英美文学考研，英美文学考研科目
导语
创新能力的培养离不开科学知识的积累和创新性思维的建构。正所谓“名师出高徒”，在思维方式和学习习惯养成的关键时期，青少年能够有机会与世界顶尖学术大师交流对话，对于激发他们的学习兴趣、拓宽全球视野、培养创新精神、开发科研潜能、提高综合素质都大有裨益。
广东顺德德胜学校（国际）重磅打造“科研的力量”栏目，汇聚稀缺的世界顶尖教育资源，为广大学子提供与全球顶尖学术大师交流对话的平台，让广大学子有机会领略世界级专家学者的科研风采与学术精神，了解各学科领域的前沿研究并获得专业指导。学校特别邀请10位来自哈佛大学、剑桥大学、牛津大学、康奈尔大学、卡耐基梅隆大学的知名教授，他们学术水平突出、教育经验丰富，且研究领域覆盖广泛，包括计算机科学、自然科学、商科、社科和文学等专业，德胜（国际）9-12年级的学子们将以采访的形式，与10位世界级顶尖名师展开10场主题交流，让思想的碰撞点燃科研热情，让科研的力量助力创新人才培养。
文学是时代的镜子。人们在文学中记录的，往往能够折射出一个时代的历史与社会现实。因此，文学能够研究的不仅有修辞，更有其背后的社会现象、文化现象、社会发展、群体行为等等，也能够与社会学、人类学、历史学等多种社会科学进行链接。同时，文学语言本身就是一门科学，不同语言的韵律、规则，不同人群的语言习得、应用，都能够被研究。甚至，我们也能将其与神经学、计算机等科学与技术相结合，探究人类语言文字的奥秘。文学创新也与时代变迁息息相关，新文体、新媒介不断涌现，成为文学需要研究与容纳的新课题。
英美文学专业是全世界大学和学院中最受欢迎的专业之一。在当下被信息充斥的时代，人们需要更强的文字阅读和理解能力。英美文学拥有广泛的研究领域，涵盖不同分支和形式的课程，包含了对于不同种类文学形式的研究，如小说、诗歌、戏剧及数字媒体等等。
通过英美文学专业的课程学习，学生将学会如何分析和撰写不同形式风格的文本，对多元文化进行深入感知，不断提高其表达能力和分析能力。在英美文学专业多领域进行深入学习后，将获得更多未来发展的机会、拥有更多选择。
在本期“科研的力量”栏目，一组10至11年级对文学感兴趣的德胜学子与牛津大学英美文学教授Matthew Bevis进行对话，一同探讨文学素养的养成，就文学发展趋势、文学与生活等一系列问题展开交流；同时，Bevis教授还为学生们讲解了社会与文学的关系等问题。
以下内容为本次访谈原文，英文版本附在文末。
嘉宾介绍
Matthew Bevis
牛津大学英美文学教授
本次受访的教授是牛津大学英美文学专业教授Matthew Bevis。Bevis教授的主要研究方向为诗歌，及浪漫主义时期和维多利亚时期的文学。
访谈亮点
科研的力量旨在通过与学科领域内最负盛名的科学家深入对话，使科研的种子能够在未来生根发芽，转变为推动世界进步的力量，文学是时代的镜子，学好文学也需要不断钻研的精神。
德胜学子与Bevis教授的访谈围绕文学兴趣及文学素养、文学领域及发展趋势、文学与文化生活、儿童文学等板块与热门话题，对以上话题展开热烈的讨论和思考，关注到了文学新样态、网络时代背景、二次创作、文学理解等不同细节。
文学兴趣从何而来
从文学学习的角度出发，德胜学子首先关注到了教授的文学兴趣。教授向同学们讲述了自己的成长经历，从幼时热爱阅读开始，到认识到“阅读始于爱，止于智慧”，最后确定将文学作为一生的志向。
如何学习文学
在谈论文学兴趣话题相关内容后，德胜学子针对进一步的文学学习，与教授探讨了文学人应具备的特点及大学阶段如何学习文学的问题。教授认为适合英美文学的人不止一种类型，重点在于，“如果你想研究文学，你需要愿意容忍困惑”。教授也指出，在大学里学习文学的方式并没有什么不同，只是要求更复杂、更精确。
文学新领域与新发展
在对文学学习有了一定了解后，德胜学子从实际出发，与教授探讨当前文学的新领域与新发展。首先是音乐剧和电影等非文本是否属于文学的问题，教授以鲍勃·迪伦为引，给出了他的观点：“任何涉及文字艺术的东西都有文学成分。所以在我看来，从很重要的层面而言，音乐剧和电影是文学作品。”教授进一步引导同学们思考单口喜剧是否是一种文学？因为一个笑话和一首诗具有相似的理解模式，所以，教授认为单口喜剧也是一种文学作品。
随后，德胜学子从语言角度出发，探讨语言的发展对交流方式的影响。教授以“摩天大楼”一词举例，认为“在某种程度上，所有语言都是过去遗留给我们的”，一些针对具体事物的隐喻“隐藏在我们刚刚无需思考便说出的词中”。
就语言文字的发展，德胜学子进一步追问，为什么在许多文字消失了的情况下，人们仍喜欢追踪文字的发展。对此，教授认为，“语言的演变取决于社会形态和社会的价值观”。从语言这一种交流方式出发，德胜学子发散性地谈论到了更多种可能的交流方式，例如戏剧。教授肯定戏剧表演是一种互动，通过戏剧表演文学对文学作品会有意义。回到文学发展本身，德胜学子与教授探讨了影响文学发展的因素。教授肯定特定文化对文学有一定影响，反之，“文学可以成为一种社会和政治力量，但是不完全确定能带来社会变革”。同时，古代文学仍然在对现代文学发挥影响。最后，网络时代让文学发表可能面向更多观众，人们可以通过社交网络发表简短的文字作品，这是文学发展的新样态。
日常生活中的文学
基于对文学新领域与新发展的了解，德胜学子转向实际生活，与教授探讨文学的实践与运用。首先，在英美文学如何在日常生活中被使用的问题上，教授认为阅读文学作品主要能发挥两种功能，一是“让你已经认识的人变得更奇怪，更复杂”，二是帮助人们“三思而后行”。
阅读理解与创作理论
