历史学家与历史小说

Historians and History Fiction

内容提要历史学家写历史小说是我国的文学传统。从前人褚人获、钱基博到今人周远廉、廖心一、王曾瑜等,都表明了历史学家写的历史小说,由于他们的深厚历史素养,使其作品的历史真实性,一般作家难以企及。不应当把演义体裁排斥于历史小说之外。历史学家们创作的历史小说,给历史小说创作领域注入了新的生命力,但至今并未引起文坛足够的注意,更被文学评论家们有意无意地忽略了。这些年来作家们创作的历史小说,虽然成果不少,有几部优秀作品,但还缺少黄钟大吕式的经典之作,近年出版的作品,总体上质量下滑,很大程度上是历史真实性成问题。这些作家应像历史学家那样严肃对待历史,下一番苦功。而写历史小说的历史学家,则应加强文学修养,使小说更有可读性。

It is the tradition of literature for the historians to write the history fiction in our country. From Chu Renhuo, Qian Jibo in former dynasties to Zhou Yuanlian, Liao Xinyi, Wang Zengyu and so on, it is shown the history fiction written by the historians is true of history, incomparable to common writers, because of their rich knowledge of history. The historic novel should not be excluded in the history fiction. The history fiction created by the historians kindled the new live to the history fiction, yet absorbing enough attention in the literary world, and being ignored by the literary critics on purpose or unconsciously. The history novels written in these years are enormous in quantity, some are quite good but there is no masterpiece. Generally, the quality declines in recent years, mainly owing to the problem of history truth. These writers should treat the history seriously like the historians, and make efforts to learn the history. For those historians writing history novels, focus more efforts on literary culture and make the novels more readable.