“制造伟大的国民”——晚清教育小说《苦学生》的叙述者、海外空间与民族寓言

‘To Make a Great People’:the Narrator of The Bitter Students,an Educational Novel in the Last Qing Dynasty,Space Overseas and a National Fable

晚清文人创作的"教育小说",是在晚清科举废止、传统知识阶层变动以及"小说界革命"的复杂背景中诞生的,这批小说既继承了"谴责小说"的特征,又开了中国近现代教育小说的先河,更将叙事触角伸向了陌生的海外/异域空间。刊行于1905年的《苦学生》,无论是文本的叙事形式还是故事的乌托邦/异托邦精神,都折射出个体与现代民族国家意识的深刻关联。重新审视这部小说,既可以揭示其中海外/异域空间叙事的精神意涵,也可以彰显其作为一则"民族寓言"的文学价值。

Educational novels,written by writers in the late Qing dynasty,were born in the complex background in which the imperial examination system had been abolished,the traditional intellectual class had changed and there had been a revolution in the world of fiction.The novels in this genre had inherited from the‘condemnation novels’and set a precedent to the genre of the educational novel in modern China,with its narrative tentacles extended to the strange overseas/foreign space.The Bitter Students,serialised in 1905,was a reflection of the deep relationship between individuals and nation-state consciousness in terms of narrative forms and the spirit of utopian/heterotopia.A review of this novel can not only enable a revelation of the spiritual contents of the narrative involving the overseas/foreign space but also highlight the literary value of the work as a national fable.