狂欢化与文化更新

Carnivalization and Cultural Updating

巴赫金提出的“狂欢化”概念在文学批评中有广泛的使用,但大家往往将其局限在场景的“众声喧哗”和思想的“复调”层面来理解,而忽视了其中的文化更新意义。由狂欢节记忆移置到文学文本中的“众声喧哗”场景只是狂欢化概念的表征,“复调”则只是文本范围内的思想交锋,但狂欢化的实质其实是“文化更新”。所谓文化更新是指新的叙事模式、新的哲学观念,以及新的社会形态的确立。从这个意义上来看,中国的文学自近代以来确曾出现过“众声喧哗”的描写场景,甚至意识形态的“复调”,但在整体文化上,中国的文化仍然保持着传统的样态,而未能发生真正的文化更新。

The concept of “carnivalization”, proposed by Bakhtin, is widely used in literary criticism. However, the understanding of the concept is usually limited in the layers of “heteroglossia” of scenes and “polyphony” of thoughts while neglecting its cultural updating implication. The transplanting of carnival memory to heteroglossia scene in literary texts is only the representation of the concept, and the polyphony is only the idea conflicts within the texts, while the very nature of carnivalization is cultural updating, which means the establishment of new narrative mode, new philosophical ideas and new social status. From this perspective, in modern Chinese literature there indeed appeared descriptive scenes of heteroglossia, even polyphony of ideologies, but for the whole culture, it still kept its traditional pattern without bringing change for true cultural updating.