在类比的绳索上舞蹈:比较文学中的平行、流通和体系

A Genealogy of "Analogy" in Western Thought and Methods of Comparative Literature

本文旨在提出一种新的描绘比较文学方法论历史的路径。它从“类比”的概念史入手,进而分析平行研究的两种常见模式--同时比较和错时比较的学理依据,并指出平行研究难以避免的思维困境。文章指出,翻译流通研究不仅改造了传统的影响研究,更是对平行研究所使用的类比思维的改造和推进;而平行研究与翻译流通研究相结合,就从一元体系的想象中挣脱出来,催生了对世界文学体系的重新构建。

This essay provides a new approach to outlining the methodological history of comparative literature as a discipline. It starts with a genealogy of the idea of"analogy"(αναλογια)from Aristotle to Herder,who harbingers modern notions of cultural pluralism. The conceptual history of"analogy"can be seen as a continuous intellectual project to locate grounds of comparison among different words and ideas. This project,however,proves untenable,as analogies constantly disintegrate into loose associations,as Herder pointed out early on. The essay then points out that the two primary branches of comparative studies,transcultural comparison and translation studies,are both responses to the insoluble crisis of analogy. The interactions between these two aspects of comparative literature have started to generate new conceptions of world literary systems.