口头文学之“集体性”与“个体性”发微

On"Collectivity" and"Individuality"in Oral Literature

“集体性”长期以来被认为是口头文学的核心特征之一。在国际学界,关于集体性及与之相对的个体性概念的讨论已经有一百多年的历史。中国学者开始讨论的时间稍晚,但所提供的见地渗透着传统中国文化的因素,有多方面的历史价值和现实意义,值得认真回顾和总结。在西方,从纽维尔开始,学者在进行口头文学集体性特征的分析时,一直同时关注个体性维度,时有精深见解。在中国,钟敬文等学者在广泛吸收国外同行的思想时做了适度的取舍,后来又将苏联的“人民口头创作”理论运用于我国的学术建设中,形成了有特色的理论体系。从20世纪中叶以来,一些西方学者细化并放大了口头文学的个体性维度,并逐渐摆脱了占主导地位的形式主义和结构主义方法,转而注重口头文学的诗学建设,大大提升了口头诗人和演述家的地位。还有学者通过对口头文学之审美法则的总结,在与书面文学的全面对话中,完成了新的理论转向。在过去20多年里,中国学者在口头文学集体性与个体性关系的讨论中,通过鲜活的个案和深入的讨论,有力扭转了过往对集体性失于简单的理解,从而实现了“从集体性走向个人才艺”的转化。今天,中国学界对集体性和个体性的理解,来到全观和辩证的高度,指出叙事传统中的具体个人常是施受同体,演述人与受众构成互嵌和互构的关系。同时,人在与其创造物(文学)的互构关系中进行文学生产,完成普遍性和具体性、集体性和个体性的深层统一。

The concept of"collectivity"has long been regarded as one of the core characteristics in oral literature.In the international academic circle,discussions on the concept of collectivity and its counterpart,individuality,have spanned a history of over a century.Chinese scholars began their discussions though much later,have provided their insights with elements of traditional Chinese culture,which offers multifaceted historical significance and practical significance,deserving a careful review and summary.In the West,starting with W.W.Newell,scholars have consistently paid attention to the dimension of individuality when analyzing the collective characteristics in oral literature,providing certain profound insights.In China,Zhong Jingwen and other scholars have made appropriate choices when widely learning from the ideas of foreign counterparts.Later,they applied the Soviet Union's theory of"people's oral creation"into China's academic construction,forming up a distinctive theoretical system.Since the middle of the 2Oth century,some western scholars have refined and amplified the individual dimension of oral literature,and gradually abandoned the dominant formalism and structuralism methods,and turned to the construction of poetics of oral literature,which significantly enhanced the status of oral poets and speech makers.Some scholars through summarizing the aesthetic laws of oral literature in the comprehensive dialogue with writen literature,completed a new theoretical turn.Over the past 20 years,Chinese scholars have discussed the relationship between collectivity and individuality in oral literature,effectively reversed the previous simple understanding towards collectivity,thus realizing the transformation"from collective to individual talent".Today,the Chinese academic circle's understanding of the collectivity and the individuality comes to the height of the overall view and dialectics.It is pointed out that individuals in narrative traditions are often both narrators and receivers,constitute a mutual intercalation and co-construction relationships,thus achieving a profound unity of universality and specificity,collectivity and individuality.