什么是叙事的“反模仿性”?——布莱恩·理查森的非自然叙事学论略

What Is the Antimimesis of Narrative? An Exploration of Brian Richardson's Unnatural Narratology

作为非自然叙事学的首倡者和领军人物,布莱恩·理查森在当代西方叙事学界有着举足轻重的影响。在概念层面上,理查森将"非自然"等同于"反模仿",把非自然叙事界定为"包含重要的反模仿事件、人物、场景或框架的叙事";在特征描述上,他主要聚焦于故事、话语或叙事再现层面的反模仿性;在功能层面上,他着重辨析了非自然叙事与意识形态之间的关联。自建构以来,理查森倡导的非自然叙事学在引起高度关注的同时,也招致了诸多批评争议,如非自然叙事的概念、研究方法以及非自然叙事学的适用性等。就其未来研究而言,非自然叙事学既需要在微观层面上区分辨析非自然叙事学概念与其他相邻概念之间的差异,也需要在宏观层面上建构可操作的阐释模式,并在批评实践中对之不断修正和完善,以便真正发展成为"一门非自然叙事诗学"。

As a founder and major proponent of unnatural narratology, Brian Richardson is one of the most prominent narratologists in contemporary Western academia. Defining unnatural narrative as "one that contains significant antimimetic events,characters,settings,or frames ",Richardson analyzes its unnaturalness from such aspects as story,discourse and narrative representation apart from revealing its ideological function. The controversies of unnatural narratology,to a large extent,center on the concept of the unnatural,and methodology and applicability of the theory. To fully develop"a poetics of unnatural narrative,"unnatural narratologists,Richardson in particular,need to further clarify the concepts of unnatural narratology at a micro-level on the one hand,and to develop an interpretive model which will be fruitfully improved and revised through practice at a macro-level on the other.