作者：曹顺庆
出版社：四川大学出版社
格式: AZW3, DOCX, EPUB, MOBI, PDF, TXT
比较文学：东方与西方 20试读：
Understanding American Literature from a Historical Perspective:Four Things for Chinese Students to Know
David PICKUSDepartment of History, People's University, China Arizona State University, USA中文摘要：本文的出发点在于向研究美国文学的中国学生提供有关的建议。美国文学本身并不是一个僵化不变的领域，因此作者的建议旨在让中国学生尽可能有深度、有学理性地形成一套关于文学是什么的解读系统。具体而言，首先应以19世纪20年代和30年代——统一的美国国内市场经济形成之时——为美国文学真正的“起点”，而不是通常所认为的由朝圣者开启的殖民地时期。其次，学生需要了解整个18世纪，尤其是启蒙知识分子关于“感知力的文化”的理念，这一点对掌握美国文学引起读者共鸣的方式尤为重要；为了进一步阐明这一点，作者以霍桑的《小伙子布朗》和斯坦因贝克的《愤怒的葡萄》为文本，探讨阅读中感同身受的现象。再者，学生应多花时间来形成理解文学作品深层含义的思维，而不是仅仅记住人名、体裁、学派等。作者在此基础上归纳了文中观点可能引发的异议，并列举了一些相对冷门的作品来加深对美国文学的理解。
Introduction
“This is an especially good moment for Chinese students to read American literature.” I say to students of English and American culture at Sichuan University. This essay is based on that claim. I aim to expand upon this assertion and present it in a more documented form, while keeping (hopefully) some of the excitement of the initial argument. Certainly, taken in itself, the idea that this moment, rather than another one, is “especially good” for reading American literature is rather silly. At any given period in time there are most likely always going to be solid reasons to read American literature. This is the sort of thing that one can say out loud to generate curiosity and momentum, but which does not stand up if left to serve as an argument in its own right. Yet, despite this, I feel that the conjunction of several historical trends—in literary culture, in Chinese and American higher education, and above all, in the nature of globalization itself—make it desirable stfor Chinese students in the second decade of the 21century to read American literature. In saying this, what matters is not so much the conclusions, but the reasons advanced. By laying out the material as I see it, I hope to spark a wider discussion about what is at stake when American literature is considered as a whole, and what contributions Chinese readers might make in its critical assessment.
While it is not worthwhile to burden academic writing with superfluous personal comment, there is one biographical detail that puts things in better perspective. I write this from the vantage of someone who has recently moved to China from the United States. Once transplanted across the Pacific, I discovered that I wanted to read more American literature, and that I read it with increased interest and absorption. I do not think this was a negative reaction to an unfamiliar environment. As a matter of fact, I feel little to nothing in the way of nostalgia or homesickness for the United States; I am fascinated by Chinese literature and culture, and consider Chinese cuisine to be (considerably) superior to America's. Rather than going back to something familiar, American literature regained my interest because I started to see it through the eyes of a different place. Specifically, I started to see it from the eyes of someone who, almost daily, came into contact with Chinese students. It was the understanding of their ambitions, wishes, frustrations and setbacks that made me return to American literature to look again at the ways that, for me, more native authors treated these very themes. Given the vastness of the material, to say nothing of the magnitude of the themes themselves, I asked myself if I only had one class session what would I want Chinese students to understand American literature. That was the origin of the following reflections.
One more thing: I write about American literature from the perspective not of a specialist in literary studies, but as a historian, one that is not even primarily focused on the United States, but on the general development of Western civilizations; their rise and fall, particularly in relationship to Eastern civilizations, and the possible emergence of what we might call a global civilization. This absence of specialization is not always an advantage, but it has a benefit in that it steps back from what is typically taught to US students about the history of American literature to ask the question of what, specifically, Chinese students truly need to know.
