不存在的传统:论陈世骧的抒情传统

A Nonexistent Tradition: On CHEN Shixiang's Lyrical Tradition

"中国的抒情传统"概括了陈世骧先生对中国文学的基本见解,后来也产生了巨大的影响,经高友工、吕正惠、柯庆明、郑毓瑜等人不断推阐,形成极具综摄力之解释系统。我对这个讲法,向持商榷之意。其说的第一个大问题,是以西方抒情诗这一类型来看待中国诗,谓中国诗即具此抒情之特质,由此进一步说此乃中国文学之传统乃至道统,这在方法及范畴上便是错乱的。因为特色是一回事,它是否构成为一传统甚或道统,又如何形成,乃另一回事。陈先生另一个大问题,在于以西律中,用西方抒情诗为模型来说明中国文学。其三,陈先生一直没发现中国文学的抒情迥异于西方浪漫主义中的抒情,此抒非彼抒、此情非彼情也。所以对中国诗和中国传统思想,陈先生是有"隔"的。他所勾勒的抒情传统,实为中国传统所无。

＂China＇s lyrical tradition＂ which summarized Mr. Chen Shixiang＇s basic views on Chinese literature and produced a huge impact later on became a highly comprehensive explanatory system after being propounded in turn by Gao Yo- ugong, Lv Zhenghui, Ko Qingming, Zheng Yuyu and etc. But this is an established opinion with which I have always disagreed. First, in this argument, Chinese poetry is made to fit the Western genre of lyrics and said to possess this very lyricism, so much so that lyrical poetry is the tradition or even orthodoxy of Chinese literature. Such an argument, I venture to say, is a methodological and logical error, because it is one thing to call something a characteristic and quite another to say whether it constitutes a tradition or an orthodoxy and （even if it does） how this comes about. Second, Mr. Chen attempted to use the model of Western lyrical poetry to explain Chinese literature. Third, Mr Chen failed to realize that Chinese literature and Western Romanticist literature differ both in the manners in which feelings are expressed and in the feelings themselves. To conclude, Mr Chen was not free from blunders in understanding Chinese poetry and traditional Chinese thought. The lyrical tradition that he traced in Chinese literature is nonexistent.