洞见与矛盾——《双城记》开白得失谈

Insight and Contradiction:On the Merit and Defect of the Opening Line of A Tale of Two Cities

《双城记》的开白成功地运用了一系列激情四溢的悖论和反讽,取得了极好的修辞效果,增强了小说的艺术感染力。一反作者同时代人对18世纪英国社会的错误判断,这句开白戳穿了这个所谓美好旧时代的神话,揭示出这个时代的残酷现实,体现出作者独到的历史洞见。然而,它在18世纪的英国与19世纪中期的英国之间的类比却是非常不恰当的,因为它过度夸大了前者爆发革命的可能性,也与作者在下文中的种种描写出现了矛盾。换言之,这句开白将危机四伏的19世纪中期的英国等同于18世纪末的英国,有年代误植之虞,违背了历史小说创作中应当遵循的历史主义原则,从而削弱了本书的历史小说的性质,使之更像是一部历史寓言而非典型的历史小说。

In the well-known opening line of A Tale of Two Cities,Dickens employs a series of passionate paradoxes and ironies,and achieves an excellent rhetorical effect,reinforcing the artistic appeal of the novel.In contrast with the judgement of his contemporaries on the 18th century England,it reveals the cruelties of the so-called"good old time,"thus showing the uniqueness of his historical insight.However,his equivalence between the social conditions of the 18th century England with those of the mid-19th century England is a grave mistake,for it over-exaggerates the possibilities of revolution in the 18th century England,thus producing an rresolvable contradiction with the descriptions of the 18th century England in the main body of the novel.In other words,the opening line improperly equates the 18th century England with the mid-19th century England threatened by growing crises,and this anachronism violates the historicist principle necessary to the historical novel writing,therefore,inevitably weakening the status of A Tale of Two Cities as a historical novel and rendering it more like a historical allegory instead of a typical historical novel.