《文心雕龙》“事义”概念之多重意义辨析

An Analysis on the Multiple Meanings of “Shiyi” in Dragon-Carving and the Literary Mind

《文心雕龙》中的“事义”在现行注本中有两种差别颇大的解释:一种与文学的“思想内容”相关;另一种与作为修辞技巧的“事类”相关。结合六朝文献的使用习惯以及词义、语境进行分析,可以发现两种解读均有合理性。但准确来讲,当“事义”与“事类”相关时不指具体的引用手法,而指事例的意义或引用事例的表意效果;与“思想内容”相关时不指作家的主观情感,而指在叙事过程中体现的文章主旨。“事义”的两个意义是彼此相通的:不论涉及具体事例或通篇文章的叙事,它都强调借助语言运用来传达作家思想的过程。此概念的出现说明刘勰既强调内容的首要地位,又重视语言技巧在表达思想过程中的必要作用,文学的形式与内容之间存在有机互动的关系。

The concept of “shiyi” in Dragon-Carving and the Literary Mind has two kinds of distinctly different explanations in present annotations of the book.One is related to the “idea and content” of literature;the other is related to “shilei”, which contains the rhetorical skill of allusion.According to the analysis on the customs of literatures in the Six Dynasties Period, as well as on the word meanings and contexts in the book, it can be found that both explanations are reasonable.However, to be exact, when “shiyi” is related to “shilei”,“shiyi” does not refer to specific citation skills, but refers to the meanings of examples or the expressive effects of cited examples.The two meanings of “shiyi” are interlinked: no matter it involves a specific example or the narration of a whole article, it emphasizes on the procedure of communicating the writer s idea by the use of language.The emergence of the concept of “shiyi” proves that Liu Xie, the author of Dragon-Carving and the Literary Mind, not only attached importance on the primary status of content, but also appreciated the significance of the necessary function of language skills in expressing ideas.Thus, he believed that literary form has an organic interaction with literary content.