关于《水浒传》成书时间的思考

Thoughts on the Completion Time of Water Margin

《水浒传》成书时间研究是一种事实判断,需要有事实作为证据。近百年来,学界对《水浒传》成书时间做了许多研究,元末明初说是目前最为流行的观点,但并未提供确凿的事实证据,难以定论。在这一研究中,文献的发掘和文献的辨伪显得同等重要,没有文献依据的传说和没有传播依据的文献则是需要重点辨伪的对象。而讨论《水浒传》成书时间,在作者和版本研究难以取得实质性进展的情况下,从《水浒传》早期传播史料入手,采用文献学与传播学结合的方法,就成为最实在、最科学也最有效的研究方法。

The completion time of Water Margin is a kind of factual judgment,which needs facts as evidence.In the past hundred years,the academic circles have done a lot of research on the completion time of Water Margin.The view of the end of the Yuan Dynasty and the beginning of the Ming Dynasty is the most popular view at present,but it has not provided conclusive factual evidence and is difficult to make a conclusion.In this study,the excavation of documents and the identification of documents are equally important.Legends without document basis and documents without communication basis are the objects that need to be identified.When discussing the completion time of Water Margin,it is difficult to make substantial progress in the study of the author and the version.Starting from the historical materials of the early dissemination of Water Margin,the method of combining philology and communication has become the most practical,scientific and effective research method.