“情之所钟,正在我辈”——清初通俗小说中“情”的阶层性与狭隘化特征

“Qing is among Ourselves”:The Strata and Parochialism of Qing in the Early-Qing Popular Fiction

目前学界有关明清小说中尚情观念的研究,大都以思想史与文论史为框架,较少注意到社会阶层的视角。作为中国古代“情”文化的重要支流,清初通俗小说将“情”建构为文人阶层所专属的范畴,明显区别于晚明小说中“情”对不同社会阶层的包容。在小说套语的演变中,“情之所钟,正在我辈”被赋予了正面的道德意义,成为深情文人自我标榜的用语。以才与情之间的密切联系为基础,清初通俗小说否定了晚明小说中情种的市民出身,以才子身份作为塑造情种形象的必要条件。基于女性在“情”之话语中的工具性地位,占有上层女性是多情文人彰示优势地位的重要策略;与下层女性的婚姻关系则是权贵群体在“情”之领域中丧失话语权的表现。

While previous scholarship tends to explain the romantic passion in Ming-Qing fiction from the perspectives of the history of thought and literary theory, few of scholars paid attention to the perspective of social class. In contrast to the notion of qing marked by the erasure of social boundaries in late Ming fiction, the early Qing popular fiction constructed qing as a concept exclusive to literati class, which was an important component of qing culture in ancient China. “Qing is among ourselves” was used as an idiom in the early Qing popular fiction with moral significance attached. The literati proclaimed themselves to be people riched in qing by use of this idiom. Since there was a close connection between talent and affection, the talented young men displaced the male citizens in late Ming fiction as the seed of qing in early Qing popular fiction. Since women were treated as important vehicles in qing discourse, more powerful social status of the passionate literati was confirmed by their possession of upper-class women, while the loss of power of the nobility in the qing field was demonstrated by their marriage with lower-class women.