“天籁”与“作者”:两种文本生成观念的形成

“Sound of Nature”and“Authorship”:The Formation of Two Concepts of Text Generation

诗、乐、《易》、《春秋》等文本的生成机制问题在战国秦汉时期引起士人关注,并逐步形成两类观念。一类强调文本是人类自然情感的流露,生成者以非理性的自然状态参与文本的生成,由此形成的文本是一种自然物,可以称之为“天籁说”;另一类观念强调文本是人类理性精神与独立人格的载体,文本生成是一个高度个人化、理性化与技术化的过程,由此形成的文本是一种人造物,可以称之为“作者说”。这两种文本生成观念呈现出文本不同的价值和审美趋向,对于中国文学史的发展具有源头性影响,二者之间的竞争与交融也构成文学史发展的动力之一。

The generative mechanism of the Book of Songs,the Book of Music,the Book of Changes,the Spring and Autumn Annals and other texts attracted the attention of learned men during the Warring States period and the Qin and Han dynasties.Two views gradually took shape.One emphasized that a text reveals natural human emotions,and the generator of the text participates in the generation process in a natural,irrational state;the text is thus something natural.This view can be called the“sound of nature theory.”The other emphasized that the text is the carrier of humankind’s rational spirit and independent character,and that the generation of text is a highly individualized,rational and technical process,so the resulting text is something man-made.This view can be called the“authorship theory.”The two conceptions of text production present different textual values and aesthetics.As seminal ideas,they have had a significant influence on the development of Chinese literary history,and their competition and convergence have constituted one of the driving forces behind its development.