“文明化”视野下16—18世纪法国的拉伯雷阅读史浅析——兼论巴赫金的狂欢化理论

16—18世纪是法国“文明化”的重要时期,这种文化转型对拉伯雷阅读史的演变具有决定意义,并在法国人对拉伯雷小说中随处可见的“粗俗”的“物质—下体因素”的阅读感受中表现出来。17世纪中叶以前,无论贵族、教士、市民,无论男性、女性,不同阶层和性别的法国人都能欣赏、理解或至少不反感这些因素。即使是激烈批评拉伯雷的人,他们的着眼点也主要在于拉伯雷的宗教倾向,而与小说中的“粗俗”元素无关。而17世纪中叶以后,这种情况有了明显改变,以宫廷社会为中心的上层社会“文明化”,使拉布吕耶尔和伏尔泰等人“突然”发现了“肮脏”、无法理解的拉伯雷。巴赫金的研究尽管对文艺学和历史学的发展有卓越贡献,但必须指出,他对拉伯雷和近代早期法国的社会文化存在明显误读,特别是把“官方”与“民间”概念绝对化和截然对立,并把16—18世纪的文化混为一谈。

Rabelais Readings in the 16-18th Centuries France from the Perspective of ″Civilization″and a Discussion on Bakhtin's Carnivalesque Theory

The history of Rabelais readings has been receiving the attention of Western scholars since the early 20th Century, with Jacques Boulenger and Sainéan Lazare in the early years, Marcel de Grève later on, and Richard Cooper more recently, etc. All of them conducted in-depth researches on this topic. However, some of them placed too much emphasis on dividing their studies by the centuries, thus ignoring the inherent logic of the development in the reading history itself. Meanwhile, few has specifically explored the evolution of French people's reading experience of the "vulgar" content in Rabelais’ novels, while the exploration of which is significant for understanding the development of the French social culture. This paper attempts to explore this issue in a larger French social-cultural context, and then discusses some of Bakhtin's misunderstandings of Rabelais and of the social culture of early modern France. The 16-18th Century witnessed the important "civilization" process in France. This cultural transformation was decisive for the evolutions in the readings of Rabelais, which was manifested in the changes in French people's reading experiences of the "vulgar" material bodily lower stratum in his novels. Based on an analysis of the circulation of Rabelais’ novel as well as the materials like the contemporary lists of private book collections, diaries and literary creations, it can be seen clearly that before the middle of the 17th Century, regardless of nobles, priests, citizens, men, or women, French people of different classes and genders could appreciate, understand or at least accept these "vulgar" contents. Some aristocratic books (especially the rich illustrations) also showed that the reading taste of the nobility was intrinsically consistent with the cultural taste represented in Rabelais’ novels. During this period, basically all of the most vehement critics of Rabelais were from the religious sector, although in general, the French Protestant (except the Calvinist) and Catholic camps were in sharp opposition in regard to their respective attitudes towards Rabelais. However, even for those who vehemently criticized Rabelais, their focus was mainly on Rabelais' religious inclinations and its possible effects rather than on those "vulgar" elements in his novels. It was since the middle of the 17th Century that the situation changed markedly. In the background of "civilization" centered on the court society, the cultural taste of the French upper society had undergone a fundamental evolution, and "poli", “bien séance”, etc. became the essential secularized criteria for cultural judgment. As a result, La Bruyère and Voltaire "suddenly" discovered a "dirty", incomprehensible Rabelais. On the other hand, the comments of de Girac and René Rapin revealed more clearly that this change in reading experience was actually the result of the evolution in the French upper-class’ cultural tastes in the 16-17th Centuries. Meanwhile, the evolution also caused a cultural separation and opposition, which was not obvious in the 16th Century, between the upper and lower layers of France in the 17-18th Centuries. Based on his study of the relationship between Rabelais’ creation and the culture of popular laughter before and after the Renaissance Europe, Bakhtin proposed the famous carnivalesque theory, making a prominent contribution to the development of world literature and history studies since the 1960s and 1970s. However, it must be pointed out that Bakhtin evidently misunderstood Rabelais and the culture of early modern France, especially in terms of diametrically opposing the concepts of "official" and "folk" as well as mixing-up the culture of the 16-18th Centuries. The above analysis of the history of reading of Rabelais in France in the same period shows that the opposition between the so-called "official" and "folk" culture actually appeared or was significantly strengthened in the early process of modernization. Besides, even at the peak of French absolutism in the 17-18th Centuries, the "official" and "folk" culture and their diametrical opposition never existed.