简·奥斯丁经典化的知识条件

Intellectual Requirements for Jane Austen's Canonization

在奥斯丁经典化的初始阶段(1870-1920年),批评共识的构筑和规范小说版本的编辑是两个重要的外在知识条件。早期书评、杂谈和文学讲座等,尚夹杂印象式文学赏析的特色,不时流露出维多利亚时代特有的怀旧之情,同时也增强了奥斯丁的文学地位。查普曼等"绅士学者"以研究古典作家的方法来整理流行小说家的文本,这在英美文学史中尚属首次。他们的校订和笺注,不仅有效地影响了早期读者的理解,也极大拓展了小说文本的语义空间,为奥斯丁的"入典"创造了不可或缺的外在知识条件。

In the initial period( 1870 s-1920 s) of Jane Austen's canonization,critical consensus and authoritative editions of her novels are,among others,two fundamental intellectual requirements to be met. Early reviews,miscellaneous writings and literary lectures,though constantly interweaved with impressionistic appreciations and occasionally redolent of the specifically Victorian nostalgia,have somewhat enhanced Austen's literary status. For the first time in the history of English literature,Chapman and other"gentleman scholars"have subjected a popular writer's fiction to the kind of textual editing approach reserved usually for Classical Greek and Roman authors. Their proof-readings and annotations have not only efficiently shaped the early readers' understanding,but significantly extended the semantic space of Austen's novels,providing the most important intellectual requirement for her canonization.