从已有的阅读体验出发，德胜学子与教授探讨了阅读理解中的读者意识与二次创作。教授认为，每一次阅读其实就是在对文本进行二次创作，为文本赋予自己的解释。因此，读者也能在阅读理解中进行自己的创作，“应该坚持文学创作者不是他们自己作品的权威理解者”。由于文本创作的电影与原著可以互补，“电影更像是现实生活”，而小说能够让人和角色共处更长时间。
儿童文学
在文学的细分领域上，德胜学子尤为关注儿童文学。在是什么让人们更加关注和尊重孩子的问题上，教授认为“孩子为我们提供了一种回归本源的想法”。而在富有教育意义和充满想象力的儿童文学作品之间，教授更倾向于后者。针对当前存在的儿童文学刻板印象问题，教授建议：“扩大写作儿童文学作家的范围，对不同类型的儿童文学写作持开放态度”，同时，也要进一步思考儿童文学中的形象差异化问题。儿童文学以外，对于是否要让孩子接触复杂的成人文学这一问题，教授基本持否定态度，但这并不代表儿童文学与成人文学、儿童读者与成人读者是对立关系。他认为，“如果我们能接触到更多的儿童文学作品，对我们所有人来说都会更好”。最后，德胜学子向教授请教为何哈利波特得以成功，教授进行了富有借鉴意义的总结：“因为它们尽可能从孩子的角度与孩子交谈。因此，尽管儿童英雄面临危险，但人们仍然相信儿童是他们所处世界的创造者和控制者。”
在本次访谈中，来自德胜的几位同学收获颇丰，通过与教授的交流，同学们对英美文学也有了新的认识，对文学的新领域及新发展、文学的理解与创作、儿童文学的发展及意义等，都有了更加清晰的理解。跟随教授的详细回答与讲解，德胜学子也对以上话题进行了深入思考。
同时，那些纠结于自己本科学习方向的德胜同学们也在本次访谈中有了新的认识，文学需要的是愿意容忍困惑，而大学的文学学习并没有很大的不同之处，这帮助了有志于文学学习的同学们对将来的学习与专业选择进行更细致的判断。
下面，让我们透过文字，一同穿越回访谈时刻，在德胜学子的带领下，走进文学的世界，在学子们与教授的对话中见证思想碰撞的火花，感受科研与创新的魅力。
访谈全文
文学兴趣与文学素养
Q: 您如何确认自己对英国文学的兴趣并决定研究它?
A:说起来，我是在孩童时期就对文学产生兴趣了，但那时我只想感受不同的世界，并没有真正想过我为什么要这样做。我只知道我喜欢阅读，阅读的时候很安静，这是一种远离嘈杂人群的方式。所以在某种程度上，阅读也可能被视为一种逃避。此后，随着年龄的增长，我读的故事开始让我了解生活，书中发生的事情让我想起了书外的事情，比如我的父母、我与兄弟姐妹的关系或其他。所以，开始阅读的部分原因是为了理解生活。在美国诗人罗伯特·弗罗斯特的一篇文章中，他说：“这开始于爱，结束于智慧。”我认为阅读始于爱，止于智慧，这是我作为一个读者的感受。所以我想这就是原因。
我为什么决定学习它？答案是我喜欢阅读，不想停止阅读。阅读、谈论、写作和思考书籍是一件奇妙的事情，我们可以一直在这个领域做我们喜欢的事情。关于阅读，我最近才发现这一点，是一个要在集中精力阅读时才会有的感受。
我读到一个故事：说一个人多年后回到了他童年的房子，他穿过房子、走进花园、走到他最喜欢的树下。我突然意识到，当我读到这个故事时，我脑海中想象的其实是我自己童年的房子。
换句话说，我们总是把自己置身于我们所读的故事里。不是每个人都这样，也许你们中的一些人在阅读时脑中没有任何画面，但一般来说，更多时候我们会走进我们所读的故事。我把自己想象成叙述中的观众。马塞尔·普鲁斯特在他的一篇文章中，提到：读者在阅读时，实际上是在阅读自己。我想这就是为什么我想一直阅读。
Q: 您认为学习英美文学的人应该具备哪些特点？
A:适合阅读英美文学的人的类型很多，我不认为只有一种类型。我认为文学是一个大领域，它涵盖了很多不同类型的东西，不只是一种。但我在想，我们应该发现一些共性。当我在牛津面试申请牛津的人时，我经常在想，我要找到具备什么品质的候选人。我认为如果你想研究文学，有一点很重要，一个非常明显和基本的就是对文字的好奇心。我的意思不仅仅是指词语的含义，而是它们的意义。词语的概念是世界上的一种行为或事件，是能让你改变的东西。而我对这种好奇心的理解就是：你要对陌生的感兴趣。因此，阅读需要有一种愿意容忍奇怪事物的意愿。通常，当我们第一次读一首诗的时候，我们会觉得有点奇怪。
有一些地方我们能够明白，也有一些我们不明白。有一些我们喜欢的部分，也有些句子我们不喜欢。我认为，如果你想研究文学，你需要愿意容忍困惑。阅读一首诗和理解对话不太一样，对话有一种信息的传递，而一首诗有时会对你隐瞒一些信息，所以你需要有一种对陌生的好奇。我认为这是你唯一真正需要的。要训练自己的好奇心是很难的。对最初的陌生感保持耐心或许是一种方法。换句话说，如果你不能一下子理解某件事情的全部内容，不要感到惊慌。
Q: 大学阶段的学生阅读文学作品的方式有什么不同，或者学生在大学阶段是如何学习文学的？
A:我认为并没有什么不同，可能只是变得更为复杂了。你读的书越多，世界就越大，就越奇怪。所以，我认为大学里的学生，或者至少在我教的大学里，学生需要十分精确地了解词语的作用。因此，换句话说，不能只是简单地注意到一首诗的押韵，而应知道为什么在这里押韵及其作用。所以，大学阶段对于文学的阅读需要更为精确、深入。
当我还是个学生的时候，我的英语老师给了我一个建议，我现在还在用，她说，每当我读一首诗的时候，我应该写下对作者的疑问，比如为什么在这些地方有这些词。换句话说，你需要花更多的时间去精确地思考你面前的语言。
文学领域及发展趋势
Q: 音乐剧和电影等非文学文本可以归类为文学吗？
