What is the study of iconography?

imagologie is a relatively new discipline in comparative literature, which studies the foreign images in a country's literature and their implications, and understands the mutual observation, mutual expression and mutual shaping between nations through images in literature. The significance of iconology research is not to help us identify the true and false, but to study how this kind of image is made and how it survives, which is not only meaningful to the "other", but also critical to the subject's own understanding.

discipline introduction

editing

definition

iconography is a new branch and extension of influence research.

Compared with the other three branches, iconology pays more attention to foreign images in literature and the cultural conflicts and dialogues they embody on the basis of facts.

Imagery, which was formed in France, is a relatively new discipline in comparative literature. However, it is not unusual to describe foreign countries in literary works. The early tramp literature and travel notes in western literature, as well as some translated works in China during the May 4th Movement, can make people have a concept of "foreign land".

as a discipline, iconography should first position itself. "Imagery first makes literary historians suspicious. The image of a foreign country belongs to the imagination of a culture or a society. It goes beyond the original meaning of literature in all aspects and becomes the research object of anthropology or history. " This makes iconology neither please literary purists nor nationalists. However, even though iconography is faced with such a complicated situation that many disciplines meet, it still becomes an inevitable topic in people's research. Interdisciplinary is not only the difficulty of iconography research, but also one of the characteristics of iconography research.

the existence of image research in literary works lies in the connection between "society and literature". "Literature is at least the expression of society, because through literature, we can decipher the illusion that a society produces in others." This is the theoretical source of the existence of iconology in comparative literature. Literature records the author's innermost feelings, which are mostly stimulated by external influences. Therefore, most scholars who maintain iconography don't want people to understand iconography as a simple "sociology" and "national psychology", and the description of foreign countries in Lian Wenxue is only one aspect of iconography. However, excavating the "image of the other" in literary works and how this image was created and how it survived can reveal the most "fundamental" problems of literature.

Bates

The main task of iconology is "to explore how nations and nations observe each other: to appreciate and criticize, to accept or resist, to imitate and distort, to understand or not to understand, to express one's courage or to pretend to be a snake."

Bardens Berg

Britain and Englishmen in French Literature

Comparative Literature

Jean-Marie Carrey and Chia

The task of comparative literature is "the mutual interpretation of various nationalities, travel notes and imaginations".

discipline concept

editor

image

The "image" of iconology is different from the "image" in the general sense, which refers to the "foreign image" and embodies the cross-racial and cross-cultural nature.

The "image" of iconology not only refers to foreign people and scenery, but also includes the sum of feelings, ideas and words about foreign countries in works.

created by a writer;

The writer's understanding comes from the imagination of the society and group to which he belongs;

This foreign image bears the "social collective imagination".

collective imagination

"social collective imagination" is the interpretation of a different collective or social culture by a certain society and the expression of one culture to another.

"social collective imagination" is divided into groups, which represents a group's cultural reflection on another country and nation and embodies a group's cognitive characteristics.

"social collective imagination" is a constructive existence, which will change with the changes of the times and environment.

cliche

cliche refers to "a conventional phrase used repeatedly by a nation for a long time to describe a foreign country or people", which is a symbolic expression of the image of others driven by the national psychological stereotype.

formulaic language is the smallest unit to express "social collective imagination". As an imagination, formulaic language is not necessarily consistent with the facts, but mostly a fiction of foreign images for its own needs.

Rhetoric establishes a certain consistency between personal expression and society, which is recognized and used by all, and has a specific reference in discourse communication, marking a fixed view of the other.

the other

"the other" is an indispensable part of self-awareness, and people must confirm themselves from the images of others.

master-slave dialectic of Hegel:

Hegel believes that the integrity of the self must be accomplished by sublating the opposite, so in the relationship between the self and the other, the "other" is an indispensable reference system for the completion of self-consciousness.

the concept of "Chinese nation" is gradually formed with the expansion of space and the appearance of "the other".

