文学与文化的互动:英语诗歌墓志铭研究

Interaction between Literature and Culture: A Brief Survey of English Poetic Epitaph

经历17世纪到19世纪早期兴衰史的英语诗歌墓志铭利用了诗歌别具一格的表达形式,承载了具体的文化规约,通过强化、延展、挑战、重塑现存的文化设想重新定义逝者。关于逝者的文化定义不仅让逝者在生者的世界里继续扮演着新的角色,使英语诗歌墓志铭的发展因此成为英语文化模式的某种连续同化和修饰的过程,而且也使诗歌墓志铭这类独特的文学体裁因承载着丰富的社会、政治、道德信息而注定成为跨越文学、社会学、人类学、文化学、伦理学等领域历久弥新的重要课题。本文结合中外学者的研究,综合评述英语诗歌墓志铭的文化功用、文学特征及社会功用,考察其文学与文化互动中的运动轨迹,以进一步评鉴英语社会的文化价值取向。

By the rise and fall from the17th century to the early19th century,English poetic epitaph exploits both the distinctive features of verse and its own specific cultural conventions in order to define the dead in ways not only reinforcing but also extending,challenging and reshaping the prevailing cultural assumptions.The way to define the dead in cultural dimension has not only helped the dead play a new role continuously in the living world,but also made the development of English poetic epitaph a continuous process of assimilation and modification of English cultural norms,which has made the particular literary genre of English poetic epitaph the interdisciplinary research everlastingly across literature,sociology,anthropology,culture,ethics and so on.This brief diachronically survey with previewing over the past research by both English and Chinese covers the introduction to the cultural function,literary characteristics and social significance of English Poetic Epitaph,the trace on how the literature and culture embedded with English epitaphs interacted with each other,to shed light on what literary and cultural significance the English epitaphs have interacted upon the English society.