新疆医科大学学士学位论文论文题目：（中文）×××××××（英文）×××××××学生姓名××××学科专业××××指导教师××××研究起止时间××××所在学院××××（宋体三号加粗）（宋体三号加粗下划线）××年××月××日（宋体四号加粗）摘要1962年出版的《金色笔记》是英国当代女作家多丽丝·莱辛最著名的长篇小说。
该小说气势宏大，结构独特。
小说把人物心理分析、社会政治批评、小说形式实验三者融为一炉，具有深刻的思想内涵和丰富的审美价值。
本文主要分析该小说形式方面的创新意义。
多丽丝·莱辛在该小说中对当代小说形式与现实表征之间的关系作了深入地思考与大胆地探索。
她模拟现代西方立体主义画派在现实表征中所采用的时空共存、多元角度和反身观察的构成原则和艺术手段构建了一种全新的小说形式。
本文运用跨学科的研究视角解读《金色笔记》，分析小说形式与立体主义画派在表现现实方面的共通之处，旨在说明二者在现实表征方面所遵循的构成原则和采取的艺术手段是相同的，对文学艺术表征现实的局限性的认识也是一致的。
本文从三个方面来阐述相关论点。
论文的第一章追溯西方小说形式的变迁以及莱辛小说的形式在现实表征过程中所体现的独创性。
第二章阐述小说与绘画的关系，进而确立立体主义画派与小说《金色笔记》之间的关系。
第三章通过深入分析小说形式中呈现出来的立体主义画派构成原则和艺术手段来论证二者之间的相通之处。
本文运用跨学科的研究方法解读《金色笔记》的小说形式是一种创造性的、有意义的尝试，以期为充实莱辛小说研究提供一个新的视角和研究思路。
关键词：立体主义;小说形式;现实表征;构成原则;时空共存;多元角度;反身观察AbstractThe Golden Notebook is the most famous work by Doris Lessing. It is remarkable for its rich characterization, sharp political and social criticism, and original experiment on the novel form. The thesis mainly focuses on the significance of Lessing’s experimentation on the novel form.Doris Lessing reflects upon and explores the relation between representation of reality and novel forms in the book. Based on the shaping principles by Cubism, the most influential Western art movement in modern times, she constructs the novel form of The Golden Notebook. The principles include the union of time and space, multiplicity of perspectives in representing reality and reflexivity in literary and art creation and observation.The paper expounds the argument from three aspects. Chapter One traces the historical evolution of novel forms and highlights the originality of the novel form in The Golden Notebook. Chapter Two illustrates the close relation between novel and painting and specifies the parallel relation between the novel form in The Golden Notebook and Cubism. Chapter Three analyses in detail the novel form of The Golden Notebook and its parallel relationship with Cubism in terms of shaping principles and dynamics.The interdisciplinary perspective employed in the thesis intends to provide a different reading and research orientation in evaluating the novel form.Key words:Cubism; novel form; representation of reality; shaping principle; simultaneity; multiplicity; reflexivityContentsAbstract (Chinese & English) Introduction (1)Chapter One: Forms in Novel (7)1.1 What Is Form? (7)1.2 The Evolution of Novel Forms (8)1.3 What Is New in the Form of The Golden Notebook (11)Chapter Two: Novel and Painting (15)2.1 Novel and Painting (15)2.2 What Is Cubism? (18)Chapter Three: Cubism in the Form of The Golden Notebook (20)3.1 Simultaneity: The Union of Time and Space (20)3.1.1 Temporal Form in The Golden Notebook (22)3.1.2 Spatial Form in The Golden Notebook (24)3.2 Multiplicity: Fragments and Unity (26)3.2.1 Breaking into Fragments: Divided Selves in the Four Notebooks (28)3.2.2 Parts into Whole: the Golden Notebook (31)3.2.3 An Irony: Free Women (31)3.3 Reflexivity: From Reality to Observation (34)Conclusion (39)Bibliography (44)Acknowledgements学位论文独创性声明学位论文知识产权权属声明IntroductionLiterary Review of Doris Lessing and The Golden NotebookAfter many years of toiling in writing, Doris Lessing has now safely established herself as being “the most extraordinary woman writer” (Greene, 1994: 1) and “very much a representative writer for our time” (Bloom, 1986: 7). Her major work The Golden Notebook has been ranked by many critics as “one of the most powerful of post-war British novels” and “the most r emarkable work by a woman to appear in Britain since Virginia Woolf’s” (Bradbury, 2004: 381).Doris Lessing’s critical reputation is remarkable from the very beginning of her literary career. Her success as a professional writer began with the publication of her first novel The Grass Is Singing. It was accepted by Michael Joseph in London in 1950 and was an instant success, being immediately recognized as an exceptional novel on colonialism. “I had very good reviews, and I had enough money to keep me going for a bit”(Bookshelf, 1992), as Doris Lessing recalled her early success in an interview by BBC Radio. Her fame has gained steadily ever since.It took Lessing nearly two decades following her first novel to write her next important work, the series of Children of Violence, between 1952, when Martha Quest was published, and 1969, when The Four-Gated City appeared. In the context of postwar retreat to the conventional and the conservative, The Children of Violence was “something new” (Greene, 1994: 15) indeed. It focuses on Martha Quest’s difficult, painful process of educating herself in search of true identity. Despite its conventional form, the vivid depiction of Martha’s growth in consciousness evokes the warm sympathy from many readers, especially young women who seemed to have undergone similar frustration. True to what Jenny Taylor observes, “Martha’s