论民初小说批评话语中的“自述”与写实

“Personal Accounts” and Realism in the Discourses of Novel Criticism in the Early Republic of China

由于晚清以来描摹社会、揭露现实类小说的盛行,“五四”前后,评论界竞相对小说的写实问题展开讨论。评论者凤兮在自己的文章中以“自述体”一词代替写实,一方面重视写实的价值,同时也认为以作者自己为作品主角的自述体小说存在不够写实之处。其后的吴宓等人指出写实小说的弊端,而沈雁冰则否定时下流行小说隶属于写实派的身份和价值。整体上,他们对当时流行的通俗小说在写实方面的肯定呈逐渐递减之势。但凤兮所谓的“自述体”在强调写实的同时,也间接地触及小说的虚实问题、作者与作品的关系问题,呈现出在传统小说批评与西方文学理论的双重影响下评论者对小说认识的突破与局限。

The prosperity of the exposénovels since the late Qing Dynasty triggered heated critical debate over the realistic features of these novels around the May Fourth Movement.Critics such as Feng Xi employed the term“personal account”in place of realism to categorize these novels,which,on the one hand,attached great importance to the realistic features of novel and,on the other hand,suggested that novels in the form of personal accounts with the author as the protagonist were not realistic enough.Following Feng Xi,Wu Mi and other critics also pointed out weaknesses of those realistic works,while Shen Yanbing particularly rejected the categorization and value of these popular novels as realistic works.On the whole,critics increasingly disqualified the realism of those popular novels,but the term personal accounts as a form proclaimed by Feng Xi not only addresses the question of realism by emphasizing the realistic features in the novels but also touches on the relationship among the realism,authorship and texts.Thus,the term used in criticism may also be viewed as both breakthrough and limitations of the critics who have been able to approach the novels from the perspectives of both traditional Chinese novels and western literary theory.