论历史时间的空间化及其与隐喻、叙事的关系

Discussions on the Spatialization of Historical Time and Its Relationship with Metaphor and Narrative

历史学研究的是有关过去的知识,这意味着探究历史学中时间的本质是极为重要的。一般历史学家根据日常生活经验,往往习惯以空间化的思维来表现时间。历史时间与空间的关系体现在历史研究对象的空间性、对时间的空间性指称、时间的可分割性等层面。柯林武德则将时间设想为永远变化着的现在,过去和未来作为观念存在于现在之中,从而保证了历史时间的历史性,确立了历史学中普遍性和特殊性的互动关系。柯林武德的历史时间观也没有彻底否定空间化的时间。通过分析这种言说时间的"惯性思维",历史时间与隐喻的关系得以展现。隐喻不仅是一种修辞手法,它更是人们认知世界的方式。布罗代尔通过设置整体的情节串联起地中海叙事中的三重时间,从而统一结构、局势和事件,充分展现了隐喻和叙事在表现历史时间经验方面的重要性。总而言之,历史时间总是表现为人类思维中过去、现在与未来之间的变动张力。

The science of history devotes itself to the knowledge of the past,which means that the inquiry into the nature of time in history is of vital importance.Historians used to represent time with spatialized thinking,based on the experiences of their daily life.The relationship between historical time and space is reflected in the following aspects:the spatiality of the objects of historical research,the spatial reference to time,and the divisibility of time.R.G.Collingwood conceives time as the perpetually changing present,having somehow bound up with it an ideal future and an ideal past.In this way he justifies the historicity of historical time and establishes the interrelation between universality and specificity in historiography.In addition,Collingwood’s view of historical time doesn’t turn its back on the spatialized time.Through the analysis of such‘Inertial thinking’as a mean of representing time,the relationship between historical time and metaphor can be recognized.Metaphor is not only a rhetoric device,but also an important approach for us to perceive the world.By emplotment,Braudel connects and makes as a whole of the three time-spans of his Mediterranean narrative,so that the structure,conjuncture and event are united as one.Braudel’s narrative of Mediterranean explicitly shows the importance of metaphor and narrative in the representation of the experience of historical time.To sum up,historical time is always represented as the changing tense between the past,the present and the future in one’s mind.