quest became the epic, archetypal story of our times” (Taylor, 1982: 5).With the publication of The Golden Notebook, Lessing seems to have reached the peak of her literary fame. The impact it brought to readers as well as critics is tremendous. Gayle Greene frankly evaluates it as “a transformative work and touchstone for a generation” (Greene, 1994: 17).Despite her intention of minimizing feminism both as a historical and a contemporary influence on her writing, Lessing is regarded as one of the early voices of the feminist movement, and The Golden Notebook one of its key texts. Margaret Drabble hails The Golden Notebook as “a document in the history of (women’s) liberation”(Showalter, 2004: 311). “It was the first book I’ve read, apart from Simone de Beauvoir’s Second Sex, which seemed to be really addressing the problems of women in the contemporary world,” says Margaret Drabble, “Nobody seemed to ha ve written about them in the way that we were experiencing them” (Bookshelf, 1992). Showalter uses the word “monumental” to highlight it among the works of twentieth-century women writers. She interprets the novel as “the work of essential feminist implications”(Showalter, 2004: 311). Elizabeth Wilson describes it as “a manual of woman experience”(Wilson, 1982: 71). Susan Lardner calls it “a feminist gospel, a representative of Modern Woman” (Lardner, 1983: 144). Susan Lyndon describes it as “almost a Little Red Book of women’s liberationists,” “probably the most widely read and deeply appreciated book on the women’s liberation reading list, Simone deBeauvoir’s The Second Sex and Betty Friedan’s The Feminine Mystique notwithstanding” (Lyndon, 1970: 48). E llen Brooks describes Lessing’s depiction of women as “the most thorough and accurate of any in literature” (Brooks, 1973: 101).However, Doris Lessing herself is somewhat indignant with such critical categorization. In the 1971 introduction to The Golden Notebook, she clarifies that “the novel was not a trumpet for Women’s Liberation” (Lessing, 1975: 25). She declares that rather than the sex war, the theme of “breakdown” was the point she aimed at in her novel. She questions the validity of grouping her and her work into feminism and the Women’s Liberation Movement by pointing out that the novel came out ten years earlier than the launching of the Movement (Lessing, 1975: 24).While women are thrilled to find themselves truly depicted and named in the book, the novel receives very different readings from men. To be sure, some men recognize its importance. For example, Louis Kampt describes Lessing’s massive novel as a “significant and exemplary attempt to deal with,”“the central questions of modernism” and “a very true, and very great work of art”(Kampt, 1967: 322,326). Robert Taubman believes it is “unique in it s truthfulness and range”(Taubman, 1964: 402). And Irving Howe calls it “the most absorbing and exciting piece of new fiction I have read in a d ecade” (Howe, 1986: 181). But most other male critics and reviewers find some ways to discount it. Anthony Burgess laments and dismisses The Golden Notebook as “a crusader’s novel,” “unacceptable as a work of art” (Burgess, 1967: 19). P.W. Frederick McDowell similarly criticizes the novel, saying that it is “disorganized,” “subjective” and “a cross between a standard novel and a confession” (McDowell, 1965: 330). Other critics concede that The Golden Notebook has interest for what is revealed about women’s lives but deny that it is art. Walter Ellen concludes that the novel “fails as a work of art” and “the structure is clumsy, complicated rather than complex” (Ellen, 1964: 277). Frederick Karl calls it “the most considerable single work by an English author in the 1960s,” but he too dismisses it on purely literary grounds as “a carefully organized but verbose, almost clumsily written novel” (Karl, 1971: 291). James Gindin, one of the first critics on Doris Lessing, criticizes Lessing’s tendency to condition her characters historically, which suggests an aesthetic shortcoming in creating unforgettable characters that may transcend time and place (Gindin, 1986: 24). Even Harold Bloom, the chief editor of Modern Critical Views, suggests in his introduction to the book that Doris Lessing lacks the style that a piece of art may need when he remarks “Lessing has the spirit, if not the style, of the age” (Bloom, 1986: 7).More recent criticism shares Doris Lessing’s denial of The Golden Notebook as a feminist text. And many critics are aware of its scope which goes beyond feminist concerns. Ruth Whittaker remarks that reading The Golden Notebook is that of absorbing several different novels (Whittaker, 1988: 75). This observation is true because pe ople’s responses va ry according to their process of growth and changing perceptions. And