博采异同 遂混虚实——论干宝的小说理论与实践

Absorption of What Is Different and What Is Not,and the Confusion of the Fictional and the Actual:Gan Bao's Theory of Fiction and his Practice

自鲁迅《中国小说史略》问世以来,学界咸以为魏晋南北朝小说一如写新闻,并非有意创作。然细阅干宝的生平资料,细阅其《晋纪》、《搜神记序》及《搜神记》却会发现:号曰良史的干宝实爱搜神志怪;在那时就发现小说“难免失实”,划清了与历史散文的界限;其《搜神记》题材采自典籍者多荒诞失实;题材采自现实者实非写实而多虚构。干宝的创作实践了他的小说理论,已开有意为小说之先河,在中国小说史上具有里程碑式的意义。

Since the appearance of Lu Xun＇ s Brief History of Chinese Fiction, scholars have all advocated that the fictional works of the Wei, Jin and the Northem and Southern Dynasties were simply journalistic writings, with no intentions to be fictional. However, upon perusing the documents conceming Gan Bao＇ s life, The Chronicle of the Jin Dynasty （ Jin Ji ）, In Search of Gods and its preface, we can find that Gan Bao, with title of the excellent historian, was actually fond of writing about gods and spirits; that at that he had already discovered that fiction ＂fails to present the true＂, thus drawing a clear line of demarcation between fiction and prose on history; that his In Search of Gods is absurd when written with the subjectmatter coming from ancient books and records, and fictional when written with the subject - matter coming from reality. As the forenmners of fiction, his writings have implemented his doctrine on fiction, thus bearing significances of a milestone on China＇ s fiction.