Literature and history——伊格爾頓

Praface

序言

Marxism is a highly complex subject.For reasons of space,Eagleton chosed four central topics of Marxist criticism,and discussed various authuers in the light of them.

馬克思主義很複雜，由於篇章的緣故，伊格爾頓選擇四個主要方面加以討論。

Marxism is a scientific theory of human societies and of the practice of transforming them. The narrative Marxism has to deliver is the story of the sruggles of men and women to free themselves from certain forms of exploitation and oppression.There is nothing academic about those struggles.

馬克思主義是關於人類社會的科學理論和改造他們的實踐，研究的是人們為擺脫剝削和壓迫而進行的鬥爭，這種鬥爭沒有「學術性」可言。

If it is a mistake to confine Marxist criticism to the academic archives,it is because it has its significant,if not central,role to play in the transformation of human societies.

如果說把馬克思主義批評納入學術中是一種錯誤，那是因為它的中心任務，或者說重要任務是改造人類社會。

Marxist criticism is part of a larger body of theoretical analysis which aims to understand ideologies——the ideas,values and feelings by which men experience their societies at various times.These ideologies are available to us only in literature.

馬克思主義批評是旨在理解意識形態的理論分析的組成部分。它試圖理解人們的概念、價值、感覺，而這些意識形態我們只有在文學中才能尋見。

To understand ideologies is to understand both the past and the present more deeply,and such understanding contributes to our liberation.

理解意識形態就是更深的理解過去和現在，這種理解有助於我們的解放。

1 Literature and history

文學和歷史

Marx,Engels and criticism

馬克思、恩格斯和批評

「There are many people who think as revolutionists and feel as philistines.」Leon Trotsky remarked in Literature and Revolution(1924).But Marx and Engles were not of this number.

托洛茨基在《文學與革命》中說，很多人思想上是個革命者，感覺上卻是個市儈的庸人。馬克思和恩格斯並非此類。

Art and literature were part of the very air Marx breathed.He was an inveterate theatergoer,declaimer of poetry,devourer of every species of literature art from Augustan prose to industrial ballads.

文學藝術曾是馬克思賴以呼吸的空氣。

Marxist criticism is not merely a 「sociology of literature」,concerned with how novels get pubulished and whether they mention the working class.Its aim is to explain the literary book more fully:

馬克思主義批評並不只是一種「文學社會學」，關心小說如何出版，是否提到工人階級。它的目的是更全面的解釋文學作品。

It means a sensitive attention to forms,styles and meanings.But it also means grasping these as the products of a particular history.

這就意味著它要注意形式、風格和意義，但更重要的是從特定歷史產物的角度上把握它們。

The painter Henri Matisse once remarked that all arts bears the imprints of its historical epoch,but that great art is that in which this imprint is most deeply marked.But most students of literature are taught otherwise:the greatest art is that which timelessly transcends its historical conditions.

畫家亨利?馬蒂斯曾說，所有的藝術都帶有歷史時代的印記，偉大的作品印記最深。但大多數文學專業的學生受到的教導卻是：最偉大的藝術超越它所在的歷史時空。

The originality of Marxist criticism lies not in its historical approch to literature,but in its revolutionary understanding of history itself.

馬克思主義批評的獨創性並非它用歷史的方法去闡釋文學，而是它革命性的理解了歷史本身。

Base and superstructure

基礎和上層建築

Marx and Engels』s The German Ideology(1845-6):Consciousness does not determine life:life determine consciousness.

馬克思和恩格斯的《德意志意識形態》一書指出：不是意識決定生活，而是生活決定意識。

A Contribution to the Critique of Political Economy:It is not the consciousness of men that determines their being,but on the contrary,their social being that determines their consciousness.

《序言》指出：不是人的意識決定了人的存在，而是人的存在決定了人的意識。

The function of ideology is to legitimate the power of the ruling class in society.The dominant ideas of a society are the ideas of its ruling class.

意識形態的作用就是使統治階級的權力合法化。主宰社會的思想觀念是統治階級的思想觀念。

Art is part of the 「superstructure」 of society.It is part of a society』s ideology——an element in that complex class has power over the others is either seen by most members of the society as 「natural」,or not seen at all.To understand literature,then,means understanding the total social process of which it is part.

藝術是上層建築的一部分，是社會意識形態的一部分。意識形態使得大多數人對統治階級比他人更有權力的現象視為理所應當，或乾脆視而不見。理解文學，就意味著去理解它所在社會的整個進程。

As Georgy Plekhanov put it:「The social mentality of an age is conditioned by that age』s social relations.This is nowhere quite as evident as in the history of art and literature.」

正如普列漢諾夫指出的那樣：一個時代的社會思想受這個時代的社會關係制約。沒有比文學藝術的歷史表現的更明顯的了。

Literary works are forms of perception,paticular ways of seeing the world;and as such they have a relation to that dominant way of seeing the world which is the ideology of an age.

文學作品是觀念的形式，是觀察世界的方式，因而它們與佔主導地位的觀察世界方式（即意識形態），息息相關。

Moreover,men are not free to choose their social relations;they are constrained into them by material necessity.

