如何尋找傳統的現代性

How to Search for the Modernity of Tradition

Abstract

LANGUAGE NOTE | Document text in Chinese; abstract also in English.

在今天，古典文學、文化傳統及相應的知識譜系和當代文學之間有一種很難彌合的斷層。它們所造成的直接後果是，在思維方式上，當代作家更多接受西方文學的精神，譬如孤獨、懷疑、單獨的個人（這些當然很好，但卻缺乏一種根本性的背景），語言上缺失了中國古典話語的現代白話，很難有幽深、雜糅的語言。這也使得我們對世界的想象是單面的。偉大的作家既繼承傳統，又創造傳統。他能使很多詞語、知識重新焕發生機，他能夠啓動、洗刷塵土，並且賦予它現代意義。美籍阿拉伯學者薩義德在《人本主義與民主批評》中提倡“重回語文學”。重回語文學，就是重回人文主義，通過對語言的溯源重新回到歷史生成之初，去尋找言詞背後的“歷史生成”，也即尋找傳統，在批判中繼承。我以爲，對於寫作者和文學批評者而言，重回語文學，首先意味著重新把目光投向語言、詞語本身，從對語言的持續關注和追索中發現文學内部所透露出的幽深的時間和空間，從而尋找“傳統”的現代含義。

Nowadays, contemporary literature has been distanced from classical literature, cultural traditions, and relevant knowledge, giving rise to a rupture that has become difficult to mend. This rupture has direct consequences. In their way of thinking, contemporary writers are more receptive to the spirit of Western literature, resulting in the roles of lone, skeptical, and helpless individuals (which, of course, are fine, but lack a fundamental background). There is a feebleness in the modern vernacular language within the classical Chinese discourse; therefore one can rarely see a profound, mixed language. This leads us to have a single-sided view of the world. A great writer should be able to not only inherit traditions but also create traditions. S/he should be able to rejuvenate terminology and knowledge, raise dust and then wash it out, and endow it with modern significance. The American-Arab scholar Edward Said calls for “the return to philology” in his Humanism and Democratic Criticism. This advocacy in fact refers to a return to humanism. The process is to return to the beginning of history by tracing the origin of language in order to look for the “formation of history” behind certain diction. This is the same as tracing tradition by critically inheriting it. For writers and literary critics, I believe, the first significant task is to refocus on language and diction per se. Through the constant attention to and pursuit of language, they shall discover the profound dimensions of time and space within literature so as to find the modern meaning of “tradition.”