世界文学的“计算批评”——莫莱蒂的远距离阅读新论

"Computational Criticism"of World Literature:Revisiting Moretti's Distant Reading

莫莱蒂批判“细读”以神圣方式对待少数经典文本,倡导以“远距离阅读”把握世界文学的大量财富和多样性。远距离阅读致力于文本关系,并将其转变为数据,以建构抽象模型。莫莱蒂试图通过掌控庞大的数据材料,实现更大规模的知识生产,从而在更大的地理规模和历史系统中观察文学的运行状况。由此,世界文学在远距离阅读中被图表化了:数量图表、空间图表、形态图表等。某种程度上,莫莱蒂的文学社会学是对20世纪六七十年代意大利马克思主义的危机的回应。同时,在阅读理论的革新中,远距离阅读可谓独树一帜:莫莱蒂拒绝被划入“数字人文”这一“伞状术语”的阵营,而称自己的研究路径为“计算批评”。

models.Moretti expects to realize the production of knowledge on a larger scale with the grasp of the huge amount of these data,which enables the examination of the operation of literature on a higher level of geographical scale and historical system.In this way,distant reading represents world literature in the form of diagrams-quantitative diagrams,spatial diagrams,morphological diagrams,etc.Moretti's literary sociology is a response to the crisis of Italian Marxism in the 1960s and 1970s.Besides,distant reading stands out as a unique attempt at the trend of innovations in the theories of reading.