而且，人們並不能自由的選擇他們的社會關係，而要受到物質需要加諸他們的種種限制。

To understand King lear,The Dunciad or Ulysses is therefore to do more than interpret their symbolism,study their literary history and add footnotes about sociological facts which enter into them.

理解《李爾王》、《群愚史詩》、《尤利西斯》並不僅僅是翻譯它們的象徵符號，研究它們的文學史，注釋它們中的社會事實。

It is first of all to understand the complex,indirect relations between those works and the ideological worlds they inhabit——relations which emerge not just in 「themes」 and 「preoccupations」,but in style,rythem,image,quality and form.

首先要理解這些作品和意識形態世界之間複雜的、間接的關係，這種關係不僅體現在「主題」和「成見」上，還體現在風格、韻律、概念、質量和形式上。

To understand an ideology,we must grasp the part it plays in the society as a whole——how it consists of a definite,historically relative structure of perception which underpins the power of a particular social class;we must anylyse the precise relations between different classes in a society.

要理解意識形態，必須掌握它在社會中扮演的角色——它怎樣形成了一個明確的、與歷史相對應的觀念結構，強化特定特定社會階級的權力；必須分析社會不同階級之間的各種關係。

All this may seem a tall order to the student of literature who thought he was merely required to discuss plot and characterization.It may seem a confusion of literary criticism with disciplines like politics and economics which ought to be kept separate.

這似乎對一個認為自己的任務就是討論情節和人物刻畫的文學專業學生的要求太高。它像是把文學批評跟那些原本認為該與文學分開的政治學與經濟學融合在一起。

Literature and superstructure

文學和上層建築

It would be a mistake to imply that Marxist criticism moves mechanically from 「text」 to 「ideology」 to 「social relations」 to 「productive forces」.It is concerned with the unity of these 「levels」 of society.

如果認為馬克思主義批評就是機械的從「文本」到「意識形態」，再到「社會關係」和「生產力」，那是錯誤的。它關注的是這些的整體。

Literature may be part of the superstructure,but it is not merely the passive reflection of the economic base. The materialist theory of history denies that art can in itself change the course of history;but it insists that art can be an active element in such change.

文學可能是上層建築的一部分，但它並不僅僅是經濟基礎的消極反應。唯物史觀否定藝術可以自己改變歷史進程，但它認為藝術可以成為改變中的一個積極因素。

Literature and ideology

文學與意識形態

Frederick Engels remarks in Ludwig Feuerbach and the End of Classical German Philosophy(1888) that art is far richer and more 「opaque」 than political and economic theory because it is less purely ideological.

恩格斯認為藝術比政治經濟理論更富有內涵，也更模糊不清，因為它並不純然是意識形態化的。

Ideology signifies the way men live out their roles in class-society,the values,ideas and images which tie them to their social functions and so prevent them from a true knowledge of society as a whole.

意識形態指示著人們在階級社會扮演他們應有的角色，這些價值觀、思想、概念將他們束縛在自己的社會功能中，從而阻止他們獲得關於整個社會的真正知識。

All art springs from an ideological conception of the world;there is no such thing,Plekhanov comments,as a work of art entirely devoid of ideological content.

所有藝術都源自某種意識形態，沒有一種藝術作品全然不帶意識形態傾向。普列漢諾夫如是說。

Vuglar Marxist criticism tends to see literary works merely as reflections of dominant ideologies.Oppositely,Ernst Fischer argues in Art Against Ideology,that authentic art always transcends the ideological limits of its time,yielding us insight into the realities which ideology hides from view.

庸俗馬克思主義批評傾向於僅僅將文學作品視為主要意識形態的反映。相反，費希爾認為，真正的藝術總能超越它所處時代的意識形態限制，引導我們洞見隱藏在意識形態下的真實。

French Marxist theorist Louis Althusser argues that art cannot be reduced to ideology:it has a particular relationship to it.It is held with ideology,but also manages to distance itself from it.

法國馬克思主義理論家路易認為，藝術不會墮入意識形態中，而是與之有一種獨特關係。它受到意識形態的限制，但也努力的與它保持距離。

For him,art does not enable us to know the truth which ideology conceals.The difference between science and art is not that they deal with different objects,but that they deal with the same objects in different ways.Science gives us conceptual knowlege of a situation;art gives us the experience of that situation,which is equivalent to ideology.

對他而言，藝術並不能使我們知道意識形態隱藏的真實。科學與藝術的區別不是它們處理著不同的對象，而是處理相同對象的不同方式。科學給我們概念性的知識，而藝術給我們經驗性的體驗，這一點，藝術與意識形態是相同的。

A scientific criticism would seek to explain the literary work in terms of the ideological structure of which it is part,yet which it transforms in its art:it would search out the principle which both ties the work to ideology and distances it from it.

科學的批評應該根據文學作品所處的意識形態尋求解釋，以及意識形態如何轉變成藝術：它應該探求使作品與意識形態相連又與之疏離的原則。

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