小说还是小册?近代汉文传教小册的历史考察

A Novel or a Tract? A Historical Study of Modern Chinese Missionary Tracts

近代新教传教士为推进基督教在华传播,编译创作了数量丰富的汉文传教小册(tract)。近代传教小册编创活动在教会出版工作规范下进行,其文本特征主要有以叙事释教、模仿明清通俗小说文体等,传教士群体界定其文本性质为实用性的宗教文本。20世纪初开始出现从传教小册向传教小说发展的创作观念转变。当前学术界多以小说理论研究近代传教小册,缺乏对传教小册生成的历史考察。

In order to promote the spread of Christianity in China,the modern Protestant missionaries compiled a large number of Chinese missionary tracts.The creating and compiling activities of modern missionary tracts were carried out under the standard of the church publishing work.The text features mainly include narrative interpretation,imitation of the style of popular fiction and so on,and the texts were defined as the practical religious texts by the missionaries.In the early twentieth century,there was a change in the creative concept developed from missionary tracts to missionary novels.At present,most of the academic circles have studied the modern missionary tracts based on the theory of fiction,but there is a lack of historical investigation of the generation of missionary tracts.