A:几年前，歌手鲍勃·迪伦（Bob Dylan）获得了诺贝尔文学奖，引起了很大的争议。鲍勃·迪伦（Bob Dylan）是一位了不起的歌手、是一位了不起的歌词作者，但他是诗人吗？他能获得诺贝尔奖吗？我们可以把它归类为文学吗？我认为这可能是一个复杂的问题。但我认为他可以获得文学奖，这首歌和歌词是密不可分的，二者需兼顾。我认为，任何涉及文字艺术的东西都有文学成分。所以，在我看来，从很重要的层面而言，音乐剧和电影是文学作品。
也许我们可以进一步思考，单口相声演员与文学作品相关吗？如果你在莎士比亚的戏剧中遇到一个傻瓜，他们实际上是一个单口相声演员，而你正在阅读他们的剧本。因此，单口喜剧也是一种文学。我认为一个笑话，一个好笑话和一首好诗，都以类似的方式运作。让我试着解释一下为什么这两件事可能是相似的。如果你的朋友给你讲了一个笑话，而你没有听懂这个笑话，你也没有笑。如果他们随后向你解释这个笑话，它不会突然变得好笑。事实上，向你解释一个笑话可能会让人感觉有点尴尬，这是一种糟糕的感觉。换句话说，这个笑话没有奏效，即使你已经向他们解释过了。我认为好的诗歌也是这样。可以向你解释一首诗，但如果你对这首诗没有理解，而且没有从中获得任何东西，那么，这首诗就没有对你起任何作用。
Q: 旧形式的英语如何影响我们今天的交流和写作方式，我们的现代英语如何影响我们未来的交流方式？
A:在某种程度上，所有语言都是过去遗留给我们的，它们有着很长的历史。因此，较早的文学形式一直以我们可能没有意识到的方式影响着我们。我认为我们日常的言语都进行的很自然。语言比我们想象的更富有诗意，它充满了我们无需思考便已经蕴含的隐喻。我将举个例子。
你知道摩天大楼这个词吗？如果有人提到摩天大楼，你知道那是什么意思。但是当你真正想一想这个词时，就会想到一座高得可以刮到天空的建筑物。你明白了吗，你只是联想了这个词。如果这是一首诗，“一座高得可以刮到天空的建筑物”就是一个隐喻，它隐藏在一个我们刚刚无需思考便说出的词中。我们日常中很多句子都是这样的。我们经常用我们的隐喻来描述我们在空间中的感受。
Q: 很多英语单词被忘记了，或者即便没有被忘记也不会被使用了。我想知道为什么人类会喜欢追踪文字的发展？
A:这是一个非常好的问题，也是一个很好的例子。有些英语确实会被取代。例如，16世纪英国的一个英文的例子，thou和you的概念。这是两种不同的称呼某人的方式。他们对社会影响略有不同。一个是礼貌的，一个是更口语的。现在，尽管英语在某种程度上已经不再区分这两个词，但许多其他语言如法语和西班牙语，仍然保留着礼貌的你、第三人称的你和更熟悉的第二人称这几个不同的称呼。我不知道你们的语言中是否有这种情况，或者是否在其他语言中遇到过，但是语言以不同的方式发展并保持着一些区别。
但至于为什么会发生这种情况，这是一个非常好的问题。可能是不同的社会需要语言来表达不同的含义。语言的演变取决于社会形态和社会的价值观，社会需要这个词的地方，不需要这个词的地方，以及这个词是否已经成为社会问题的一部分。这也回到了我之前的观点，即有些词可能是行为，而不仅仅是描述。在特定的上下文中对某人的特定称呼是一种行为，它在社会中产生一些效应。但也有些词我们不再使用。
Q: 我认为戏剧是一种交流形式，通过表演他们想要传递的东西和他们想要呈现的东西。所以，我想知道它可以被视为一种交流方式吗？
A:让我给你举一个例子。如果你在家里读了一本书或是一部戏剧，当你觉得有趣时，你可能会笑。但是如果你在剧院里，周围有200个人也在观看，出现了一些有趣的事情，你笑了，他们不笑，你会觉得很焦虑和尴尬。或者，如果很多人笑而你没有笑。你会想，我错过了这个笑话。换句话说，戏剧在表演时，不仅成为演员之间的一种交流，还成为观众之间的一种社交和互动。所以我认为在公共场所表演文学肯定会改变其意义或地位。
Q: 众所周知，在历史上，很多种文学的产生是因为文化差异或当时社会的特殊情况。请问，特定文化是否有可能以某种方式影响文学？
A:可以肯定的是，各个时代的作家都提出了某些突出主题，或者为以前没有发声的人发声，把这些声音推广到公共领域，并形成书面的形式，于是就有了这种变化。某些类型的写作吸收了文化中的一些东西，将其放大以有效地帮助思想的改变。所以，换句话说，我确实认为文学可以成为一种社会和政治力量。但是不完全确定能带来社会变革。
Q: 古代文学如何推动现代文学的发展，现代文学的演变和进步又是如何体现其意义和影响的？
A:我确实认为古代文学以多种不同的方式影响着现代文学，即使我们没有意识到我们正在受到过去的影响，古代文学也是以同样的方式影响着现代文学。我们受到影响是因为我们学会了我们的语言，它演变到我们这里。要说的另一件事是，人类学习的一种方式是复制模仿，这也是有效的。我们通过模仿进行学习。几个世纪以来，艺术表现的想法是通过“模仿”：模仿之前的事物。
所以从这个意义上说，艺术的根源也许可以追溯到过去，或者也有将古代带回现代的想法。当我在牛津大学任教时，我会给学生一首在他们看来比较奇怪、不太明白的诗。我会问他们的第一个问题是，这首诗是什么样的，它让你想起了什么。我们如何通过它得到提示，知道如何走近这首诗。同时让他们思考：这首诗有什么意思，关于什么，让人产生怎样的感觉。所以，很多时候我们实际上会在一分钟内看完一首诗，它以旧的形式呈现。在我看来很重要的是：虽然它以旧的形式呈现，却不是站在新的对立面，而是在新的形式之中。
Q: 您如何评价网络时代美国文学的特点？
A:互联网时代让我们生活在一个观众非常庞大的社会中。你知道，当雪莱在1820年写下他的《西风颂》时，仅有六个读者阅读过。现在，我可以在推特上发布的歌词可以被数百万人阅读。所以，无论互联网时代意味着什么，只是关乎于观众，观众的增长。