Here then is the start of my list:The first thing for Chinese students to know is that American
stories about settling the wilderness are not a sound starting point
for an understanding of American literature. This applies to
favorable myths, like those portraying the American continent as a
new “Eden” , as well as critiques and debunkings, that try to
expose and refute a self-glorified version of the American past. In
fact, despite the importance of the Colonial Age, it might be more
useful for a Chinese student to begin the story of American th
literature in the early 19century.
The phrase “Eden” is not meant to be completely dismissive, even though I distance myself from this line of reasoning. “Eden” is not a contemporary reference, but, rather, the ways the very first American authors saw the continent as a special kind of “wilderness” where a paradise could be realized, if only the new American settlers would stick to a special, providential plan. There was once a time where historians of American literature, even if they no longer believed that the American people were a “new Israel” and the American continent was somehow promised by God to European settlers, did believe that since the American experience was somehow special, the American literature was, in different ways, about the glories and miseries of this unique mission.More recent scholarship rebels against this enthusiasm in a specific way. Instead, of celebrating or endorsing an American sense of mission, it illustrates the bloody cost paid by those who were excluded and expropriated by the establishment and expansion of the United States. Thus, despite the clear difference in mood and judgment, both camps begin from the point that John Winthrop began in 1630, when he famously envisioned the Puritan settlement of America as establishing a “city on a hill”, or an ideal community, free of the vices and depravity that plagued humanity before.The difference is that one stresses the reasons why the United States might be a “light unto the world”, while the other stresses the reasons it should not.
Historically speaking, this is a very valuable debate and any sensitive and sophisticated treatment of American civilization must account for the ways opportunity and oppression, liberty and terror, etc. are woven together. Yet, as vital as this is for understanding the unfolding of American history, placing it at the start of the study of American literature deflects attention from the fact that while you can speak of American society unfolding through many changes from the thearly 17 century onward, there is a sense that, as far as literature is thconcerned, it only really got going in the early 19century. In this ththsense, the 17and 18century were a formative period with distinctive concerns of their own.
It is not necessary to deny that the themes and motifs introduced in early American literature had no impact on what came after in order thto explain the break between the 19century and what came before. We have already touched on some of the ways that Puritan religious concerns shaped the perception of American literature. Indeed, if we ththask about subsequent influence the 17and 18centuries are immensely important, but if we ask what comes to mind when we think of American literature, or what, for instance, Chinese students are likely to read, a different picture emerges. The novels and stories thproduced from the 19century onward predominate in forming the main contours of what comes to mind as American literature.
Putting the matter this way is certainly unfair to American poetry thand theater, as well such 18century autobiographies that might be introduced to contemporary Chinese students like those by Benjamin Franklin and Olaudah Equaino. In fact, there is no point in trying to make the claim that American literature revolves primarily around thnovels and stories and, thus, most properly begins in the early 19 century as entirely accurate or fair. It is not. Instead, we should ask what can be gained by asking Chinese students to think along these lines, and what can subsequently be done to ensure that the conclusions they thereby draw are not overly broad or misleading. I see three advantages in following this line of reasoning.
(1)Colonial literature is primarily Protestant literature,and streportage.Asking a 21-century Chinese student to read Michael Wigglesworth's Day of Doom—a long poem from 1662 describing the punishment handed out to sinners after their death—presumes a clear understanding (to say nothing of interest) in Puritan doctrines of damnation and salvation.Certainly, this poem plays an important part of early American literature. The Norton Anthology goes as far to suggest that one in twenty people in Colonial New England owned it. But it is unlikely to be what most Chinese readers have in mind when they think of American literature. The point here is not to fight about what is in or out, but to ask what people aim at when they turn to American literature. Based on my observation, I would suggest that what they seek are stories that in some way express what it means to be an American. Starting American literature “later” would permit that concern to be broached immediately, and addressed with full self-consciousness.
(2) Likewise, “beginning” the story of American literature in the thearly 19 century disentangles history from literature in a productive way. That is, the colonial period can be examined for its own sake, not as a way to celebrate or debunk myths of American uniqueness. This approach focuses attention on teaching and studying what actually happened in the conquest and settlement of America, as well as the establishment of the USA. This, in turn, places Puritan and Protestant motifs in an easier-to-teach context, thereby allowing students to form their own judgments about the ways that this heritage colored the portrayal of the human condition in American literature.
