清末小说中的乌托邦叙事形态

The Utopian Narrative in the Novels of the Late Qing Dynasty

清末小说中乌托邦叙事的大量出现与小说家们的现实关怀有关,更是他们基于忧患意识而关于国家未来想象的种种回应,因乌托邦想象内容的不同形成了多样的叙事形态。在治疗国人"疾病"的乌托邦叙事中,小说家构想出各种离奇古怪且又让人眼花缭乱的治疗之术,表现出了无论采用何种方法都要改造国民的坚定之心;在想象未来中国的乌托邦叙事中,小说家虚构出理想的政治形态,表现出了既要借助于西方的社会、政治理论,却又不能仅仅地停留在体系化知识的层面上使用的两难境地;在想象文明国家的乌托邦叙事中,小说家虚拟出一个天马行空的艺术世界,展现了既不媚外也不慕古的文化主体性的建构思路。

The numerous utopian narratives in the novels of the late Qing Dynasty are reflective of the realistic care of the novelists. They are all based on the novelists＇ sense of anxiety and their various responses to the imagination of the future of their country. Due to their different utopian imagination, they have formed a variety of narrative forms. In the utopian narratives that are intended to cure the＂diseases＂of their people, novelists come up with all sorts of bizarre and dazzling remedies, showing a firm heart to reform the nation irrespective of the methods used. In the utopian narratives that imagine China＇s future, novelists fictionalize the ideal political construction for China, which also shows the dilemma the novelists encounter： on the one hand, they need to resort to Western social and political theories; on the other, they know they should not stay satisfied with the system of knowledge only. By imagining civilized countries in the utopian narratives, the novelists virtualize an abstract world of arts and ideas, showing their cultural subjectivity and their reluctance to flatter the foreign or to flatter the ancient.