诗性真理:转型焦虑在19世纪英国文学中的表征

Poetic Truth as the Expression of Anxiety in the 19th-Century English Literature

"诗性真理"是18世纪末19世纪初英国现代转型时期出现的重要观念,它与科学真理相对,是对启蒙理性主义的一种反拨,也是转型焦虑在文学领域的表征。英国浪漫主义诗人传承以休谟为代表的启蒙情感主义传统,坚持人类共同本性和认识的整体性特征,倡导想象力和共情能力;以穆勒和阿诺德为代表的维多利亚批评家试图通过情感培育弥补理性教育的不足,通过精英文化对抗通俗文化与失序问题,倡导诗性真理和完善的心智培育,以化解由社会转型带来的精神危机。

Poetic truth as a concept emerges in England in its transition into the modern world at the turn of the 19th century. In opposition to scientific truth together with rationality, poetic truth gives expression to the anxiety of the intelligentsia towards the transition of society. The English Romantic poets, in inheritance of Humean Sentimentalism, emphasize imagination and fellow feelings on the premise of holism and common humanity. In the vein of Romanticism Victorian critics shift the focus on the epistemological value of poetry. While John Stuart Mill seeks to balance intellectual education with the cultivation of emotion, Matthew Arnold sticks to the elite culture against popular culture and social anarchy. Both scholars aim to cope with the cultural crisis by advocating poetic truth and the comprehensive cultivation of human mind.