重评老舍早期的讽刺幽默小说——兼谈当前的现代文学研究

Lao She and Modern Chinese Literature of Satirical Humor:With a view of current contemporary literature study

近年来,中国现代文学研究有一个明显的倾向:研究课题的选取越来越走向边缘化和细碎化。边缘性、细碎化课题的发掘有意义但也应当是有限度的,应该重返中国现代文学研究的中心,对于支撑该学科大厦的重要作家作品、经典作家作品进行更深层次的重新清理,挖掘其当代价值与意义。老舍是中国现代少有的幽默大师之一,他早期的讽刺幽默小说由于特殊的创作动机和创作情境,打破了由鲁迅、张天翼、沙汀创立的偏严肃的喜剧文学格局,为中国现代文坛吹来了一股清新、鲜活的喜剧春风。但因其不属于当时的主流文学和战斗的文艺等原因,受到的指责、批评过多,使老舍在中后期的创作中,喜剧才能受到了压抑,没有充分发挥出来,这是中国喜剧文学的一个损失。老舍和钱钟书一样,突破了传统喜剧精神的非喜剧化倾向,建构了一种外在的喜剧性,为当代喜剧文学、讽刺幽默艺术提供了可资借鉴的经验,值得重新解读并评估其价值。

In recent years, studies on modern Chinese literature have a clear tendency： the selection of research themes tend to be marginalized and fragmented,a way that is meaningful but should be limited. In other words,it should return to the central themes to support the important authors and their works,including such efforts as investigating them at a more pro- found level to explore their contemporary values. Lao She,one of these authors, is an exceptional master of humour, whose early humoristic novels broke off the pattern of preference for serious comic literature set up by Lu Xun, ZHANG Tian-yi, Sha Ding,and hence shed new light upon the comic field. However, he was over-attacked for his peripheral status off the main literary trend,and his comedic talent suffered suppression, which is a loss to the Chinese comic literature. Like QIAN Zhong- shu,Lao She broke off the traditional comic spirit that had had a non-comic trend and constructed an external comicality, which contributed valuable reading to modern comic and satirical humour literature and should be reevaluated.