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A History of Modern Criticism, 1750-1950 #1
تاریخ نقد جدید: جلد اول
رنه ولک در جلد اول کتاب تاریخ نقد جدید، نقدش را از نیمهٔ دوم قرن هجدهم آغاز میکند؛ دورهای که پایههای نئوکلاسیسم متزلزل شده و نظریات جدیدی همچون ناتورالیسم و رئالیسم بهتدریج ظاهر میشوند، مکاتبی که منتقدان همچنان در این دوران هم سراغ آنها میروند. دستهبندی آثار و مؤلفان بر اساس کشور بوده و در این جلد و جلد دوم غالباً به نویسندگان و منتقدان کشورهای انگلستان، فرانسه، آلمان و ایتالیا پرداخته میشود. همچنین در این کتاب، سخنرانی این منتقد در کنگرهٔ انجمن بینالمللی ادبیاتتطبیقی در سال ۱۹۷۶ با عنوان «تأملاتی دربارهٔ تاریخ نقد جدید» به فارسی برگردانده شده است.
رنه ولک یکی از برجستهترین منتقدان ادبی (۱۹۹۵-۱۹۰۳) برخاسته از مکتب زبانشناسی و متنشناسی پراگ بود. این مورخ ادبی در اوایل جنگ جهانی دوم به آمریکا مهاجرت کرد و مطالعات خود را تا آخر عمر در این کشور ادامه داد. ولک آثار بسیاری دارد؛ اما شاهکار او مجموعهٔ هشتجلدی نقد جدید است که در آن نظریههای نقد را از ۱۷۵۰ تا ۱۹۵۰ بررسی، تحلیل و ثبت میکند. برای او نقد هم داوری دربارهٔ آثار و نویسندگان و بهعبارتدیگر نقد حکمی و عملی است و هم اصل و اساس ادبیات، نظریهٔ ادبی، خاستگاه و نقش و تأثیر آن در زندگی و تمدن بشری مدنظر است.
بریدهای از کتاب: «تاریخ نقد از گسترش رنسانس تا نیمهٔ قرن هجدهم مشتمل است بر تثبیت، تکمیل، گسترش دیدگاهی دربارهٔ ادبیات که در ۱۷۵۰ کموبیش همان است که در ۱۵۵۰ بود. البته نوساناتی در تأکیدها و تغییراتی در اصطلاحات به چشم میخورد، و میان فردفرد منتقدان، کشورهای عمدهٔ اروپا و مراحل مختلف تحول تاریخ نقد تفاوتهایی وجود دارد.»
رنه ولک یکی از برجستهترین منتقدان ادبی (۱۹۹۵-۱۹۰۳) برخاسته از مکتب زبانشناسی و متنشناسی پراگ بود. این مورخ ادبی در اوایل جنگ جهانی دوم به آمریکا مهاجرت کرد و مطالعات خود را تا آخر عمر در این کشور ادامه داد. ولک آثار بسیاری دارد؛ اما شاهکار او مجموعهٔ هشتجلدی نقد جدید است که در آن نظریههای نقد را از ۱۷۵۰ تا ۱۹۵۰ بررسی، تحلیل و ثبت میکند. برای او نقد هم داوری دربارهٔ آثار و نویسندگان و بهعبارتدیگر نقد حکمی و عملی است و هم اصل و اساس ادبیات، نظریهٔ ادبی، خاستگاه و نقش و تأثیر آن در زندگی و تمدن بشری مدنظر است.
بریدهای از کتاب: «تاریخ نقد از گسترش رنسانس تا نیمهٔ قرن هجدهم مشتمل است بر تثبیت، تکمیل، گسترش دیدگاهی دربارهٔ ادبیات که در ۱۷۵۰ کموبیش همان است که در ۱۵۵۰ بود. البته نوساناتی در تأکیدها و تغییراتی در اصطلاحات به چشم میخورد، و میان فردفرد منتقدان، کشورهای عمدهٔ اروپا و مراحل مختلف تحول تاریخ نقد تفاوتهایی وجود دارد.»
488 pages, Hardcover
First published June 1, 1955
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Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews
June 1, 2020
یاد جناب شیرانی گرامی به خاطر همچین اثر عظیمی که ترجمه کرد.
