Section One What Is Literature1．
什麼是文學？
這是個難於回答的問題。人們通常認為，屬於文學的特性其實在非文學的話語和實踐中也是必不可少的。例如，修辭手法常常被認為對文學才是至關重要的，而在其他類型的話語中則純屬裝飾。而今，在非文學的文本中——不論在弗洛伊德的心理分析案例的解釋中，還是在一些哲學論證的著作中，都常運用修辭手法，而且修辭手法還起著重要的作用。通過說明修辭手法在其他類型的話語中同樣可以塑造思想，理論家們論證了在非文學性文本中文學性的重要作用，這就使文學和非文學的區別變得越發錯綜複雜了。
1．What is literature？
This is a difficult question. Qualities often thought to be literary turn out to be crucial to non-literarydiscourses and practices as well. For instance， rhetorical devices have often been thought crucial to literaturebut have been considered purely ornamental in other sorts of discourses. Now， in non-literary texts—whetherFreud’s accounts of his psychoanalytic cases or works of philosophical arguments rhetorical devices are oftenemployed and playing important roles. In showing how rhetorical figures shape thought in other discourses，theorists demonstrate a powerful literariness at work in supposedly non-literary texts， thus complicating thedistinction between the literary and the non-literary.
文學起源於人們對講述人類的某些經驗的興趣。文學與哲學在古希臘和古羅馬的口語文化中同出一母。盡管亞裏士多德之後文學與哲學被劃分隔離，縱觀中世紀、現代以及後現代文化變遷過程，依然可見文學與哲學牽連互動的“兄弟關係”和最富有成效的縱橫交叉。文學作品具有的公眾影響力，為作家提供了表達政治觀點和意見的平台。公眾影響力也正是政治不得不關心文學的原因——作家威脅著政治的穩定。文學和政治密不可分。關於文學與政治的討論永遠不會停止，因為文學就是政治。科學技術作為動態的智力力量常常影響著在其作品中含有科技思想的男女作家們的文學想象；無數事例說明科學可能印上文學的形式，如艾略特及其小說、達爾文的進化論，都表明了某些科技主題在文學作品中得到了反映，而科技則成了小說的部分元素。從浪漫主義時期到現代的科幻小說，文學與科技的互動關係是不難理解的。隨著網絡時代的到來，許多學者掌握了一些將傳統文學研究方法同現代科技相結合的方法，創建了計算機可以識別的文本、文學作品數據庫、《數字化人文學科伴侶》等。
既然學者們把文學、哲學、曆史學、語言學、政治理論、心理分析等各方麵的思想融合在一起，那麼他們為什麼還要勞神地去看他們正在解讀的文本究竟是不是文學呢？
The original source of literature arises from people’s interest in telling a story about some aspects ofhuman experiences. Literature and philosophy share a common parentage in the oral tradition of ancientGreece and Rome. The dynamic“sibling relationship”between literature and philosophy and the mostfruitful intersections of philosophy and literature can still be seen by an overview of the medieval， modern，and postmodern traditions though a post-Aristotelian division between literature and philosophy was made.
The public voice of literary works gives writers a platform for expressing political ideas or dissatisfaction. Thepublic voice is also the very reason politics has to be concerned with literature—writers threaten politicalstability. Literature and politics are closely interrelated and can never be separated. There is no end to thepossibilities of the topic“politics and literature”， because literature is politics. Science and technology asthe dynamic intellectual force has often influenced literary imagination of men and women of writers whohave embodied scientific ideas in their works； numerous examples can be taken to illustrate how sciencemay possibly bear on literary forms， for instance， George Eliot and her fiction， Darwin’s evolutionary theory，both of which demonstrate some scientific and technical themes have been reflected in literary works whilescience and technology have been turned into some elements of fictions. It’s not difficult to understand thedynamics between science and literature from the Romantic period to science fiction in the modern age. Now，with the arrival of the Internet， many scholars， having mastered the skills needed to blend traditional scholarlymethods with the newer technology， have created machine-readable texts， literary databases， A companionto Digital Humanities， etc. Since scholars intermingle ideas from literature， philosophy， history， linguistics，political theory， psychoanalysis and so on， why should they worry about whether the texts they’re reading areliterary or not？
文學表述再現著文化，而文化又是文學的起源或起因。文學與文化緊密相連。文化包括並涵蓋了文學，文學隻是文化的精彩部分和一種獨特的文化實踐。不同的文化影響著文學的界定。不同的思想、信念、國家和曆史階段不僅影響文學標準的構建而且影響對文學的界定。
Literature expresses or represents its culture which is its source or cause. Literature and culture areclosely interrelated. Culture includes and encompasses literature while literature is only the highlight of itsculture and a particular cultural practice. Different cultures affect defining literature. Differing ideas， beliefs，countries and historical periods not only affect the construction of literary standards but also affect definingliterature.
