人物品评与《世说新语》的叙事结构

Remarking on Figures and Narrative Structure of A New Account of Tales of the World

《世说新语》以人物品评为主要叙事内容,并辐射到魏晋时期的社会生活与名士风流,是一部百科全书式的志人小说。其"分类开放式"叙述结构,实际上是从36个不同的角度去品评人物,展示了人物性格的复杂性与多样性,直接影响和决定了《世说新语》的叙事策略与叙事语言,在中外小说叙事史上都具有"革命性"意义,也是"世说体"历千年而不衰的主要原因之一。

A New Account of Tales of the World is an encyclopedic novel accounting personages, which takes remarking on figures as major narrative content, and reflects the social life and famous intellectual's grace in the period of Wei & Jin dynasty. Through classified-open narrative structure, it remarks on figures from thirty-six different points of view actually, and displays character's complexity and diversity. This type of narrative structure directly influenced and decided on the narrative strategy and language of A New Account of Tales of the World, and was one of the major causes that made it last for thousands of years.