The Golden Notebook is credited with the title of an “encyclopedia of ideas” (Greene, 1994: 1). Viewed in this light, the title is appropriate because The Golden Notebook takes on a lot of big issues at present, including sex, race, class, imperialism, the hope and failure of communism, mental illness and psychosis, even the art and problems of writing. All of these big things are included in one 600-page, epic-like novel. Joanne Frye’s argument alsosupports the view that the novel “does not argue a feminist position or even center exclusively in female experiences; instead it examines broadly the crises of the twentieth century society and the problems of characterizing those crises in n ovelistic form” (Frye, 1986: 172). The criticism listed above seems to prove that t he novel accomplishes quite well Lessing’s ambition “to describe and present the intellectual and moral climate of the time” (Lessing, 1975: 28).While some critics explore the themes of The Golden Notebook, others notice the innovation Doris Lessing does on the form. Because of its structure of a novel inside a novel, some critics classify The Golden Notebook into metafiction. Malcolm Bradbury is sure of its metafictional category as he says, “The Golden Notebook is no doubt a work of metafiction” (Bradbury, 2004: 380). For other people, the form of The Golden Notebook carries the theme of “fragmentation” or “breakdown”in a way that the novel itself has been fragmented into different sections. In his introduction to the Chinese version of The Golden Notebook, Chen Caiyu maintains that the form of the novel explains the content included in the novel (Chen Caiyu, 1999: 72). And Jiang Hong shares his view as to the form of the novel ( Jiang Hong, 2003: 95).With The Golden Notebook, Doris Lessing has secured her place in the literary world. Honors from all levels and many countries heap on her ever since. In June 1995, she received an Honorary Degree from Harvard University. She was on the list of nominees for the Nobel Prize for Literature and Britain’s Writer’s Guild Award for Fiction in 1996. And the honors keep on coming: her autobiography was nominated for the 1997 National Book Critics Circle Award in the autobiography/biography category. In May 1999, she was presented with XI Annual International Catalunya Award, an award by the government of Catalunya. On December 31,1999, in the last Honors List before the new Millennium, Doris Lessing was appointed a Companion of Honor, an exclusive honor for those who have done conspicuous national service. It was officially bestowed by Queen Elizabeth II. In 2001, she was awarded the Prince of Asturias Prize in Literature, one of Spain’s most important distinctions, for her brilliant l iterary works in defense of freedom and Third World causes. She has also received the David Cohen British Literature PrizeDoris Lessing is a very prolific writer. Besides The Golden Notebook, she published nineteen novels, eleven volumes of short stories, six works of nonfiction, five plays, and a volume of poetry, and two volumes of autobiography. Her works are widely translated, and she is recognized internationally as a committed novelist dealing with serious issues. Her most recent novel The Sweetest Dream was published in 2001.The Significance of the ThesisMany critics have discussed the themes in The Golden Notebook. In fact, widely included in the novel are familiar themes, which have been explored by different generations of writers. What is different and new about The Golden Notebook is its form, with itself echoing the content in its fragmentation so that theme and form reflect each other. As Ruth Whittaker said, “The Golden Notebook was a radical examination of the novel form” (Whittaker, 1988: 76).However, many critics tend to downplay the significance and the function of the novel form Doris Lessing took pains to elaborate. In one of her letters to the publisher, Doris Lessing claims that The Golden Notebook i s an attempt to “go beyond what has been possible” and “provides a new way of look at life” (Lessing, 1974: 20). She once again asserts in an interview that “It (The Golden Notebook) was a very highly structured book, carefully planned and the point of that book was the relation of its parts to each other” (Lessing, 1975: 51). She also accuses people of their indifference to or misunderstanding with the significance of the shape of the book as she says, “they were not interested in the shape of the novel, and the point of that shape, and what it meant” (Lessing, 1975: 51).Then, what is the shape of the novel? And what is the point of that shape? And what does it mean? We may as well ask ourselves these questions Doris Lessing once asked us. To her regret, there appears no such article or treatise so far on