虚无与轮回:《悲痛往事》的尼采之维

Nihilism and Recurrence:A Nietzschean Dimension of "A Painful Case"

乔伊斯深受尼采影响,《悲痛往事》创作于尼采思想在欧洲盛行之际,该短篇难免蕴含尼采痕迹。前人论述对此有所涉及,但未曾聚焦小说提及的尼采著作——《快乐的科学》和《查拉图斯特拉如是说》。本文从这两部著作的焦点"永恒轮回"思想出发,指出小说中理性主导的虚无世界是"永恒轮回"的思想根由,着意呈现的"戏剧性"关合其理论关键,小说从自身文本到乔伊斯小说文本整体,再到超越文学文本的社会语境,共三个层面实现了该思想在小说艺术中的升华。因此,小说成为"永恒轮回"思想艺术实践的典范,这一思想也成为该短篇的一个重要维度。

Joyce was deeply influenced by Nietzsche."A Painful Case" was created during the heyday of Nietzschean thoughts in Europe.These have naturally contributed to Nietzschean traces in the story.Some scholars have touched this fact,but have not attached due importance to The Gay Science and Thus Spake Zarathustra,the two books mentioned by Joyce in the story.This paper,setting out from the shared focus of these two books,namely the Eternal Recurrence,finds that the nihilistic world as dominated by rationalism forms the roots of Eternal Recurrence.The paper argues that the elaborated theatricality is the key of this theory,and the artistic innovation as shown on such levels as the story text itself,the whole fictional text of Joyce,as well as the social context concerned with but significantly surpassing literary texts,manifests a sublimation of this theory.In this sense,"A Painful Case" is a typical crystallization of the theory,and meanwhile the Nietzschean thought forms one of the important dimensions of this story.