美国格温朵琳·布鲁克斯研究述评——兼论美国非裔文学研究的范式转变

A Critical Review of Gwendolyn Brooks Study in America:Considered with Reference to Generational Shifts in African American Literary Criticism

本文借助小休斯顿·贝克对美国非裔文学研究范式代际性转变的观点,将美国格温朵琳·布鲁克斯70年的研究概括为三个阶段:融合主义诗学批评下主流公共空间的'入侵者'、黑人美学批评下黑人内部空间的'建构者'和文化研究批评下多元公共空间的'讲述者'。评论者对空间的不同侧重以及对诗人形象的不同描述,揭示了夹裹于主流学术与黑人学术之间清晰可辨的研究范式转变。研究梳理不仅廓清了社会思潮主导下布鲁克斯学术话语的发展脉络,并且由此管窥了美国非裔文学批评发展的主要特征、原因和趋势。

Led by Houston A. Baker, Jr.’s view that generational shifts in paradigm mark African American literary criticism, this article divides American Gwendolyn Brooks studies into three stages : an intruder in Europecentered public space, an indigenous constructor in black interior space, and a teller in pluralistic public space. Critics’ concerns with different spaces and their different interpretation of the poet’s selfhood demonstrate that caught between the mainstream scholarship and the black scholarship, Brooks studies has shifted among the critical paradigms of the integrationist poetics, the Black Aesthetics and the culture studies. This review not only charts the development of Brooks scholarship underlain by the thoughts in sociopolitical context,but also reveals the major characteristics, dynamics and trends of ethnic literary criticism.