“文学终结”之后的文学理论何处去?

On the Fate and Future of Literary Theory after “the End of Literature”

随着影像文化兴盛而促发的"文学终结"之说,引发了人们对于文学理论命运前途的思考:以探究文学的本质为旨归的文学理论是否也会随之走向终结?文学理论是对文学和文学批评的本质进行反思,是一种对所有批评实践的预设进行质疑、发问的"元批评"视角。我们从这种"元话语"视角出发,一方面从存在论角度对文学的本质进行探究,揭橥了逻各斯定义这种传统把握本质方式的限度,并试图以现象学的本质还原方法来超越这一限度,这一探究路径最终促使转向对文学进行功能性界定。由于存在论视域本身固有的盲点和局限,我们从存在论转向实存论,将文学的本质作为实存概念来把握。这种从实存论出发把握本质的方式,最为典型的是维特根斯坦提出的"家族相似"概念,这种反本质主义的解释模型不仅有效避免了本质主义和任意随机性的两难选择,同时也走出了存在论视域解释学循环的痼疾。

The statement of"the end of literature"resulted from the prosperity of image culture has aroused people’s thinking about the fate and future of literary theory namely whether literary theories aiming at exploring the nature of literature will also come to an end?Literary theory is a reflection on the nature of literary and literary criticism,and a"meta-critical"perspective of questioning the presuppositions of all critical practices.From the perspective of"meta-discourse",on the one hand,we explore the nature of literature from the viewpoint of ontology which reveals the limits of the traditional way of grasping essence defined by logos,and attempts to transcend them by the phenomenological method of essential reduction,and this path of inquiry eventually leads to the functional definition of literature.Due to the inherent blind spots and limitations of the ontological field of view,we turn from ontology to existentialism and grasp the essence of literature as an existential concept.The most typical way of grasping essence from the perspective of existentialism is Wittgenstein’s concept of"family of resemblance"and this model of anti-essentialism not only avoids the dilemma between essentialism and randomness,but also breaks out of the chronic disease of hermeneutics cycle from the perspective of ontology.