a thorough exploration of the form of The Golden Notebook to do justice to Lessing’s admirable effort in enriching the novel forms and narrative techniques. Most reviews and criticism bend on the discussion about the themes in the novel while remarking on the novel form in no more than several lines. What Doris Lessing suggests to us is that the key to understanding the book lies in its form. And the writer’s own words cannot afford to be discounted.Form usually serves as the carrier of the content and the instrument to convey the content to readers. In fact, literature transmits ideology significantly from forms. As Terry Eagleton suggests, “the true bearers of ideology are the very forms,” and “in selecting a form, the writer finds hi s choice already ideologically circumscribed”(Eagleton, 1976: 45). In Fredric Jameson’s view, “formal processes” “carry ideological messages of their own, distinct from the ostensible or manifest content of the works”(Jameson, 1982: 98-99). Raymond Williams describes forms as “involving social assumptions of causation and consequence”(Williams, 1977: 176). In fact, Jameson extends the ideology of form to the aesthetic act itself. He elaborates that “the production of aesthetic or narrative form is an ideological act in its own right, with the function of inventing imaginary or formal solutions to irresolvable social contradictions” (Jameson, 1982: 79).As is shown from what are quoted above, it’s a shared view that the form an artist or a writer chooses reflects his or her perceptions and outlooks about the outside world. To sum up, the formal study of a work is not only necessary but also important to the understanding of the work and its writer. If, as Lessing claims, she tries something new in the form of The Golden Notebook, which she thinks as being overlooked by most critics of her time and not given a justified consideration, I think it’s necessary to analyze, in my thesis, the form of The Golden Notebook so as to find a key to better understand her and her marvelous work.Format of the ThesisThe thesis is an attempt to find the plausible explanations to the problems the previous critics have overlooked, or could not foresee, or have not solved, on the study of the novel form in The Golden Notebook.The thesis falls into three chapters. Chapter One is a survey of novel forms in literature history. Chapter Two provides an introduction to the relation between novel and painting, the theoretical background from which my thesis has been developed. Chapter Three presents a detailed study of the form in The Golden Notebook and its parallel relation with Cubism.The Golden Notebook is to be abbreviated as GN when the quotations from it are involved.Chapter OneForms in NovelIf there is something new in the form of The Golden Notebook, it is necessary for us to be informed of what is old based on the survey of the evolutionary history of novel forms. In doing so, we may understand and appreciate better the innovation in the very form of The Golden Notebook.Before our brief survey of the historical change in the novel form, it is necessary to explain the word “form” and in what sense of i t that I build on my thesis.1.1 What Is Form?“Form” is one of the most frequent ly used terms in literary criticism, but also one of the most diverse in terms of its meanings. It is often used merely to designate a genre or literary type (“the lyric form”, “the short story form”), or for patterns of meter, lines and rhymes (“the verse form”, “the stanza form”). It is also, however, the term for a central critical conception. In this application, the form of a work is the principle that determines how a work is ordered and organized (Abrams, 2004: 101).The concept of form varies according to critics’ specific assumptions and theoretical orientation. Many neoclassic critics, for example, think of the form of a work as a combination of component parts, matched to each other according to the principle of decorum (a term designating the propriety, or fitness in unity of subject matter, characters, actions and the style). In the early nineteenth century, Samuel Taylor Coleridge distinguished between the mechanic form, which is a fixed, preexistent shape, and the organic form, which is like a growing plant achieving its final form, in which the parts are integral to and interdependent with the whole (Burke, 1973: 27-91). Many New Critics use the word “structure”interchangeably with “form”, and regard it primarily as an interaction or ironic and paradoxical tension in an or ganized totality of “meanings”. Various exponents of Archetypal Theory regard the form of a literary work as a recurrent pattern of human experience which shares with myths, rituals, religions and dreams. And structuralists conceive a literary structure