文学的出现已经有了数千年的历史,可是究竟“什么是文学”这一问题依然悬而未决。它宛如数学领域中的“哥德巴赫猜想”一样,人人都相信它的存在(这一点可以从与之搭配的动词——“证明”而非“推翻”得到佐证),却又始终无法给予令人信服的说明。如今,面临着愈演愈烈的解构主义思潮,①连“什么是文学”这一问题本身也被视作“本质主义”的伪命题遭到质疑,尽管人们对于 The emergence of literature has existed for thousands of years, but the question of “what is literature” remains unresolved. It is just like the “Goldbach Conjecture” in the field of mathematics that everyone believes in its existence (this can be corroborated by its counterpart verb - not the overthrow) , But still can not give convincing explanation. Nowadays, facing the increasingly trend of deconstruction, the question of even what is “literature” itself has also been questioned as a pseudo-proposition of “essentialism”