Self-Reflexivity, Epistemology, and Rhetorical Figures

Abstract

Self-reflexivity in literary texts has been a much-discussed topic in recent critical discourse, particularly in that relating to postmodern narrative fiction. As the text's consciousness of its own status as a verbal product, however, self-reflexivity is by no means exclusively postmodern. Narrative texts like Don Quixote (1605, 1615), Tristram Shandy (1759-1767), and Jacques le fataliste (1796) already showed a metafictional self-consciousness of their narratives as verbal constructs. Often the conventional nature of narrative and the gap that exists between verbal expression and the referent are made the subjects of the narrative in these texts. In this sense, the novel as a genre has been particularly self-reflexive in nature from its very inceptionit has always been characterized by the Bakhtinian heteroglossia and inter-generic exchanges that make evident its conventionality. Examples of such meta-fictional auto-references in Western literature, in fact, have been traced even further back to the Greek tradition, to works of mock-epics and the parodic writings such as that of Hegemon of Thason mentioned in Aristotle's Poetics.' Self-reflexivity itself is a deeply ingrained quality in the Western literary tradition. It is now simply being brought to a head by the hyper meta-sensibility of postmodernism in the wake of the demise of nineteenth-century high realism. The self-conscious, meta-theoretical tendency of poststructuralist criticism evidently also plays a role in foregrounding this quality. Contemporary Chinese literature, particularly the strain characterized as avant-gardist or postmodernist, has also showed a similar tendency of featuring selfreflexivity as part of its textual characteristics. Western influences may have much to do with this.2 But with a moment's reflection, one will realize this feature is not