based on the model of linguistic theory (Wellek, 1963: 59-88). Narratologistsconcern the general theory and practice of narratives in all literary forms. They deal especially with academic explorations such as types of narrators, the identification of structural elements and their diverse modes of combination, recurrent narrating devices. Narratologists, accordingly, do not treat a narrative in the traditional way, as a fictional representation of life, but as a systematic formal construction. In other words, they focus on the formal patterns and technical devices of narrative to the exclusion of its subject matter and social values. R. S. Crane, a leader of the Chicago School of criticism, however, made a distinction between “form”and “structure”. The form of a literary work is the “dynamics”, the particular working or emotional power that the composition is designed to effect, which functions as its shaping principle. This formal principle controls and synthesizes the “structure” of a work(Crane, 1953: 69). In so doing, he bridges the formal study, or more specifically, the narratological way of formal study of a literary work, with social, historical and cultural study, placing the formal study into a larger social, historical and cultural context. The formal study, thus, acquires a greater depth than before. In this thesis, I base my survey of the novel form in The Golden Notebook mainly on the sense of “form” as proposed by Crane by analyzing first the mechanical structure in form, and then exploring the shaping principle behind it.1.2 The Evolution of Novel FormsAs far as novel forms are concerned, the classification is quite different based on different standards and criteria. Novels can be classified into dozens of forms, and may belong to several of these categories at the same time. Distinctions among forms can be drawn in many ways. Such distinctions include the form in which the works are written, such as epistolary novels, which take the form of letters written between or among characters; the settings, such as regional novels, which focus on life in a certain area; and the purpose, such as propaganda novels, which try to convince the reader to adopt a certain point of view. Other examples of distinct forms include picaresque novels, which describe the adventures of rogues; Gothic novels, which describe ghosts and other elements of the supernatural; science fiction, which portrays other worlds or other possibilities for our world; and detective stories, which focus on mysteries. A few broad genres of the novel reflect some general tendencies. Social novels tend to focus on the outward behavior of characters and how other characters react. Psychological novels explore the inner workings of an individual’s mind. Education novels recount a person’s de velopment as an individual. Philosophical novels provide a platform for authors to explore intellectual or philosophical questions. Popular novels usually involve adventure, intrigue, romance or mystery to appeal to a wide range of people. Experimental novels are works in which writers make major innovations in form and style. My thesis intends to focus more on the history of narrative experiments done to the novel form itself rather than discussing it in the light of literary genres.A review of the history of experimentation on the form of novel is of vital importance for abetter understanding of the significance of Doris Lessing’s uniqueness and contribution as far as The Golden Notebook is concerned.As the most flexible form of all narrations, the novel form has never been monolithic. Writers in each generation make effort in creating something new to the novel forms. One of the earliest examples of the novel of experimentation is Tristram Shandy(1759-1767) by English writer Laurence Sterne. The book is the autobiography of Tristram Shandy but Tristram himself does not appear until the middle part of the novel. And the book does not narrate Tristr am’s life events accordingly. Instead, it dwells much on small details about the book itself. The novel is filled with asides, wild scholarly digressions, comic scenes, blank pages (to be filled in by the reader), and other experimental features, including a black page to express grief for a departed character (Sterne, 1978). Sterne’s Tristram Shandy opens up a new front for the novel: experimentation with structure and language.During the 19th century the prevailing trend in the novel was realism. The realistic novel relies on the principle of imitating the familiar surface of real life. The form of realistic novels are conventional, including an omniscient point of view, a chronological narrative with a beginning, middle part and an end, as well as conventional sentence structure and non-reflexive subject matter. But