传统与记忆:史识“白话美术文”被遮蔽的意义

Tradition and Memory:The Obscured Significance of“Vernacular Prose”

长期以来,五四文学革命中诞生的白话美术文的意义,是被学术界所遮蔽的。虽然承认其“成功”,但在现代文学史书类的著述中对其先锋性意义,或略说带过或语焉不详。文章从三个方面对被遮蔽的意义进行了新的阐释:“白话美术文”的文体独立,建立了散文文体的“三级分类”,开启了文体学分类学从文章实用性分类到文学功能性分类的现代转型;其创立的新“美文”传统,完成了从古典美文传统到现代“美文”传统的接续与转型,并进行其后的悖论式传承;其新创立的“典艺性”,对其他诗歌、戏剧、小说体裁则产生了积极的“文学化”的驱动。“白话美术文”对新文学的这些贡献,是一个值得永远记忆、深入阐说的命题。

For a long time,the meaning of vernacular prose produced in the May 4th Literary Revolution was obscured in the academic world.Although vernacular prose was regarded as“success”,its avant-garde significance was only briefly discussed or unclearly illustrated in the history of modern literary books.The paper provides a new interpretation of its obscured significance from three aspects:firstly,the style of“vernacular prose”is independent,and a“three-level classification”of prose styles has been established.“Vernacular prose”started the modern transformation of stylistic taxonomy from practical classification of articles to functional classification of literature;secondly,the new created“prose”tradition completes the continuation and transformation from the classical prose tradition to the modern“prose”tradition,and carries on the paradox inheritance afterwards;thirdly,its newly created characteristics of“classical art”has produced an active“literary”drive to other genres,such as poetry,drama,and novel.The contribution of“vernacular prose”to the new literature is a proposition worth remembering and explaining in depth.