随之而来的一个问题是，当作家觉得自己被这么多人关注或倾听时，他们会面临什么样的新压力？在我看来，拥有大量观众可能并不总是一件好事。它会让作家胆怯或害怕，因为在他们想明白自己的定位之前，他们可能会觉得自己是在为别人写作。你没有真正了解你的受众，不知道是在为谁写作，这可能是有好处的。我不希望这听起来过于消极。因此，让我将互联网时代的概念缩小，暂时只说Twitter，Twitter鼓励使用简短的形式进行交流。
你可以在Twitter上发布简短的抒情诗，但你不能发布小说。可以说推特有一种歌词的属性，它允许短的言语和诗节，并将这些呈现给受众。所以，一些简短的形式可能有一些特殊的意义，互联网时代很支持这种短形式。
文学与文化生活
Q: 我们如何在日常生活中使用英美文学？
A:它可以用在很多方面。你们想一想，在什么时候你在书中读到的东西让你对你遇到或认识的人改变了看法？
通常，如果你在书中遇到一个令人反感的人物或你不喜欢的人，你就会多一点宽容，对他们为什么要做那些事感到好奇。当你在现实世界中想起那个人时，你会以稍微不同的方式处理他们。我想这是乔治·艾略特曾经说过的一句话，阅读是为了所谓的“我们的同情心的延伸”。
阅读的另一个作用就是能让你已经认识的人变得更奇怪，更复杂。我认为这是件好事。但从广义上讲，这种书可以使你更多地意识到你不知道的人的情况。所以，我认为这是英美文学或任何文学在日常生活中的一种功能。它提高了你思考人的复杂性的能力。从某种意义上说，阅读的另一个作用是，它可以让我们三思而后行。我知道我们都被教导要果断和自信，但阅读可能为我们提供了一些思考时间。浪漫主义诗人约翰·基思谈到了他所谓的消极能力。对他来说，消极能力是处于怀疑中的能力，是不确定的能力。我认为这是关于书籍的一件重要事情，关于它的意义。
Q: 您如何看待小说和电影的粉丝创作等二次创作？
A:在某种程度上，二次创作实际上是我们一直在做的事情。每当我们阅读时，我们就是在二次创作。当你解释任何事物的行为时，也是在进行二次创作。我想现代最著名的二次创作例子之一，是哈利波特的书和哈利波特的电影。我知道我儿子是先看的哈利波特电影。现在，有些人可能认为这意味着老电影正在取代书籍。但事实上，正是这部电影让他爱上了这本书。所以，他真的很喜欢这本书，但这只是因为他看过这部电影。换句话说，电影和书籍之间可以有一种交流。我记得我小时候在读查尔斯狄更斯的小说《远大前程》之前就看过这部电影，现在，在我脑海中，这本小说与电影仍是相联系的。
Q: 阅读是一种再创造，就像自己给自己创造某种形象。您认为是理解阅读本身的含义或者理解作者想要创造的画面更重要吗？
A:这就像是问作者是否应该回应你？我想不是的。作者不负责回应读者。再创造是一种协商。但语言不是这样的。文字是一种共享空间，是我们分享协商的场所。重要的是，许多作家，尤其是诗人，如果他们被问及他们的意图是什么时，老实说，他们也会说我不知道。我不知道我为什么写这个，或者我不知道鸟的形象是代表什么意思，等等。我认为我们应该坚持文学创作本身而不是不是作者他们赋予自己的意义。
这有点像你早上醒来，你做了一个梦。如果梦真的非常强烈，它有时会让人感觉像是一首诗。但如果我问你，你的梦是什么意思？因为你创造了它。你可能很难回答。你可能会说，我不知道，但我认为这可能与这个那个事情或和我妈妈说的什么事情有关。换句话说，你可以为你的梦创造一个有意义的画面，但你不能给我一个明确的陈述。我认为我们可以以这种方式将艺术家视为梦想家。他们梦想着自己的作品，但他们并不拥有它们。
Q: 您认为电影比书更容易理解、更加有趣吗？因为现在似乎更多的人喜欢看电影而不是看书本身。例如，当我阅读《傲慢与偏见》这本书时，我完全不明白这本书想要表达什么。但在我看了一部关于这方面的电影后，我似乎对这本书了解得更清楚了。
A:是的，这是一个很好的例子。我想这部电影可能会帮助你理解这本书。因此，《傲慢与偏见》在书中拥有的一件事，而电影中没有，那就是它有一个叙述者，它具有无所不知的声音，可以告诉你角色的想法。电影更像是现实生活。你通过他们的行为方式判断他们在想什么。你听他们说话、看他们做事。奥斯汀的小说，或者说小说整体，都是给你一个深刻的幻想，你可以在一个角色的脑海里，你可以知道每个人在想什么，这部电影无法给你的。这取决于你喜欢什么。一部电影很快，你不能和这些角色在一起太久。这可能是件好事，因为它可能会更有趣。但从另一种角度俩说，如果你想更长时间地与角色在一起、在角色的脑海中想象自己，那么小说就会很好地满足你。
儿童文学
Q: 社会经济发展如何推动儿童文学的发展？是什么让人们更加关注和尊重孩子？
A:在某种程度上，儿童是浪漫主义的发明者，我指的是18世纪末和19世纪初英国的浪漫主义运动。这与孩子为我们提供了一种回归本源的想法有关。可以说，孩子们并不是仅仅被社会化到成年。但是，如果成年人不与内心的孩子保持联系，他们就会错过一些东西。所以我认为儿童文学的兴起部分与此有关。这是一个非常复杂的历史问题，但我认为它在现代也更加重要。
如果你想到像20世纪初的弗洛伊德这样的人，他在某种程度上是浪漫主义的孩子。他的观点是，通过思考我们的童年，我们可以更接近真实的自己。曾经有人问弗洛伊德，什么是成年人？他的回答是，成年人就像孩子一样。换句话说，如果你能深入了解童年，你就会发现自己有多少是新的发展。而这，我认为，许多浪漫主义作家如华兹华斯和其他人，真的认为要写他们的生活，他们必须真正从头开始。所以我认为这可能是思考儿童文学成长的一种方式。
Q: 您认为儿童文学应该如何平衡教育文学和想象文学的主题？
