail Bakhtin. Richardson is doubtlessly the pioneer of ＂point of view＂fiction,but he was fully aware of the flaw of the single-focus epistolary form and set out to create Clarissa,where he adopts a ＂multiple point of view＂writing. So the modernism of Clarissa lies not only in its content,but also in its form.