“经典重写”小说叙事结构分析

Narrative Structure in Revisionary Re-writing

本文把"经典重写"视为广义"互文性"在小说艺术中的体现,这一认识揭示了文学写作本质上的重复属性,但忽视了"重写"通过不同形式对意义(社会历史)的重构;将"经典重写"等同于社会文化批评范畴的"抵抗阅读",这一认识契合身份政治强调的颠覆立场,忽略重写与"经典"在形式美学上的继承与发展。文章区分两种不同"重写"结构:(1)与"前文本"构成信息互补关系的"同故事平行"结构(homodiegetic para-quel);(2)以暗指(allusion)、母题(motif)和同形异义词(homonym)派生的"修辞结构"(rhetorical structure)。以女性主义和后殖民文学批评关注的"经典重写"为例子,本文揭示,将故事层面的情节重置式"重写"区别于作为修辞策略的"重写",将有助于我们发现经典重写内部的差异性;这种差异性表明:当代经典重写已经不再囿于前期围绕身份政治展开的二元对立框架,因此,对"经典重写"的阐释也应告别身份政治长期关注的"抵抗阅读"。

This essay analyses the structural relationship between canonical novels and their revisionary writings. Drawing on the narratological story-discourse division but with due attention to the prevalent ＂writing back＂rhetoric in postcolonial and feminist criticism,it designates two types of ＂rewriting＂：（ 1） ＂homo-diegetic para-quel＂,whose story structure depends on its antecedent and presents itself as a pre-quel or sequel;（ 2） ＂rhetorical structure＂,which resorts to the repeated use of allusion,motif and homonym in its pretext but presents its own rhetorical significance in the text proper.To illustrate the point,the study refers to a number revisionary writings which revisit Heart of Darkness,Jane Eyre and Wuthering Heights,respectively. The derivatives of each of the pre-texts merit a book-length study in their own right,but the purpose here is representative not comprehensive. By highlighting the structural patterning of these texts in terms of the two narrative modes mentioned afore,the papercalls for a structural and rhetorical approach towards ＂canon revision＂,which might function as a corrective to the longstanding but one-sided ＂writing back＂paradigm.