周作人的神话研究

A Probe inot Zhou Zuoren's Study on Mythology

周作人是中国民间文艺学和民俗学最早的奠基者和理论家之一,也是中国系统介绍国外神话理论的第一人。他一生对神话饶有兴趣,扼要而全面地介绍了西方主要神话理论流派,评点其优势与不足,并运用古典进化论、心理学等理论研究神话,提出了广义童话是神话之源等新颖而深刻的观点,并对神话的性质和内涵做了重新思考。梳理周作人的神话研究,不仅是对中国民间文学学术史的必要回顾,对当下的神话研究亦具有启发意义。

Zhou Zuoren is one of the earliest founders and theoreticians of Chinese folk literature and art as well as the first Chinese scholar who introduced foreign myth theories.In his lifetime he took a great interest in myths,and concisely yet comprehensively introduced major western myth schools of thoughts,commented on their advantages and disadvantages,and proposed that fairy tales in a broad sense are the origins of myths by means of cultural evolutionism and psychology in an original profound way,hence reformulating the nature and content of myths,tracing the research on myths to remote ancient ideas,thoughts and mentalities,and making fairy tales approximate the origins of myths.The study on Zhou Zuoren's myth research is significant in terms of both the academic history of Chinese folk literature and the present research on myths.