读者群体的特性对司各特小说虚构观的影响

The Influence of the Reader Community on Scott’s View of the Novel as Fiction

“读者”一词在司各特的小说评论中出现的频率很高。这个文学群体出入的两个公共场所(流通图书馆和温泉胜地)证明小说的主流读者是英国的中上层阶级。读者对小说的批判使得司各特不得不直面、承认其虚构性。但借用亚里士多德的虚构论使他得以维护小说的价值和地位。司各特的独特和创新之处在于他在小说评论中所塑造的理想读者的形象提升、甚至完善了他的小说虚构观。这使得他不但继承而且发展了西方传统的文学虚构论。

Scott’s criticism of the novel features the frequent appearance of the phrase“the reader”.The circulating library and the watering place popular among this literary community prove that the main-stream readers of the novel were the middle and the upper classes of Britain.The readers’criticism of the novel compelled Scott to face and recognize the novel as fiction.But borrowing Aristotle’s theory of poetry defined as fiction and better than history enabled him to defend the novel.His originality and creativity lies in the fact that the image of the ideal reader in his criticism improved and almost perfected his defense of the novel as fiction.This makes him innovate as well as inherit the western literary tradition about literature as fiction.