自然叙事学中叙事性的两个面向——《埃德加·亨特利》中双重经验主体的互动

The Two Faces of Narrativity in Natural Narratology:Interaction between the Dual Experiencing Subjects in Edgar Huntly

弗鲁德尼克在《建构"自然"叙事学》一书中对叙事性这一传统的结构叙事学概念进行了颠覆与重建,引发了学界长达二十几年的讨论。弗氏定义虽然有建设性的意义,但也存在一些不清楚、不连贯之处,比如作为叙事性重要衡量依据的经验性所对应的主体似乎既有故事世界内事件的经历者,又有现实世界中叙事文本的接收者。本文结合布朗的小说《埃德加·亨特利》,说明这两种经验主体如何通过一种文本层面的邀约机制产生交互作用,从而将经验性的两个面向紧密结合在一起。笔者认为,厘清这两者之间的关系,对于我们重新认识自然叙事学与经典叙事理论之间的关系,以及从认知角度进一步了解哥特小说的运行机制都有积极的作用。

Originally a structuralist term,narrativity was completely reconstructed by Monika Fludernik in her groundbreaking Towards a"Natural"Narratology,which triggered an enduring debate among narratologists in the last two decades.This article points out a key inconsistency in Fludernik’s constructive redefinition,that is,it remains unclear whether experientiality,the main constituent of narrativity,mainly involves the experiencing character or narrator on the diegetic level,or the reader who cognitively reconstructs the fictional world at an extradiegetic level,or both.It uses Charles Brockden Brown’s novel Edgar Huntly as a case study to illustrate how the two experiencing subjects come into contact with each other through a text-based mechanism of invitation.Clarifying the relationship between the two experiencing subjects can shed new light on the interrelations between natural narratology and classical narratology,and extend our understanding of the operational principles of the gothic from a cognitive perspective.