非文學現象的“文學性”就表明文學的概念仍然起著一定的作用，因而需要進一步討論。到底什麼是文學？當代著名文學理論家喬納森·卡勒說：“文學就是一個特定的社會認為是文學的任何作品，也就是由文化權威們認定可以算作文學作品的任何文本。”但他又接著說，當然，這樣的結論是絕對不會令人滿意的。它隻是調換了問題，而沒有解決問題：不去問“什麼是文學”，而用是什麼讓我們或“一個特定的社會”把一些東西界定為文學的問題去代替。他又進一步解釋說，“當語言脫離了其他語境，超越了其他目的時，它就可以被解讀成文學。”“文學是一種可以引起某種關注的言語行為或文本。”解讀這樣的文本，讀者不需要假定是某段言語讓他們做某些事，他們會主動注意到潛在的複雜性，並尋求隱含的意義。
The“literariness”of non-literary phenomena indicates that the notion of literature continues to playa role and needs to be further discussed. What is literature after all？ The contemporary famous Americanliterary theorist Jonathan Culler concludes：“Literature is whatever a given society treats as literature—aset of texts that cultural arbiters recognize as belonging to literature.”But he continues： Such a conclusionis completely unsatisfying， of course. It simply displaces instead of resolving the question： rather thanask“what is literature？”we need to ask“what makes us (or some other society) treat something asliterature？”He also explains：“When language is removed from other contexts， detached from otherpurposes， it can be interpreted as literature.”“Literature is a speech act or textual event that elicits certainkinds of attention.”Reading such a text， readers attend to potential complexities and look for implicitmeanings， without assuming that the utterance is telling them to do something.
我們可以把文學作品理解成具有某種屬性或某種特點的語言，我們也可以把文學看做程式（語言形式）的產物，或者某種關注的結果。從語言學的視角來看，文學是一種把語言本身置於“突出地位”的語言。文學是把文本中各種要素和成分都組合在一種錯綜複雜的關係中的語言。文學是虛構——文學作品是對“真實世界”言語的具有虛構性的模仿。文學是審美對象，即語言的美學作用。文學是互文性的或者自反性的建構。文學的互文性和它的自反性並不是一個界定特點，而是語言的某些方麵的突出運用和有關語言再現的問題，在其他地方可能也會觀察到同樣的現象。看來，不論從哪種視角都不能包容另一種而成為一種綜合全麵的觀點。
We can think of literary works as language with particular properties or features， and we can also thinkof literature as the product of conventions (language forms) and a certain kind of attention. From the linguisticperspective： Literature is language that“foregrounds”language itself. Literature is language in which thevarious elements and components of the text are brought into a complex relation. Literature is considered asfiction—literary works are fictional imitations of“real world”utterances. Literature is regarded as aestheticobject， i.e. the aesthetic function of language. Literature is considered as intertextual or self-reflexiveconstruct. The intertextuality and self-reflexivity of literature is not a defining feature but a foregroundingof aspects of language use and questions about representation that may also be observed elsewhere. Neitherperspective， it seems， can englobe the other to become the comprehensive perspective.
文學的界定是個見仁見智的問題。我國出版的《現代漢語詞典》把文學定義為“以語言文字為工具形象化地反映客觀現實的藝術，包括戲劇、詩歌、小說、散文等”。英國出版的《文學詞彙詞典》給文學下的定義是：文學是個含糊的術語，通常指屬於史詩、戲劇、抒情詩、小說、短篇小說、頌歌等主要文體的著作。如果我們把某種東西叫做“文學”，相對其他任何東西而言，那個術語“文學”就帶有質量的含義，暗指所談的作品質量優秀，遠在普通的作品之上。然而，很多著作並不能歸入某種主要的文學類型，但由於它們的寫作極有價值，具有獨創性和普遍的審美及藝術成就，還是可以認為是文學的，如科學家達爾文的《物種起源》，曆史學家J. B. 伯裏的《羅馬帝國衰亡史》等。《美國大學詞典》對文學的定義是：文學是以表達永久而普遍興趣的思想與有關的說法和形式為特征或基本特點的詩歌、虛構小說、曆史、傳記、散文等著作。文學是特定語言、時期、人民、主題等的所有作品的統稱，如英語文學。《新牛津英語詞典》定義文學為“是書寫的，特別是那些被認為有優秀持久藝術價值的作品”。