“从史诗到罗曼斯”与欧洲叙事诗的新开始

“From Epic to Romance" and the New Beginnings of European Narrative Poetry

本文旨在澄清欧洲中世纪诗歌发展史里"从史诗到罗曼斯"这个传统共识。在简述了关于中世纪文体分类的历史与理论的问题之后,本文把这两大文类置于古法语叙事诗歌肇始时的混沌语境,从它们之间与跟当时其他文类如拉丁和方言史诗、历史、传记、圣徒传等类别的错综复杂关系,更清楚地看出其原貌。尤其是从拉丁史诗"翻译"成古史罗曼斯的演变与其发展出的爱情主题可见,史诗如果指的是拉丁史诗,"从史诗到罗曼斯"一说尚称合适,如果指的是古法语演义歌,则并不恰当。

This paper seeks to clarify the traditional consensus of generic shift ＂from epic to romance＂ by situating the two genres in the fluid literary contexts of the emerging Old French narrative poetry.After a brief survey of the historical and theoretical issues of medieval genres,it examines their complicated relationships with each other and with other genres,such as historiography and hagiography,in both Latin and the vernacular.The conclusion is that only in the subgenre roman antique,which ＂translates＂（in the sense of translatio） Latin epics with its new love theme,does the consensus stand.Otherwise,it is invalid.