At first, the "Other" was only described as the first-class object of an alien;

With the development of society, "the other" may also be interpreted as an ideal model, which leads to excessive beautification of "the other" and excessive reflection on oneself;

the concept of "the other" will have a love-hate effect on its own identity.

Image problem

Editors

The focus of iconology research is the "image" of foreign countries in literary works. Foreign countries should belong to the category of others relative to the subject, that is, they are different from the exclusive nature of the subject. And what is the concept of "image" mentioned here? In my opinion, Barlow's definition of image in this article is very general. After consciously distinguishing from the "other", his conscious perception of foreign land is embodied in words. "Image is a literary or non-literary expression of the gap between the two types of cultural reality, and it can explain the relationship between symbols and references." Image is the imagination of a culture or society, which is sometimes reflected in the works as a copy of social collective imagination, but it can also be a "utopia" full of literature, but in the final analysis, it can all be included in the category of social collective imagination, and the social collective imagination here has both similarities and differences. And "image" can not only intervene in the spiritual life of society, but also be an overview of the overall appearance of society.

the reason why iconology can distinguish from pure social studies lies in the literariness of "image" in iconology, that is, the illusion. "It mainly regards literary image as a mirage, an ideology and a sign of utopia." For researchers, it is more interesting to study the fantasy of this kind of "image". "It is to study how the images of lines and colors constitute a specific description of foreign countries in a certain historical period." For example, Xia Xiaohong's historical tracing and questioning of the phrase "foreign devil" gives us a general grasp of the long historical emotional acceptance process hidden behind this "seemingly incomprehensible" historical term, so that we can dig the joys and dislikes of China people hidden behind this term, and it is understandable that all reception aesthetics and semiotics can become one of the methods of "image" research.

Image is not only a kind of emotions and dislikes shown by the receiver to "the other", but also a symbolic language. This kind of language has all the reflection when looking at the "other", and there is a side of "looking at the subject" that is different from the object. In literature, it is ideal, and it also has the "utopia" nature that Moha said, and this "utopia" nature is the most taboo. "Image" has both identity and dissimilarity. In fact, the process of writing images is not a programming process, but a process of trying to abstract a culture or something more complicated and unspeakable into concrete words, that is, a symbolization process. In this process, many complex richness will inevitably be lost. As one of the manifestations of "images", formulaic language is just like this.

The author sometimes creates an "image" for some ideological purpose. For example, Xia Xiaohong's iconography paper focuses on the spread of Rousseau in China during the May 4th Movement, where "Rousseau" is no longer an objective existence in the original sense. Based on the social situation and the requirements of ideological change at that time, Rousseau's thought and image were repositioned by the work after a series of complicated acceptance and filtering. How to restore the real Rousseau and analyze and study the "Rousseau illusion" that appeared at that time is a very meaningful topic, which helps us sort out a kind of cultural mentality and social reality of people in China during the May Fourth Movement, and is of great practical significance to the study of the subject and the other. Vertically speaking, the formation of formulaic language is actually a process of image oneness, and Rousseau's illusion also has some oneness. How to restore the diversity and richness of "the other" and integrate the impression of "the other" in a certain historical stage is also one of the complex problems that iconology faces.

description and gap

editing

"image" can have both literariness (illusion and fiction) and singleness (rhetoric), and the main way to record this kind of dissimilarity is description. "Image" is a description, and it is a description with gaps. Description in literature is an aspect of iconology, and most of what we say is aimed at description in literature. Because only "poetic" texts such as literature can be directly read and interpreted by people.

The "images" of foreign countries in literature include fictional fantasy world and real objective reflection. In any case, such descriptions are more or less close to the truth but have to be scrutinized. Because the "image" here is reorganized and rewritten through the patterns and procedures in the viewer's culture. To study "image" is not only to study "the other", but also to analyze the subject.

the significance of iconology research is not to help us identify the authenticity, but to study how this kind of image is made and how it survives, which is not only meaningful to the "other" but also critical to the subject's own understanding.