(3) Finally, as a kind of payoff, beginning the story circa 1830 depicts American literature as a kind of drama that a contemporary Chinese audience might find very involving and compelling. It is not about entering a wilderness, whether as an innocent, or as a despoiler. And it does not revolve around a nexus of sin and salvation. Instead, it is about the interaction of people and forces in an expanding market economy. In 1820 the US population was about 9.6 million, of which approximately 1.5 million were slaves. This was the take-off stage for an ever growing population, and an ever demanding and highly producing economy. This process, particularly the joys and losses suffered by individuals, is obviously of great interest to readers all over the world. American literature, I believe, would be even more interesting (and instructive) to Chinese readers if framed this way. In fact, even American poetry and drama could be linked to this new “meta-story” of making sense of the self in the (sometimes) growing market economy. This leads to the second point:The second thing for Chinese students to know is that,
though it may no longer be that helpful to see American literature
as beginning with Puritan myths of the wilderness, or of th
democratic forms, there is an 18-century “preparation” that is
vital, to convey to students. This is the “Age of Sensibility”. th
Students should know about this 18-century intellectual
background.
At the start of an anthology widely available in China,The Penguin Book of American Short Stories,the editor James Cochrane writes,“Above all,perhaps,the American short story has been an essentially democratic form, not troubling itself over much about the categories of High, Middle and Low, serious and lightweight that bedevil other forms of creative writing.”Although the qualifier “perhaps”renders this statement almost useless, it does show the problem of what happens when we treat a whole literature in terms of broad generalization. For while, the short story literature as a whole shows blending of genres, styles (as does the novel, and everything else, by the way), if we look closely at individual creations we certainly see that they are not that democratic, and that Henry James, say, cared very much about the differences between forms.
I mention this not so much to criticize James Cochrane, who had to say something in his introduction, but because students are influenced by blanket statements, especially when they seem to offer the key to unlocking things. Is there a better way to provide them a vantage point or philosophical vocabulary about the literature as a whole?
I think that there is, and its best exponent, interestingly enough, is not an American, and happens to be primarily remembered as an economist, namely Adam Smith. Yet, all scholars of the history of economics point out that Smith's theories about wealth and markets are inseparable from his Theory of Moral Sentiments, which happens to be the title of a book he published in 1759.For our purposes, it is not necessary to go into the full ramifications of Smith's thinking. Instead, we can simply ask if Smith's psychology has any important perspective to offer Chinese students of American literature. The answer is yes if we focus on the key notion of sympathy. What is this thsympathy? As students of 18-century Western culture agree, it is not confined to the current day emotion of feeling sorry for someone else's misfortune. Rather, as authors like Smith argue, it is the central medium through which people form proper ethical understanding. You observe, and then call up the proper feelings that “sync” or connect you to what is going on.Most directly, you feel what someone else is feeling. It has been noted more than once that Smith philosophical psychology coincided with the period that saw the “rise of the novel”.To awaken the proper feelings you need an exact description of what is happening, and to make sense of events you must sympathize in an accurate manner. Novelists sharpen our eyes to what is going on, thus enabling us to sympathize in what Smith would call an “impartial” or undistorted manner.
Why bring this up in the context of Chinese students learning about American literature? The point is certainly not that American novels and stories are all intended to be a direct application of Smith's theories, but rather to suggest that this wider culture of sensibility—of which Smith was only one exponent—establishes a kind of momentum for the literature that followed. Students learning about this culture of sensibility could then be taught to ask questions about the kind of feelings a text seems designed to evoke, as well as the reasons why some scenarios are used to call up this feeling, rather than others. Even when the form and content of the literature moves away from the thconcerns of the 18century, students can still profitably ask the same questions about the work's “sensibility”. Naturally, I do not suggest that nothing be said about Puritans and Pilgrims, but providing students with an explanatory framework revolving around transformations of cultures of sensibility will, I believe, help them ask more perceptive questions about what this literature means, both in the past and present.
