建筑空间与中国文学叙事传统

Architectural Space and Narrative Tradition of Chinese Literature

一代有一代之文学,章回小说是明清时期的代表性文体。"小说"概念尽管出现较早,但由于一直被前人视为"小道"而难以成为明确的叙事文体。经过明代文人的努力,小说才发展成为中国文学叙事传统中最主要的体裁,这也最终促成了中国文学传统的主流从"抒情"到"叙事"的转变。明清章回小说最基本的叙事结构是分回立目与单元连缀,而这种结构受到了中国建筑空间组合艺术的深刻影响。中国的叙事文学一直要等到明清章回小说的出现,才可算形成了真正属于自己的叙事传统,由于这种叙事传统的形成与建筑空间息息相关,所以建筑空间在很大程度上促成了中国文学叙事传统的形成。

Different ages have different mainstream literary genres, and Ming-Qing Dynas- ties have Zhanghui novel as their representative genre. Though the concept of “novel” arose earlier in China, it had difficulty in developing into a commonly accepted narrative genre owing to its “trivialities”. With the great efforts by scholars of Ming Dynasty, novels became the leading genre of Chinese narrative literature, which contributed to the transition of the mainstream of Chinese literature from “lyric” to “narrative”. Succession of chapters with headings and episodic units, deeply influenced by the spatial combination of Chinese architecture, was the basic narrative structure of Zhanghui novel in Ming-Qing Dynasties. Narrative tradition did not come into being in Chinese literature until Zhanghui novel in Ming-Qing Dynasties. The close relationship between the formation of this narrative tradition and architectural space, to a great extent, helped to bring about the for- marion of narrative tradition of Chinese literature.