A:富有想象力的文学作品可能不是一堂课，可能没有指导意义，只是为了故事。我不认为孩子们真的想被教导。对于老师来说，这听起来可能很奇怪。我确实认为年幼的孩子真的很想学习，但他们不一定想被教，尤其是不想被成年人教。这也许是我作为父母的经历。但我不确定说教文学是否适合儿童或成人。
我认为这可能是一个自相矛盾的说法。我不说及文学，我去学习文学不是为了学习我应该怎么想，或者被告知什么是好的什么是坏的。你可以对此进行测试，你记得童年时真正喜欢的书吗，我敢肯定，你不记得那些告诉你在学校该做什么或如何表现的书。但是你记得那些现在和你朝夕相伴，间接教会你一些事情的书。
Q: 您认为儿童文学在哪些方面可以避免基于偏见和刻板印象塑造儿童角色？
A:从广义上讲，我想一个方法是扩大写作儿童文学作家的范围，对不同类型的儿童文学写作持开放态度。但我想另一件事可能是改变我们对一些最深刻的刻板印象的感觉，例如，男性英雄概念中的性别刻板印象。我认为大多数儿童书籍中的大多数英雄都是男孩，现在情况仍然如此。因此，重新思考儿童读物的背景或内容可能就会得到一个答案。我认为这也可能与书中儿童角色遇到差异时的行为方式有关。换句话说，如果孩子们不回应或传播刻板印象，那么这就是一种教育。如果孩子在虚构世界的任何地方都看不到它，那么它就不会与种族主义相关联。
Q: 您认为让孩子接触更复杂、更有争议的成人文学作品是否合适？
A:从广义上讲，我认为有些书是不适合孩子读的。我现在要把这个问题复杂化。诗人奥登在谈到儿童文学时，他说，有一些好的书籍只适合给成年人看，这是因为对这些书的理解是以成年人的经验为前提的。但后来他说，没有只给孩子看的好的书籍。我认为他是对的，没有只适合儿童阅读的好书。换句话说，当我被问到是否应该有成人文学时，我们是否应该让孩子远离拥有复杂的主题的成人文学时，答案是肯定的。但实际上，复杂的主题已经出现在好的儿童文学作品中。
换句话说，我会反过来思考这个问题。问题是，儿童接触成人文学是否合适。那么我认为，如果我们能接触到更多的儿童文学作品，对我们所有人来说都会更好。
Q: 您认为哈利波特如此出名、如此受欢迎的原因是什么？
A:我只能给出一个非常简短的答案，但我认为实际上你已经知道了正确的答案。这些书很受欢迎，因为它们尽可能从孩子的角度与孩子交谈。因此，尽管儿童英雄面临危险，但人们仍然相信儿童是他们所处世界的创造者和控制者。
结语
此次访谈中，Matthew Bevis教授就学生感兴趣的话题与学生进行了激烈的探讨，并针对学生提出的问题进行了解答。Bevis教授不仅帮助学生点明了提高文学兴趣的方法以及深化文学素养的方向，还结合当下的数字化的发展与互联网时代的情况，通过学生日常生活中可以接触到的例子，深入浅出地分析了文学领域所包含的新类型文学形式以及文学未来的多样化发展趋势。我们相信，在未来，会有越来越多的优秀学生深入探究文学世界，为文学领域的深入发展和前沿发展作出实质性的贡献。
Interview Content
Q:How did you confirm your interest in English literature and why did you decide to study it?
A:I guess I first started my interest in literature, which happened as it does for probably most people, which is I was a child, and I wanted to escape. So, I wanted to just imagine different worlds. It was for pleasure. I didn’t really think about why I was doing it. I just knew that I liked reading. Reading was a quiet time. It’s a way to be away from people, to hide. So, in a way, reading might have been seen just as a kind of evasion or an escape. And then as I got older, the stories I read started to inform me about my life. So, it went the other way. I started to read, and things that would happen in books reminded me of things outside books, my parents, my relationship with my brother or sister, or whatever. So, I suppose I started to read partly for understanding. There’s a really lovely moment in an essay by Robert Frost, the American poet, and he says, it begins in love, and ends in wisdom.And I think that idea of reading beginning in love and ending in wisdom is a line that I felt as a reader. So, I guess that’s the reason.
