In Under Western Eyes, Joseph Conrad (1911/1989) writes that “women, children, and revolutionists hate irony, which is the negation of all saving instincts, of all faith, of all devotion, of all actions.” Here a connection between “women,” “children,” and “revolutionists” is asserted on the grounds of a shared attitude to language; but what is the nature or cause of this presumed antipathy to irony? I argue that the answers to this question have to do with what irony as a mode implies about language on the one hand, and with what the investments of “revolutionists” are in the categories of “women” and “children” on the other. These three identities are constructed in Conrad’s formulation as literal-minded, demanding a language that straightforwardly means what it says, and yet irony necessarily disrupts and undermines such notions of a literal language with a direct and unmediated relationship to the real world. Furthermore, as Jacqueline Rose (1984/1992) has argued, this Conradian stance can be found operating in the same way in relation to ideas of childhood and irony in children’s literature criticism. That such a stance is not inevitable for either feminism or children’s literature criticism will be argued by looking at parallels between feminist/queer theory and the approach to children’s literature criticism of the “Graduate Centre for International Research in Childhood: Literature, Culture, Media (CIRCL),” at the University of Reading, England.

中文翻译：

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性别与讽刺：儿童文学及其批评

约瑟夫·康拉德（Joseph Conrad，1911/1989）在《西方眼下》中写道：“妇女，儿童和革命主义者讨厌讽刺，这是对所有储蓄本能，对信仰，对奉献精神和所有行动的否定。” 在这里，“妇女”，“儿童”和“革命主义者”之间的联系是基于对语言的共同态度而确立的。但是这种对讽刺的反感的性质或原因是什么？我认为，这个问题的答案一方面与语言的讽刺意味有关，另一方面与“革命主义者”在“妇女”和“儿童”类别中的投资有关。这三个身份在康拉德（Conrad）的表述中是按字面意思来构造的，要求使用一种直接表示其含义的语言，然而具有讽刺意味的是，它与真实世界之间存在直接且无中介的关系，因此必然会破坏和破坏这种文字语言的观念。此外，正如杰奎琳·罗斯（Jacqueline Rose，1984/1992）所论证的那样，在儿童文学批评中，人们发现童年时代和讽刺意味的这种Conradian立场的运作方式相同。通过研究女权主义/酷儿理论与“国际童年研究中心：文学，文化，媒体（ CIRCL）”，位于英国雷丁大学。在儿童文学批评中，关于童年和反讽的观念可以发现这种Conradian立场的运作方式相同。通过研究女权主义/酷儿理论与“国际童年研究中心：文学，文化，媒体（ CIRCL）”，位于英国雷丁大学。在儿童文学批评中，关于童年和反讽的观念可以发现这种Conradian立场的运作方式相同。通过研究女权主义/酷儿理论与“国际童年研究中心：文学，文化，媒体（ CIRCL）”，位于英国雷丁大学。