保罗·哈丁《修补匠》中的时间

外国文学研究 ›› 2020, Vol. 42 ›› Issue (3): 99-109.

保罗·哈丁《修补匠》中的时间

陈广兴

出版日期:2020-06-25 发布日期:2021-02-28
作者简介:陈广兴,上海外国语大学文学研究院副研究员,主要从事美国文学和文学理论研究。

Time in Paul Harding's Tinkers

Chen Guangxing

Online:2020-06-25 Published:2021-02-28
About author:Chen Guangxing is Associate Professor of English and American Literature at the Institute of Literature, Shanghai International Studies University (Shanghai 200083, China). His research is primarily focused on American literature and literary theory. Email: gxccarl@126.com

摘要/Abstract

内容摘要： 保罗·哈丁的《修补匠》是一部关于时间的小说,人物的时间体验被空前放大,成为小说的主要内容。小说试图将时间塑造为超验的时间,以表达关于人性的普世主题。小说以较多篇幅讲述四季轮回和生老病死,以期呈现一种循环的、重复的、非历史的、形而上的时间体验,并希望据此提出一种超验的生活理想。然而时间体验总是发生在具体的历史环境下,人的具体的社会存在必然影响或决定着人的时间体验。不仅经济发展和文化变迁在整体上改变着人们的时间体验,而且个体的主动的、独一无二的、不可重复的、不可更改的生活让时间体验成为区别于他人的独特的存在。《修补匠》试图表达的超验时间,体现了当代美国文学对人性主题的回归;而小说中无法避免的时间的历史性,则表明了文学永恒的政治属性。

关键词: 保罗·哈丁, 《修补匠》, 时间

Abstract: Paul Harding's Tinkers is a novel about time. The characters' experience of time is greatly magnified within the novel and becomes the main content of the narrative. The novel attempts to represent time as a transcendental existence in order to address the universal theme of humanity. It devotes the most part of its narrative to the change of seasons and the cycle of birth, aging, disease, and death, thus representing a circular, repetitive, ahistorical and metaphysical experience of time in an attempt to propose an ideal of transcendental life. However, as the experiences of time always take place under certain historical circumstances, our specific social existence will inevitably affect or even determine our experience of time. Generally speaking, our experience of time is shaped by economic development and cultural changes; moreover, our individual active, unique, unrepeatable, unchangeable life will turn our experience of time into a unique existence as distinguished from others. The transcendental time that Harding tries to address in Tinkers embodies a return to the theme of humanity in contemporary American literature, whereas the unavoidable historicity of time in this novel displays the intrinsic politics of literature.

Key words: Harding, Tinkers, time

陈广兴. 保罗·哈丁《修补匠》中的时间[J]. 外国文学研究, 2020, 42(3): 99-109.

Chen Guangxing. Time in Paul Harding's Tinkers[J]. Foreign Literature Studies, 2020, 42(3): 99-109.

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