still, some experimental efforts appeared at this time. One example is Notes from Underground(1864) by Russian writer Fyodor Dostoevsky. Dostoevsky plunges the reader into the narrator’s complex mindset (Dostoevsky, 1993). The term underground refers to the narrator’s inner psychology, which dominates the novel and allows the reader little objective perspective. This immersion of the reader in an individual’s thoughts was not a common literary approach at the time.In the late 19th and early 20th centuries novelists experimented with narrative form and also continued to produce realistic works with conventionally resolved plots. One of the most important English novelists of the early 20th century was Joseph Conrad. Conrad is considered a master of prose in the English language, and a transitional figure from realism to modernism (Wang Zuoliang & Zhou Yuliang, 1994: 206). Conrad challenges the 19th-century manner of telling a story. In most novels up until this time there is a narrator who describes the characters and action but is outside the st ory itself. Conrad’s novels employ a character who tells a story within the frame of a third-person narrative. The results open unsettling questions — questions about whom the reader should trust and believe. Conrad also breaks from tradition by using symbolic patterns and recurring images to convey meaning to the reader, rather than the long descriptive passages favored by 19th-century novelists.The 20th century is a time of innovation in form and exploration of new subject matter for the novel. The movement, known as “Modernism”, challenges the mimetic quest of the realistic novel. Virginia Woolf wrote a manifesto for the 20th-century writers in her essay “Modern Fiction” (1925). Life, she argues, is not what the 19th-century realists plotted:Life is not a series of gig lamps symmetrically arranged; life is a luminous halo, asemi-transparent envelope surrounding us from the beginning of consciousness to the end.Is it not the task of the novelist to convey this varying, this unknown and uncircumscribed spirit, whatever aberration or complexity it may display, with as little mixture of the alien and external as possible?(Woolf, 1985: 2034)Woolf’s manifesto reflects a shift of artists’ interest from the outside world to man’s inner life. She uses the stream-of-consciousness technique, a literary technique in which authors represent the flow of sensations and ideas, to capture the fleeting and chaotic human conscious and subconscious (Li Weiping, 1996: 4). In her works, the linear narrative structure, which is characteristic of realistic novels, gave way to a more fragmented prose, or fluid, unorganized thoughts were expressed without formal sentence structures. The omniscient point of view is dissected into a multiplicity of apparently random impressions. The chronological narrative is modified or abandoned. Woolf’s experimentation on the novel form adds the new dimension to plot and the depth of character portrayal.James Joyce, the Irish writer, also rejects the traditional plotted novels in favor of narratives that register the less-regular motions of consciousness. He expands on stream-of-consciousness technique in Ulysses (1922), a detailed recounting of the events and moments of consciousness in the lives of several Dublin residents during a single day (Joyce, 1988). The book is Joyce’s masterpiece, an exploration of the possibilities of the English language and a work that renders both the physical world of his characters and the workings of their minds (Li Weiping, 1996: 90).American writer William Faulkner follows the trend of European authors such as Virginia Woolf and James Joyce, in innovating with style. Like the European authors, Faulkner’s greatness lies not only in his themes but also in his way of rendering them — with experiments in fragmented narrative. In novels such as As I Lay Dying(1930), Faulkner uses stream of consciousness to reproduce the perceptions of different people and to mix fact with legends and illusions (Faulkner, 1990). One of his goals is to present the world as a place where no objective truth exists — that is, a place in which each person has a dramatically different impression of the world (Li Weiping, 1996: 212).Experiments with various aspects of the novel continued through the latter half of the 20th century. In 1962 Doris Lessing published The Golden Notebook. The form of the book is so new that most readers, even the critics, felt too shocked to make sense of it at first. But the significance of the novel form and Lessing’s contribution to the experimentation on the novels has been noticed over time. Then what is new in its form? The next section devotes to the description of the uniqueness in the form of The Golden Notebook.Conclusion。