马华散文的史前史

The Pre-History of Malaysian Chinese Prose

早期的马华文学几乎是南来文人的创作,而且是游记的天下。换而言之,马华文学的开头,是南来文人的散文史,也是外来者的文学史。散文的非虚构文类特质可以呈现马来亚战前"文人的精神状态"、"文学状态",以及还原时代的临场感,因此,日记、书信、社论、杂文、报导文学等广义的史料性散文均可以囊括进来,有助于我们更有效而准确地建构一个时代。我们无法使用"经典"和"作者"这两个大国文学史的概念,去处理小国如马华的文学史。马华散文的史前史,在文学与史料之间。它是驳杂的历史,不纯的历史,一如马华文学的多元驳杂。

Works of Malaysian Chinese literature in early years are mostly composed by the Southern literati. In other words, Malaysian Chinese literature originated from the prose of the Southern literati or the outsiders. The non-fictional genre characteristic of proses is able to render the Malayan pre-war ＂mental state of literati＂ and ＂literary status＂, while at the same time restoring the telepresence of the era, and therefore diaries, letters, editorials, essays, reportage and miscellaneous generalized historical proses could be encompassed to assist us in a more efficient and accurate way to construct an era. We could not make use of the two concepts of large country＇s literary history, namely the ＂classic＂ and ＂author＂, to deal with the small country＇s, that is, the Malaysian Chinese literary history. The prehistory of Malaysian Chinese prose fitted between the literature and historical data. It is a heterogeneous history, an impure history, similar to the diverse heterogeneity of Malaysian Chinese literature.