Behind this argument is a claim stated very well in the entry in Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy's about Smith's moral and political thought:“A central thread running through [Smith's] work is an unusually strong commitment to the soundness of the ordinary human being's judgments, and a concern to fend off attempts, by philosophers and policy-makers, to replace those judgments with the supposedly better ‘systems' invented by intellectuals.” Obviously, the treatment of intellectuals varies in a literature as diverse as America's. However, the theme of the soundness of ordinary judgment recurs again and again, even when it is being eviscerated, as in, say, the works of Sinclair Lewis. Teaching students to look at the ways sympathy is being directed is also an occasion to ask how ordinary judgment and ordinary voices are depicted. These questions would let them forge their own profitable path through the forest of American literature. To see one example of such path-forging, turn to the next section:The third thing for Chinese students to know is that there is a
noticeable strand of anti-clericalism, and hostility to organized
religion in American literature. Looking at a few examples will
demonstrate how authors evoke sympathy with those at odds with
religion. This, in turn, allows for more fruitful discussion of how
American literature mirrors and comments on the place of
sentiment and feeling within a dynamic market economy.
The ideas proposed so far suggest that the authors of American literature understand themselves to be autonomous forces, choosing the views and traditions that they represent, and deciding how to depict reality in a way that directs the reader's sympathy. We can postpone for the time being whether a student should fully accept this view of the author. For now, let us ask what, in fact, makes it fruitful to see American literature from this point of view. Consider, therefore, two views on religion from authors Chinese students are most likely to know, namely Nathaniel Hawthorne and John Steinbeck, beginning with Hawthorne's Young Goodman Brown, a story certainly worth assigning and discussing today. Set in colonial New England, in it, a young minister takes a walk in an untamed forest with a sinister character who is undoubtedly the devil himself. Along the way Goodman Brown learns that the devil is on quite familiar terms with the most decent members of society, including pious old ladies and, of course, the high clergy. All of them, no matter how hypocritically they pretend to be godly and holy, have sworn themselves to Satan. Critics have noted, and continue to discuss, the ways that Hawthorne builds his visions around binary contrasts: between innocence and corruption, civilization and wilderness, outward appearance and inward nature, etc..However, Hawthorne himself does not believe in the supernatural events that he describes. In fact, his attitude toward old New England, as easily demonstrated in The Scarlet Letter,is one where affection for the“good old ways”is strongly tempered by harsh criticism of their norms and mores, as well as a doubting skepticism about cherished myths and beliefs.Thus, whatever else we might say about the story's meaning, Hawthorne's own direction comes out most clearly when, at the story's end, he winks at the reader and says, “Had Goodman Brown fallen asleep in the forest and only dreamed a wild dream of a witch meeting? ”He then draws his own pointed conclusion:Be it so if you will, but, alas! It was a dream of evil omen for
Goodman Brown. A stern, sad, a darkly meditative, a distrustful, if
not a desperate man did he become from the night of that fearful
dream. On the Sabbath day, when the congregation were singing
a holy psalm, he could not listen because an anthem of sin rushed
loudly upon his ear and drowned all the blessed strain. When the
minister spoke from the pulpit with power and fervid eloquence,
and, with his hand on the open Bible, of the sacred truths of our
religion, and of saint-like lives and triumphant deaths, and of
future bliss, or misery unutterable, then did Goodman Brown turn
pale, dreading lest the roof should thunder down on the gray
blasphemer and his hearers.
In short, from that point onward he could never trust the church, or any other individual, or high-sounding institution. That Hawthorne was aware of the political implications of this mistrust of the church is evident when, in an earlier passage, the devil says, devilishly enough, that he helped his family participate in their “public”works:Goodman Brown, I have been well acquainted with your
family as with ever a one among the puritans; and that's no trifle
to say. I helped your grandfather, the constable, when he lashed
the Quaker woman so smartly through the streets of Salem; and it
was I that brought your father a pitch-pine knot, kindled at my own
试读结束[说明：试读内容隐藏了图片]