身份的焦虑——中国古代对于“文人”的认同与期待

Identity Anxiety: On the Identity and Expectation of Literati in Ancient China

"文人"话题具有深刻而丰富的理论内涵。在中国古代,文人与文章从不具备完全独立的地位,只有在经世致用的人文传统中,它们才能获得尊重。对文人的污名化与为文人辩护两种倾向相反相成,都反映了对文人的社会责任感和文章经世致用的要求。这种要求是古代社会对文人的期待与古代文人的自我期许,也是士人在当时的社会体制与儒学价值谱系下的必然选择。这一社会期待与自我期许隐含着深刻的矛盾:文人与文章经世致用的实用品格与独立自由精神的矛盾,文章之学与道统、体制的矛盾。如何平衡与纾解这种矛盾,解决文与道的冲突,成为中国传统文学批评的一个永恒主题。古代文人话题是一个历时性的演变过程,一部中国文学史,也深刻反映了这一过程的复杂性。

The topic of literati has profound and rich theoretical connotations. In ancient China, literati and prose never had totally independent status. They were respected only in the tradition of practical use. The two opposite tendencies - the stigmatization of literati, and defense of literati - reflected the request of social responsibility and pragmatic orientation, which was the expectation from society and the self-expectation of literati as well. It is also the inevitable choice of literati in contemporary social system and Confucian valuation. There are deep contradictions between the two different expectations: the contradiction between the practical use and the free spirit, and the contradiction between the prosaic study traditional Confucian system. How to balance the choices and looking for temporary conflict mitigation has become a permanent topic in Chinese literary criticism. A Chinese literary history also reveals the complicated evolution of ancient literati topics.