美国文学中的共生现象

文学中的共生现象是指较后问世的作品对早先存在的作品的重述或重新解释.对经典作品的再创造在美国文学的发展过程中始终起了重要的作用.早在19世纪美国文学发展初期,美国文学之父华盛顿·欧文就使用了这种方法.20世纪上半叶,西方包括美国在内的现代主义作家偏爱使用神话方式,也就是重述早先具有神话意义的故事.美国后现代主义时期的文学对于经典作品的再创造范围更加广泛.这一阶段重述的一个显著特点是从女性的角度或是给名作增加进女性的声音.

Symbiosis in American Literature

Literary symbiosis is defined as an explicit retelling or reinterpreting by a later text of an earlier work. The re-creation of classics has played an important role in developing American literature. In the early period of the development of American literature of the nineteenth century Washington Irving, the father of American literature, used retelling in his writings. In the first half of the twentieth century the Western modernist writers including the American writers preferred mythical mode in their writings, that is,retelling earlier works with mythical sense. In the postmodern period of American literature, the range of re-creation of classics has been more extensive. To retell the classics from the angle of women or to recover feminine voices in famous literary masterpieces is one of the outstanding characteristics of retelling in this period.