“谁解绘其真”:端恩的题红诗与清宗室文人社会心理

Who Can Understand Them?Duan En's Poems about A Dream of Red Mansions and the Social Psychology of Royal Literati in Qing Dynasty

文学是生活的间接反映,一个群体的文化特质往往和其所面对的问题及处境息息相关。清宗室文人既是封建君主集权体系中专制政体的延伸,又在天潢贵胄闲适优裕生活的另一面承载着皇权的势压和政治倾轧所带来的焦虑紧张。娴熟笔墨的学植修养使他们习惯了用文字呈现志趣、交心友朋的生活方式,自然也常用诗歌的咏叹抒散内心的惶惑和隐忧。曹雪芹作为汉军旗人的特定身份及其在宗室文人交际圈的辗转声名传播,给端恩等宗室文人以族群身份认同感和斯人宛在的亲切感;《红楼梦》在预示封建体制没落和崩塌的同时,也给他们无可奈何的命运代入感。宗室文人关于《红楼梦》的题咏在表现他们闲适雅致情趣的同时,更体现了这一群体所濡染的儒家事功观念和多发性的投闲置散两者之间所激发出的人生如梦的惶惑。

Literature is an indirect reflection of real life.The cultural traits of a social group are closely related to the problems and environment facing them.The royal literati in the Qing Dynasty were granted considerable privileges by the imperial totalitarianism,but at the same time they lived under great stress imposed by the very system.The members of the royal clan,represented by Duan En who received good education and was good at putting into words his thoughts and feelings,were inclined to make friends and express their worries and anxieties through poems and songs.Since Cao Xueqin,the author of the great Chinese classic A Dream of Red Mansions,was a member of the Han bannermen,he was well known to the circle of the royal literati,who felt great affinity with this literary master and his masterpiece.In Cao’s work,which indicates the decline and the eventual collapse of the feudalism,these learned members of the royal clan could find that it was their own stories that were related.While showcasing the authors’refined taste and enjoyment of leisure,the poems written by people like Duan En about Cao’s A Dream of Red Mansions show that they were anxiously disillusioned to some extent with the meaning of life,for they were often ignored or even abandoned by the system although they tried hard to pursue social and political achievements according to the Confucian teachings.