中国文学如何“世界”:以卡萨诺瓦和夏志清为中心

Chinese Literature as World Literature:A Discussion Focusing on Pascale Casanova and C.T. Hsia

世界文学研究兴起于传统的“伟大作品”的研究范式所依赖的学术价值秩序瓦解之后,例如帕斯卡尔·卡萨诺瓦的世界文学空间研究,更加重视从不同文学与多元世界的动态关系层面理解文学问题,为我们理解现代中国文学的世界性问题提供了新的角度。夏志清认为现代中国文学因“感时忧国”而“自外于世界性”,但鲁迅等中国作家深感帝国主义世界体系的多重压力,选择以文学去沟通和转化世界与国家,本身就是世界文学空间运作的结果。这种颇具张力的“世界-文学-国家”三角结构使“感时忧国”显出“感世忧文”的面相:前者决定了中国现代文学的内容与精神,后者则被铭刻在大胆的文学形式创新之中。这也就意味着所谓的“世界性”不在现代中国文学的外部,也并非某种可以被单独挑选出来的内部“因素”,而是被现代中国文学在世界文学空间中的位置所决定的固有属性。

After the collapse of the literary order of “Great Books”, world literature studies, such as Pascale Casanova’s study of “world literary space”, which mainly stresses on the dynamic relationship among literatures and worlds, could throw light on the reconsideration of the relationship between world literature and Chinese literature. Modern Chinese literature has been judged by C.T. Hsia as outside of world literature due to its“Obsession with China”spirit, however, the spirit itself was a product of world literary space. To overcome the multidimensional pressure of world and nation, modern Chinese writers like Lu Xun chose literature as their response. The “world-literature-nation”triangle made“Obsession with the world and literature”another face of “Obsession with China”: the latter determined the matter and spirit of modern Chinese literature, while the former was inscribed into innovative literary formations. In this sense, the “worldness”is an essential attribute of modern Chinese literature that is derived from its position in the world literary space, rather than some kind of otherness or merely an element.