“颓废”的三副面孔:西方颓废派文学中国百年传播省思

The Three Faces of Decadence Reflections on the Dissemination of Western Decadent Literaturein China in the Past 100 Years

新文化运动前后,西方颓废派文学首次进入中国。基于改造旧俗改良社会的初衷,虽然时人竭力在这种与本土传统文学审美殊异的西方文学中发掘积极的"文化反叛"意味,但与此相比,这一时期对"颓废"内涵的本土化改造才是更引人注目的传播现象。本土化了的"颓废",更多地源于民族屈辱感与自卑感,与西方颓废派文学中的那个丧失了现实行动意愿、追求极端个人"自由体验"的艺术化的"颓废"只是表面相似。20世纪30年代前后,喧嚣热闹的引进推介之后,本土学人对此前对日本或西方学者观点的过度依赖展开反思,渐趋见出本土文化之道统对西方颓废派文艺"无用之用"的否定倾向;与此同时,越来越多的左翼文人受到苏俄文论的影响,将颓废派文学斥为衰退、堕落的"反动"文学。道德指斥与政治批判合流的做法,新中国成立后进一步演变为谈"颓"色变。改革开放40年来,颓废的审美现代性逐渐在学理层面得到揭示,中国的颓废派文学研究由此正缓慢地开展。

Around the time of the new cultural campaign, Western Decadent literature was introduced into China for the first time. Based on the original intention of social improvement, Chinese researchers tried to explore positive meanings of cultural-rebellion in this sort of Western literature which was different with local traditional literary aesthetics, but by comparison, the localization of the connotation of Decadence was the more remarkable communication phenomenon in this period. The localized "decadence" mainly came from the sense of national humiliation and inferiority. It was quite different with the artistic Decadence in Western Decadent literature which was without the desire to act in the real society and pursued extreme individual "free experience". Around 1930 s, after the fiery and noisy introduction period, some researchers reflected on previous over-reliance on Japanese or western ideas, and tried to make relatively independent judgments of decadent literature. Such comments gradually showed the negative tendency of the native culture upon Western Decadent literature and art. At the same time, more and more left-wing literati, influenced by the literary theory of Soviet Russia, dismissed Decadent literature as "reactionary" literature of decline and degeneration. The latter’s combination of moral denunciation and political criticism further evolved into great fear of mentioning Decadence after the founding of the People’s Republic of China. Since the reform and opening up in the 1980 s, along with the academic theoretical reveal of Decadence’s emblem of aesthetic modernity, Western Decadent literature research in China was slowly getting on the right track.