陈其泰“红楼梦回目拟改”的得与失——兼与顾鸣塘先生商榷

Gains and Losses in Chen Qitai's "Revisions of Chapter Titles of Hong Lou Meng":A Discussion with Mr.Gu Mingtang

清代《红楼梦》评点家陈其泰曾对《红楼梦》的回目加以拟改,但并未引起学者们的重视。顾鸣塘先生在《中国古代小说百科全书》"陈其泰"词条中专门对其《红楼梦回目拟改》进行了评述,认为它"多为败笔",基本上持否定态度。笔者却认为,虽然它对个别回目的拟改值得商榷,甚至是败笔,但对大多数回目的拟改还是有道理的,不仅丰富了《红楼梦》研究的内容,而且还体现了陈其泰对《红楼梦》研究的真知灼见,是对红学研究的一大贡献。它在学术史上的地位是不容忽视的。

Chen Qitai, one of the Qing-dynasty （1644 - 1911 ） critics of Hong Lou Meng （A Dream of Red Mansions）, once revised the chapter titles of the novel, but his revisions have not been paid attention to in the academic circles. In An Encyclopedia of Ancient Chinese Not,els ： Chen Qitai （ed. Liu Shide, 1993 ）, Mr. Gu Mingtang makes a special, essentially negative comment on Chen＇ s ＂Revisions of Chapter Titles of Hong Lou Meng＂, criticizing them as ＂mostly faulty＂. The author of the present paper suggests, however, that while a few of Chen＇ s revisions are not that successful, or even failures, most of them are reasonable. These revisions have not only enriched the research on Hong Lou Meng, but also reflected Chen＇ s penetrating understanding of the novel. Therefore, their great contributions to Hong Lou Meng studies, as well as their importance to the academic history, should never be ignored.