The Evolution of Self-Narrative in American Young Adult Fictions

The Evolution of Self-Narrative in American Young Adult Fictions

Man Li

Abstract   Taking the emergence of German coming-of-age novel in the late 18th century as the boundary of the birth of young adult literature, the narrative pattern of American young adult fictions has evolved from the third-person omniscient perspective to the first-person limited perspective of adolescents to the self-narrative. In contrast to the first-person limited perspective of adolescent in young adult literature, the self-narrative of narrative psychology is unique in terms of narrator, narrative perspective, narrative time and narrative content. From the perspective of the history of literature, the emergence of self-narrative in American young adult fictions in the late 1960s and its gradual flourishing after the 1990s were the results of the "inward transferring" in western literature, the establishment of young adult literature as an independent genre, and the return of the American realist literary.

Keywords   Young Adult Fiction, Self-Narrative, "Inward Transferring", Neo-Realism

美国青少年小说中自我叙事的演变

李曼

摘要：以18世纪末德国成长小说的出现作为青少年文学诞生的界限可知，美国青少年小说在叙事模式上大致呈现出由第三人称全知视角至青少年第一人称限制性视角直至自我叙事的演进规律。与青少年文学中盛行的青少年第一人称限制性视角相比，叙事心理学视阈下的自我叙事在叙述者、叙事眼光、叙事时间、叙事内容等方面均表现出独特性。从文学史的角度来看，美国青少年小说中的自我叙事在20世纪60年代末产生，在20世纪90年代后逐渐繁荣是西方文学“向内转”倾向、青少年文学作为独立文学门类的确立以及美国现实主义文学回归三者共同作用的结果。

关键词：青少年小说；自我叙事；“向内转”；新现实主义