忧郁的辩证:本雅明对潘诺夫斯基之丢勒阐释的继承和发展

Dialectics of Melancholy: The Succession and Development of Erwin Panofsky's Interpretation of Dürer in Walter Benjamin

忧郁是本雅明思想中的重要概念。在《德意志悲苦剧的起源》一书中,本雅明借助对丢勒画作《忧郁Ⅰ》的解读形成了自己独特的艺术批评观念。本雅明对丢勒画作的解读绕开了弗洛伊德的精神分析理路,取道潘诺夫斯基等人的艺术史阐释路径。在潘诺夫斯基看来,丢勒画作改写了中世纪人们对忧郁的负面评价,赋予其人文主义的积极价值。本雅明承继了潘诺夫斯基的人文主义阐释,并在此基础上将丢勒的画作置于早期现代性批判的视野当中来审视。在丢勒画作中所呈现的"物的世界"和主人公的"沉浸式认识",实际上是对康德以来的启蒙理性的反思。启蒙理性一方面造成了主体与客体的分离,使整个世界变得日益机械化;另一方面也使得政治共同体陷入动荡和危机之中,在这个日益主体化和物化的世界中政治性决断变得不可能。

“Melancholy”is an important concept of Walter Benjamin.In Ursprung des deutschen Trauerspiels,Benjamin elaborates his unique art-cultural criticism by reading Albrecht Dürer’s MelancholieⅠ.Bypassing Freudian psychoanalysis of“melancholy,”he takes the path of Erwin Panofsky’s art-historical interpretation of Dürer.For Panofsky,Dürer’s engraving has challenged the negative comments on“melancholy”prevalent since the medieval age and given it a positive value of humanism.By appropriating this humanist interpretation,Benjamin views MelancholieⅠas the criticism of modernity in the early modern period.He argues that,“World of Things”and“knowing by sinking”in Dürer’s engraving are both his reflections of the Enlightenment and Kantian confidence of human reason.He points out that,the so called human reason on the one hand leads to the separation of subject and object and produces a mechanical world,on the other hand,it also situates political communities in crisis with perpetual turmoil-both of them make it impossible to make true political decisions.