怪奇小说
外观
怪奇小说(英语:Weird fiction) 是出现于19世纪末20世纪初的一种小说类别,题材可以是奇幻、超自然或恐怖。柴纳·米耶维说怪奇小说可以定义为一种分类上模糊不清的恐怖小说,它描绘的是传统的科幻小说中不会出的外星怪物[1]。它通过描写这些超出人类控制与理解能力的存在来表现人的弱小[2]。
历史
[编辑]尽管“weird fiction”这个词本身是20世纪才出现的,但爱伦·坡经常被看做其鼻祖[1][2]。谢里丹·勒·法努也是早期怪奇小说家之一[1]。1923年3月至1954年9月间活跃在《诡丽幻谭》上的一批作者,如H·P·洛夫克拉夫特、克拉克·阿什顿·史密斯、弗里茨·莱伯和罗伯特·布洛克都可以算是怪奇小说家[1]。法恩斯沃思·莱特就经常用“weird fiction”一词来描述《诡丽幻谭》上发表的文章。[3]
洛夫克拉夫特在其《文学中的超自然恐怖》一文中给出了自己的定义[4]:
真正的怪奇小说不只是神秘谋杀、鲜血淋漓的骨头和叮当作响的锁链。它必须要营造出一种令人窒息的、难以名状的恐怖氛围。必须要有一种暗示,它沉重而凶险,是人脑中最恐怖的念头——保护我们不受未知世界的混沌与恶魔侵害的自然法则已经消失或溃败。
1990年代,“新怪奇”(New Weird)运动兴起。柴纳·米耶维常说自己就是新怪奇作家[5],此外克里夫·巴克[6]和拉姆齐·坎贝尔[7]也可以算入其中。
参考文献
[编辑]- ^ 1.0 1.1 1.2 1.3 China Miéville, "Weird Fiction",in: Bould, Mark et al. The Routledge Companion to Science Fiction. New York: Routledge, 2009. ISBN 0-415-45378-X (p. 510-516).quote=Weird Fiction is usually, roughly, conceived of as a rather breathless and generically slippery macabre fiction, a dark fantastic ("horror" plus "fantasy") often featuring nontraditional alien monsters
- ^ 2.0 2.1 Jeffrey Andrew Weinstock, "The New Weird", in Ken Gelder, New Directions in Popular Fiction : genre, reproduction, distribution. Basingstoke : Palgrave Macmillan, 2016. ISBN 9781137523457 (pp. 177-200.)
- ^ Machin, (p.222-5)
- ^ 原文:The true weird tale has something more than secret murder, bloody bones, or a sheeted form clanking chains according to rule. A certain atmosphere of breathless and unexplainable dread of outer, unknown forces must be present; and there must be a hint, expressed with a seriousness and portentousness becoming its subject, of that most terrible conception of the human brain—a malign and particular suspension or defeat of those fixed laws of Nature which are our only safeguard against the assaults of chaos and the daemons of unplumbed spac
- ^ Gordon, Joan. Reveling in Genre: An Interview with China Miéville. Science Fiction Studies. 2003, 30 (91) [2019-10-20]. (原始内容存档于2019-07-15).
- ^ Winter, Douglas E. Clive Barker: The Dark Fantastic: The Authorized Biography. HarperCollins. 2002. ISBN 0-06-621392-4., pp. 217-18
- ^ Campbell, Ramsey. "Chasing the Unknown", introduction to Cold Print (1993), pp. 11-13. ISBN 0-8125-1660-5
- Joshi, S. T. The Weird Tale. University of Texas Press. 1990. ISBN 0-292-79050-3.