August 31, 2019
Wasn't going to review this since I skipped one chapter, but I think it's worthwhile since it touches broadly on this whole endeavour. The main issue of criticism is how to determine good from bad - what constitutes a "good read", say, and how do we identify it? On some level this is a question for the branch of philosophy called Aesthetics, which Wellek dives into where he must, though understandably seeing that as outside his already large scope. One conclusion might be total relativism, which is basically embraced by this site - everyone shares their own tastes - and perhaps by the industry more broadly, as ousted New York book critic Christian Lorentzen argued earlier this years in Harper's (discussed in a symposium here). But most people understand there to be a broad sense that some books are better than others, that there is a difference between the great and the merely pleasurable, and that it is the role of critics to figure that out. Leaving the conundrum of how that can be to the philosophers, we back out and ask merely what is good? The answer to that is the history of criticism.
Wellek reads at least half a dozen languages and is conversant with the literary traditions of the big European nations. He is also an insanely clear writer - something happened to academic literary theory soon after this came out (was it Derrida's infamous Johns Hopkins conference?) that made the field a lot less accessible to dilettantes like myself. He begins with the inheritance of Aristotle's Poetics, the three classical unities which European writers and critics, especially the French, tried to hold by, while admitting exceptions for genius. He understands the idea behind this as being related to the suspension of disbelief, one possible vision of the dramatic experience. But by the mid-18th century, the period in which this book begins, that was already showing signs of strain.
Running through French thinkers like Voltaire and Diderot, Wellek then covers Dr Johnson in England and a host of minor English aestheticians, before devoting the rest of the volume to German movements - Sturm und Drang, Goethe's wild vision of nature united with the Classical world, Kant and then Schiller, whose influential essay On Naive and Sentimental Poetry contrasted the primitive (naive) poet with his modern, self-aware counterpart, setting the stage for the Romanticists who followed. I wish I'd taken better notes as I read, as a lot of the ideas swirl together even now.
Reading this and seeing the flow of opinions - Neoclassicism, Didacticism, Romanticism, Art for Art's Sake - helped give me a sense of what critics try to do when they set a frame of reference for what a work should be, where it succeeds or falls flat. There is always a hidden matrix of assumptions about what we should expect from art and why we enjoy it. The answer to those questions are subjective, and change from generation to generation, but it our task as readers and critics to be aware of them.
End-note: a friend found this book on the street and gave it to me. I'm happy to write its first GR review!
Wellek reads at least half a dozen languages and is conversant with the literary traditions of the big European nations. He is also an insanely clear writer - something happened to academic literary theory soon after this came out (was it Derrida's infamous Johns Hopkins conference?) that made the field a lot less accessible to dilettantes like myself. He begins with the inheritance of Aristotle's Poetics, the three classical unities which European writers and critics, especially the French, tried to hold by, while admitting exceptions for genius. He understands the idea behind this as being related to the suspension of disbelief, one possible vision of the dramatic experience. But by the mid-18th century, the period in which this book begins, that was already showing signs of strain.
Running through French thinkers like Voltaire and Diderot, Wellek then covers Dr Johnson in England and a host of minor English aestheticians, before devoting the rest of the volume to German movements - Sturm und Drang, Goethe's wild vision of nature united with the Classical world, Kant and then Schiller, whose influential essay On Naive and Sentimental Poetry contrasted the primitive (naive) poet with his modern, self-aware counterpart, setting the stage for the Romanticists who followed. I wish I'd taken better notes as I read, as a lot of the ideas swirl together even now.
Reading this and seeing the flow of opinions - Neoclassicism, Didacticism, Romanticism, Art for Art's Sake - helped give me a sense of what critics try to do when they set a frame of reference for what a work should be, where it succeeds or falls flat. There is always a hidden matrix of assumptions about what we should expect from art and why we enjoy it. The answer to those questions are subjective, and change from generation to generation, but it our task as readers and critics to be aware of them.
End-note: a friend found this book on the street and gave it to me. I'm happy to write its first GR review!
August 14, 2020
I ordered more of his books. It is a fascinating teaching text that can equally be read by casual readers inspired by the literary classics.
Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews