传记的创新还是解构——评《俗世威尔——莎士比亚新传》

An Innovation or a Deconstruction of Life Writing :A Review of Stephen Greenblatt's Will in the World :How Shakespeare Became Shakespeare

《俗世威尔——莎士比亚新传》体现了格林布拉特为莎士比亚写传的新思路。从表层看,他将写作的重心放在对传主的解释上,仿佛凸显的是西方现代传记的'解释'理念,事实上,他对'莎士比亚何以成为莎士比亚'的解释却大量建立在想象和推测的基础上,其叙述话语暗含的自我颠覆性、互文性方法所造成的循环解释,在很大程度上模糊了传记与其他文类的界限,瓦解了传记真实性的写作基石。这一极具后现代色彩的观念和方法,带来的并不是传记的创新,而是对传记的解构。

Stephen Greenblatt's Will in the World:H ow Shakespeare Became Shakespeare demonstrates the author's new concept of life writing for Shakespeare.It is apparent that Greenblatt puts priority on the interpretation of the subject,thus featuring the hermeneutic tradition of Western life writing.In fact,his interpretation of“how Shakespeare became Shakespeare”is based on imaginations and speculations.His narrative discourses imply circulating interpretation resulted from self-subverting and intertextual methods,blurring the boundary between life writing and other genres to a great extent and subverting biographical truth,the essence of lifewriting.Thus,his postmodernist concepts and methods are not an innovation but a deconstruction of life writing.