新批评:麦克卢汉媒介思想的文学根源

New Criticism and Marshall McLuhan:On Literary Origins of Marshall McLuhan’s Media Thought

麦克卢汉青年时代受到以瑞恰兹、利维斯为代表的剑桥新批评派思想的熏陶;20世纪50年代前,麦克卢汉将学到的新批评方法应用于课堂教学和批评实践,逐渐成为美国新批评派的核心成员;20世纪50年代后,经由伊尼斯启发而转向媒介研究的麦克卢汉,继续尝试用“实用批评”去唤醒人们的媒介意识,提出了一套注重从媒介本身出发去探讨媒介后果的全新媒介思想:其整个媒介思想根基的“媒介即信息”命题,其把媒介视作语言的核心观念,其注重从媒介本身出发的研究思路,其“不解释、只探索”的媒介方法,其独具新批评风格的媒介理论表述,以及其媒介思想所呈现的浓郁人文色彩和文学意味,无不体现着新批评的深刻影响。新批评是理解麦克卢汉的一个绝佳入口。

In his youth, Marshall McLuhan was influenced by the ideas of the Cambridge New Criticism represented by I. A. Richards and F. R. Leavis. Before the 1950s, McLuhan applied new critical methods to teaching and critical practice, and gradually became a core member of the American New Criticism School. After the 1950s, McLuhan, inspired by Harold Adams Innis and turning to media studies, continued to use “practical criticism” to awaken people’s media awareness, and proposed a new set of media thoughts that focused on the media itself to explore the consequences of media. McLuhan’s thesis on “the medium is the message”, the core concept of the media as language, the research ideas on starting from the media itself, the media method of “I don’t explain, I explore”, the unique expression of a new critical style, as well as the rich humanistic and literary meaning in his media thoughts, all reflect the profound influence of the new criticism. To understand McLuhan, new criticism is an excellent entry point.