And then the second part of that question was why did I decide to study it? And the answer is just I loved it. So, I just didn’t want to stop reading. The idea of being paid to read, talk, write, and think about books feels like an amazing privilege, to do what we always love doing. The other thing I would say about reading, I only discovered this recently by actually concentrating on when I read.
So I was reading a story about a guy that returns to the house of his childhood. And the story is talking about him walking through the house, walking into the garden, going up to his favorite tree, and visiting it after many years. And suddenly I realized what I was actually picturing in my mind when I read that story was my own childhood house.
In other words, we’re always kind of reading ourselves into the stories that we read. Not everyone does this. Maybe some of you don’t have any images when you’re reading, but generally, I find that more often than not. I’m imagining myself as a viewer inside the narration. There’s a moment in an essay by Marcel Proust, in which he says, every reader, while they are reading, is really a reader of themselves. And I think for me, that has been true. And that is, I guess, why I want to continue reading.
Q:What characteristics do you think people should have to study English literature?
A:There are probably as many types of people who were suitable to read English literature as there are books. So, I don’t think there’s one type. I think literature is such a big word. It covers so many different kinds of things that there is no one thing. But I suppose if I were looking for something common. When I’m in Oxford, I have to do interviews for people who apply to Oxford. And I’m often thinking to myself, what am I looking for as I interview students similar to your age? And I suppose one thing I’m thinking about, and that is important if you want to study literature, is something just really obvious and basic, which I think is just a curiosity about what words can do. I don’t just mean by what words can mean, but what they can do. The idea of words is a kind of activity or an event in the world, something that can make you change. And what boils down to that kind of curiosity, I think, is you need to want to be or you need to be interested in strangeness. So, reading needs to be kind of a willingness to tolerate something odd for a moment. Often, when we first read a poem, it can feel a bit odd to us.
There are bits of it we get. There are bits of it we don’t get. There are bits of it we like. There are lines that we don’t. I think if you want to study literature, you need to be willing to wait to dwell inside your confusion, a bit. Reading a poem isn’t quite the same as this conversation now, in which there’s a kind of relay of information, a poem will sometimes withhold itself from you. So, I think you need to have a kind of appetite for strangeness. I think that’s the only type of real thing that you really need. It’s hard to train your curiosity, you know. But one way to do it might be just to be patient with the initial strangeness. In other words, don’t panic if you don’t get the whole of something at one go.
Q:What is the difference between the way students in university read literature, or how do they learn about literature in university?
A:In a way, it’s not all that different, I imagine. In the sense that, it just becomes perhaps more complex. In the sense that, the more books you’ve read, the bigger the world seems, the stranger it seems. So, I think students at university, or at least at the university that I teach at are asked to become very precise about how words work. In other words, not to simply notice that a poem rhymes, but to say, why this rhyme here. What does that do? So, it becomes more and more precise.
When I was a student, my English teacher gave me a piece of advice, which I still use now, and she said, whenever I read a poem, I should write in invisible ink across the top of the page a question of the writer. And the question is, why are these words in these places? Why are these words in these places? In other words, to actually spend more and more, sort of precise time thinking about the verbal object in front of you.
Q:Can non-literary texts such as musicals and movies be classified as literature?
A:A few years ago,there was a big controversy because Bob Dylan, the singer, was given the Nobel Literature Prize. Bob Dylan is an amazing singer, and he’s an amazing writer of song lyrics, but is he a poet? Can he be given the Nobel Prize? Can we class that as literature? I think it can be a complicated question. But I broadly think he can be given the prize, and it can be literature, although I don’t think the song can be separated really from the lyrics. You have to have both. I’m just thinking, anything that involves the art of words has a literary component.So, musicals and films seem to me to be literary in an important way. Not only literary, but literary.
Maybe we could go even further, what about a stand-up comedian? If you encounter a fool in a Shakespeare play, they’re effectively a stand-up comedian, and you’re reading their scripts. I think that a stand-up comedy is a kind of literature. I think it is. And I think a joke, a good joke and a good poem, working similar ways. So let me just try and say why those two things might be similar. If your friend tells you a joke, and you don’t get the joke, and you don’t laugh. If they then explain the joke to you, it doesn’t suddenly get funny. In fact, it could be excruciating and a bit embarrassing to have a joke explained to you. It’s just a bad feeling all round. In other words, the joke hasn’t worked, even though you’ve had explained to you. And I think poems that a goods can work like that too. You can have a poem explained to you, but if you don’t feel it and get it for whatever you need to get from it, then it’s just not working for you.
Q:How have older forms of English affected how we communicate and write today and how may our modern English affect how we communicate in the future?
A:In a way, all language is a remnant of our pasts. We are made through our words, and our words were given to us, and they have a long, long past. So older forms of literature affect us all the time in ways that we don’t even realize. And I also think that our language is natural every day. Language is more poetic than we realize. It’s full of metaphors that we have stopped thinking about. I’ll give an example.
Do you know the word skyscraper? If someone refers to a skyscraper, you know what that means. But when you actually just think about the word for a second, the idea of a building that’s so high that it scrapes the sky. Can you see, you’ve just kind of dwelling with the word. And it’s a kind of poem. The idea of a building that scrapes the sky, in other words, is an example of a metaphor that’s hidden inside a word that we just stop thinking about. And there are lots of our words that are like this. We often take our metaphors for how we’re feeling from the position of our bodies in space.
Q:A lot of English words are forgotten, or not forgotten, or not used anymore. I wonder why would humans to trace words?
