明清小说的史料价值

Historical Value of Novels in the Ming and Qing Dynasties

明清是中国小说史上的繁荣时期,大量优秀的小说可以作为史料使用。在使用小说作为史料时,需注意两个问题,一是文史互证,二是小说所反映的社会生活、风土人情是作者生活的时代,而不是小说中故事发生的时代。

Novels in the Ming and Qing dynasties are very affluent, and many of them can be used as historical materials. But there are two points which we should pay more aitention to when we take novels as historical materials. One is mutual verification between literature and history in proving a problem, the other is that the social life and customs in a novel is a historical manifestation of the age of the author instead of the age of the story.