唐末寒士群体与古文的小品化

The Group of Poor Scholars in Late Tang Dynasty and the Xiao-pin-wen Essays

作为古文支流的唐末小品文,其创作主体带有鲜明的寒士阶层的特征,这与唐宋之际门第观念渐趋消弭、出身寒微的道德才学之士积极要求晋身的时代趋势是一致的。这些出身寒微的底层文人把社会生活中亲身经历的问题和思考凝练成文,贯彻积极用世、关注现实的创作原则,继承并发扬了中唐古文革新的精神特质,变古文之正统说理为小品杂著之辛辣嘲讽。同时他们注意将充满艺术表现力的小品文编辑成书,以用于科举场屋省卷行卷的关键之时。这种对小品文的重视及其阶层特点所导致的内容趋向,使得唐末小品文作家与当时的古风型诗人群体一起,其创作成就共同构成了唐末寒士文学的主体部分,决定了唐末寒士文学所具有的深广的社会意义,代表了唐宋之际隐含于社会底层的古文脉络的延续发展。

As a branch of ancient Chinese prose,the writers of the xiao-pin-wen essays in the late Tang Dynasty were clearly characteristic of the class of the poor scholars.Those essays were consistent with the trend of the times when the concept of family class gradually disappeared and the scholars of morality and ability from humble backgrounds demanded to climb the social ladder.Born into poor families,they put the problems and thoughts they had experienced in social life into concise essays,carried out the creative principle of serving society and paying attention to reality,inherited and carried forward the new spirit of the ancient prose reform in the mid-Tang Dynasty,and changed orthodox reasoning into acrimony and satire.Meanwhile,they stressed the compilation of the artistically expressive essays into books,which could be used in the crucial period of imperial examination.The creative achievements of such essays constitute an important part of the late Tang literature of the poor scholar class,exerting a profound social significance and representing the continued development ancient prose of the Tang and Song dynasties hidden in the bottom of the society.