A:That’s a really good question and a good example. I guess some societies do replace them. The example, for instance, of English in 16th century England, the idea of thou, as opposed to you. Those are two different ways of addressing someone. They had slightly different social implications, thou and you. One was polite, one was a little bit more conversational. Now, although English has in a way given up on that distinction, many other languages, French, and Spanish, keep, as it were, the polite you, the 3rd person you, and the more familiar 2nd person you. I don’t know if you have this in your language, or have come across it in others, but languages evolve in different ways and keep different distinctions.
But as to why that happens, that’s a really good question. It might be that different societies need language to do different things. Languages evolved depending on what the societies are, the values of that society, where they need the word, where they don’t need the word, and whether the word has become part of the problem. It goes also back to my earlier point about the idea that some words are actions, not merely descriptions. To call someone a certain name in a certain context is an action. It does something. And there may be words that we’ve definitely no longer used.
Q:I think drama is a form of communication by acting out what they want to deliver and what they want to present. So, I’m wondering can it be regarded as a form of communication?
A:Let me just give you one example. If you read a book at home, a play, and you get to a bit that you find funny, you might laugh. You’re by yourself. But if you are in a theater and there are 200 people around you watching the play, and something funny comes up, and you laugh and they don’t, suddenly you feel very anxious. You can be embarrassing, or indeed, if lots of people laugh and you don’t. You think, oh, if I missed the joke. In other words, theater, when performed, becomes a kind of social negotiation between not just the actors, but the people in the audience, and how they interact with each other. So, I think the question of literature performed in public places definitely changes the meaning or their status.
Q:As we all know, in history, many the start of a kind of a type of literature is because of some cultural differences, or special condition of the society at the time. I want to ask, is this possible for that particular culture to affect that literature in a certain way?
A:It’s certainly that writers of all ages have raised certain kinds of topics inter prominence, or given voices to people who previously didn’t have voices, push those voices into the public realm and made their demands heard by the acts of writing. And so there’s that kind of change. The certain kinds of writing pick up on something in the culture and then amplify it or make contributions to the debate to effectively help to change minds. So, in other words, I do think that literature can be a social and a political force. I’m not sure it can make a social change by itself.
Q:How ancient literature promotes the development of modern literature and how does it show its significance and influence on the evolution and advancement of modern literature?
A:I do think that ancient literature does affect modern literature in loads of different ways, even just in the same way even if we don’t know we’re being influenced by the past. We are being influenced because we learned our language. It was handed to us. Maybe another thing to say is that, effectively, the one way that humans learn is by copying. We learn by imitation. And for centuries, the very idea of artistic representation was via the word mimesis: imitation of something prior that came before.
In that sense, the roots of art perhaps go back to this idea of bringing the absent back into the present, or the ancient back into the modern. One of the things I say to my students when I’m teaching Oxford is when I give them a strange poem, a poem that they don’t quite get. I will say to them, the first question is, what is this poem like? What does it remind you of? And we’ll go in via things it might remind them of, as a way of journeying towards what it might be. It’s a better question than just saying, what does this poem mean? What’s it about? What does the poem feel like? So oftentimes we’ll look at a poem in a minute actually, that plays on older forms. So that seems to me to be important. It’s ancient or old. It’s not the opposite of the new. It’s inside the new.
Q:How do you evaluate the characteristics of American literature in the Internet age?
A:In the Internet age, I guess that implies we now live in a society, where audiences are just huge, massive. You know, when Shelly wrote his Ode to the West Wind in sort of 1820, it’s got six readers. Now, I could tweet a lyric and it could be read by millions. So, whatever the Internet age means is just audience, the growth of audience.
And then one question that might come from that is what new kinds of pressure come to writers when they feel that they are being watched or listened to by so many people? It seems to me that it might not always be a good thing to have a massive audience. It can make writers timid or afraid, because they may end up feeling that they are writing for others before they decided what they are. There may be advantages in not really knowing your audience, in not knowing who you’re writing for. I don’t want that to sound overly negative. So let me just shrink the idea of the Internet age down to say just Twitter for a moment. Whatever else Twitter has done is it encouraged the short form.
You can post a short, lyric poem on Twitter, but you can’t post a novel. You could say there’s a kind of lyrical quality to Twitter. It allows for the short line, the radiant example, the aphorism, and the stanza of the poem, and it gives you these as part of its form. So maybe there’s something to be said for the short form. And the Internet age is kind of marrying up quite nicely.
Q:How is English Literature used in our daily life?
A:It can be used in loads of ways. Can any of you think of a time when something you read in a book made you change your mind about someone you’d met or someone that you knew?
I think that’s my experience too. Usually, if you come across an objectionable character or someone that you don’t like in a book, you’re just a little bit more tolerant and curious about why they’re doing what they’re doing. Then when you are reminded of that person in the real world, you handle them in a slightly different way. And I think that’s one of the George Eliot once said, reading is there for what she calls the extension of our sympathies.
I think the other thing that books really can do, is that they can make people that you already know just a little bit stranger, a little bit more complicated, or just weird. And I think that’s a good thing.But broadly, this kind of book can make you more aware of what you don’t know about people. So I think that’s one function of kind of how English literature, or any literature, can be used in everyday life. It just widens your ability to think through the complexity of people. What it can also then do, in a sense, is it can delay us from making up our minds. I know that we’re all taught to be decisive and confident, but reading may be a place we go in order to be indecisive. The romantic poet John Keith talks about what he calls negative capability. And for him, negative capability is the capacity to be in doubt, to have uncertainty. And I think this is one vital thing about books, about what they can do.
Q:How do you view the secondary creation for example fan fiction of novels and movies?
A:In a way, I would say again that secondary creation is actually something we’re doing all the time. Secondary creation is right there in the very act of interpreting anything. I guess one of the most famous examples of secondary creation in modern times, would be like the Harry Potter books, like, Harry Potter movies. I know that my son saw the Harry Potter film first. Now, some people might think that means old films are taking over from books. But in fact, it was the film that sent him to the book. He got really into the books, but only because he’d seen the film. So, in other words, there can be a kind of interchange between movies and books. I remember as a child, I think I saw Great Expectations, which is the novel by Charles Dickens, before I read the book. And I can’t sort of separate them in my mind now.
