新世紀以來,美國文學界涌現出了一系列新的批評方法,有力地挑戰了以癥候閱讀和"懷疑詮釋學"為主導的文學批評范式。本文以貝斯特和馬庫斯2009年提出的表層閱讀為中心,梳理了這一閱讀模式興起的背景、核心觀點、代表性著述、學術反響和后續發展。表層閱讀的提出與美國文學研究近年來所遭遇的各種外部和內部危機密切相關。隨著當代社會、政治和技術環境的急劇變化,文學研究賴以為生的基礎假設和理念也在發生轉變。美國學界從癥候閱讀到表層閱讀,再到描述的探索軌跡或有助于我們審視當下中國文學批評所面臨的問題,并反思本土理論建構的焦慮。

The new millennium has witnessed the emergence of a series of new approaches to literary criticism in the United States that have posed serious challenges to the dominant paradigm of symptomatic reading and the "hermeneutics of suspicion. "Focusing on surface reading proposed by Stephen Best and Sharon Marcus in 2009,this article examines the background,basic ideas,representative works,academic responses,and recent development of this new interpretative practice. It argues that the rise of surface reading is closely tied to the external and internal crises that American literary studies have undergone in recent decades. With rapid changes in contemporary social,political and technological environments,the underlying assumptions and beliefs of literary studies have also been evolving accordingly. The shift of critical attention from symptomatic reading to surface reading and description in American literary studies might shed light on problems confronting Chinese literary critics and stimulate reflections on the domestic anxiety of theoretical construction.