《一千零一夜》与世界文学的缘起

The Thousand and One Nights and the Emergence of World Literature

歌德步施勒策尔和维兰德后尘,在1827年提出了世界文学概念,这通常被认为是欧洲人构建全球多元文学谱系意识的开端,也被认为隐含着西方中心论的倾向。然而,在此之前,欧洲人不仅已经积累了有关世界不同民族文化的知识,也见证了第一次系统性突破东西方文化分野的世界文学实践。18世纪初期,法国东方学家迦兰和叙利亚人迪亚卜合作,对《一千零一夜》进行了翻译与改写,这部译作在欧洲引发了前所未有的东方故事热潮,推动欧洲启蒙时代叙事文学在对普遍人性与民族文化差异的关注中实现了自身的现代转型。《一千零一夜》在欧洲的译介,一方面有着比歌德以来存在争议的世界文学概念更为丰富的内涵和启示意义,另一方面其引发的东方文学热潮和对欧洲文学的影响也是歌德得以提出世界文学概念的关键语境,它标志着世界文学的诞生。

Goethe,following Schleicher and Wieland,proposed the concept of world literature in 1827,which is often regarded as the beginning of European awareness of a global pluralistic literary genealogy and an implication of Western-centrism.However,prior to this,Europeans had not only accumulated knowledge about the different national cultures of the world,but also witnessed the first systematic practice of world literature that crossed the cultural divide between East and West.At the beginning of the 18th century,Antoine Galland,an orientalist,and Hanna Diyab,a Maronite from Syria,co-translated and rewrote The Thousand and One Nights.The translation triggered an unprecedented boom of oriental tales in Europe and modern transformation of narrative literature as a result of its concern for universal humanity and national cultural differences during the age of European Enlightenment.Compared with the concept of world literature that is sometimes considered as a problem,the translation of The Thousand and One Nights in Europe shows a richer theoretical connotation and illumination.Still more important,the oriental literary boom it triggered and its influence on European literature lead to the key context that enabled Goethe to propose the concept of world literature.In this sense,The Thousand and One Nights marks the birth of world literature.