Q:Reading is a kind of recreation, like you create your image by yourself. So do you think it’s more important to come up with their intention, or to understand the image that the writers want to create?
A:Whether the writer should be in charge of your response? I think no. The writer is not in charge of your response. The recreation is a kind of negotiation. But the words don’t work like that. Words are a kind of shared space, shared places where we negotiate meaning. Importantly, many writers, especially poets, when asked what their intentions are, say, quite honestly, I don’t know. I don’t know why I wrote that. I don’t know what the image of the bird means, and so on. I think we should stay true to the idea that the literature creators are not the authorities of their own.
It’s a bit like when you wake up in the morning and you’ve had a dream. A dream can sometimes feel like a poem if it’s really, really strong. But if I say to you, what did your dream mean. You created it. Yeah, it would be hard for you to say. You might say, I don’t know, but I think it might have been to do with this or something my mom said. In other words, you could build up a picture of meaning for your dream, but you couldn’t give me a definitive statement. I think we could think of artists as dreamers in that way. They dream of their works, and they don’t own them.
Q:Do you think movies are more understandable and interesting than book? Because it seems that nowadays, more people tend to be enjoying the movies more than a book itself. For example, when I’m reading the book, Pride and Prejudice, I do quite not understand what the book is trying to tell. But after I watched a movie about this, I seem to understand more clearly about the book.
A:Yeah, that’s a good example. I think the film may be helping you with the book. So one of the things that Pride and Prejudice have in the book, which is not there in the film, is it has a narrator. It has that omniscient voice that tells you what the characters are thinking. In the film, it’s much more like real life. The way that you work out what people are thinking is by the way they behave. You listen to them talk, and you watch them do things. Austin’s novel and novels in general give you a profoundly fantasized idea that you could be inside someone’s head, that you could know what everyone was thinking. Now, the film can’t give you that. It just depends on what you like. The film will go quicker and you can’t be with these characters for as long. And it might be good that it goes quicker, it might be more fun. But in the other kinds of mood, where you want to be with someone for a long time and imagine yourself from inside their head for a long time, then the novel is an amazing.
Q:How does socio-economic development push the development of children literature? What makes people give more attention and respect to the child?
A:I guess one thing that it might be reasonable to say is that the child is, in a way, the invention of romanticism, by which I mean the romantic movement in England around the end of the 18th and early 19th century.And it’s got something to do with the idea that children offered us a kind of return to our roots. The children were not, as it were, to be merely socialized into adulthood. But the adults were missing out on something if they were not in touch with their inner child. And so I think that the rise of children’s literature is partly bound up with that. It’s a really complicated historical question, but I think it’s also exacerbated in the modern age.
If you think of someone like Freud at the beginning of the 20th century, who, in a way, is a kind of child of romanticism. And his view was that by thinking about our childhoods, we could get closer to what we really are. Freud was once asked, what is an adult? And his reply was, that an adult is like a child. In other words, if you could just delve into childhoods, you would see how much of yourself became newly available to you. And this, I think, is many romantic writers, Wordsworth and others, really thought that to write their lives, they had to really begin at the beginning. So, I think that might be one way of thinking about the growth of children’s literature.
Q:How do you think children literature should balance its theme between didactic literature and imaginative literature?
A:Imaginative literature may not be a lesson, may not be instructive, just for the story.I don’t think the children really want to be taught. That may sound like a weird thing for a teacher to say. I do think that children, young children, really want to learn, but they don’t necessarily want to be taught, certainly not by an adult. This perhaps is my experience as a parent. But I’m not sure about didactic literature at all for children or adults.
I think it might be a contradiction in terms. I don’t associate literature.I don’t go to literature to learn what I should think, or to be told what is good and what is bad. You can test this out, but the books that you remember from your childhood that you really liked, I’m pretty sure, you don’t remember them because they told you what to do or how to behave at school. You remember them. They live with you now. They did teach you, but they taught you indirectly.
Q:In what way do you think children literature can avoid creating children characters based on bias and stereotypes?
A:That’s a good question. Broadly speaking, I suppose one would be to increase the range of writers that are writing children’s literature, so to be open to different kinds of children’s writing. But I suppose the other thing might be to just revise our sense of some of the deepest stereotypes, the gender stereotype that’s built into the idea of the male hero, for example. I think it’s still the case that most heroes in most children’s books are boys. Why? They don’t need to be. So there may be an answer for rethinking the context or content of children’s books. I also think it can be something to do with how the child characters in the books behave when they encounter differences. In other words, if the children don’t respond to or propagate stereotypes, then that’s a kind of teaching, as it were. Then it doesn’t occur to the child to be racist if it can’t see it anywhere in its fictional world.
Q:Do you think it is appropriate that children get exposed to adult literature with more complicated and controversial themes?
A:Broadly speaking, I think there are books that children shouldn’t read. But I’m now gonna just complicate that. Here’s what Auden, the poet W.H. Auden, said about children’s literature. He said, there are good books that are only for adults, and this is because the comprehension of those books presupposes adult experiences. But then he says this, but there are no good books that are only for children. And I think he’s right. There are no good books that are only for children. In other words, when I was asked about should there be adult literature, should we keep children away from complicated themes in adult literature, the answer is yes. I would actually say that the complicated themes are already in good children’s literature.
In other words, I’d reverse the question. The question was, is it appropriate that children get exposed to adult literature? I think it would be better for all of us as adults if we were exposed to more children’s literature.
Q:What do you think is the reason that Harry Potter is so well known and popular?
A:I can only give a really short answer, but I think you’ve actually given the right answer. Those books are so popular because they talk with children from as close to the child’s perspective as they can. So, although the child hero is facing danger, there is a belief that the children are the creators and controllers of the world that they are in.
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