性别视角下海外《红楼梦》研究的误读与反思

Misreadings of the Dream of the Red Chamber in Overseas Sinology from a Gender Perspective

作为红学研究的重要分支,海外红学的性别研究在积累了丰富成果的同时,针对某些性别现象也存在误读。以女性主义为立场的研究者多将优秀女性形象视为确认男性价值的工具,从而忽视了小说意识形态的多元性与女性经验的独立性;由于未能深入考察清代审美风尚的女性化倾向,研究者往往从西方“硬汉”范式出发,将宝玉的女性化形象解释为宝玉的怪异行为或弱势表现;在基督教文化中反同性恋立场的影响下,研究者难以理解明清社会对待男风的宽容态度,将宝玉的同性恋情理解为偏离正统的反常表现或不带肉欲的友情之爱。目前海外红学性别研究所面临的主要问题是理论先行的解释框架所导致的文化误读。有关该领域的辨析与反思,既说明了回归文本与历史语境的必要性,也为国内红学与明清性别研究的发展提供了重要参考。

As an important subfield of the“Studies of the Red”,overseas research on the Dream of the Red Chamber from a gender perspective has seen a tremendous growth in publications.However,certain gender phenomena have been misinterpreted.Feminist literary criticism tends to regard excellent women as a tool to confirm men’s value,and in so doing,ignore the plurality of perspectives as well as the independence of women’s experience in the fiction.Due to a lack of in-depth investigations of the feminized tastes in the Qing dynasty,many overseas scholars explained the feminized image of Baoyu as an indication of his perverseness or passiveness based on the Western paradigm of the“macho man”.Because of the influence of Christian-based homophobia,these scholars felt difficult to recognize an overall social tolerance for male homoeroticism in late imperial China and therefore tended to interpret homosexual relationships between Baoyu and other men as deviations from orthodoxy or friendships without sensuality.Currently,a chief problem in the“Studies of the Red”from a gender perspective in Overseas Sinology is the cultural misreadings caused by the established theoretical framework.Reflections on these studies not only demonstrate a necessity of putting materials into the original textual and historical context,but also provide an important reference point to the“Studies of the Red”as well as studies of the Ming and Qing Dynasties from a gender perspective in China.