《古今名家诗学大成》与明代传奇小说的文体发展

The Grand Achievement of Ancient and Modern Poetics and the Genre Development of Legendary Fiction in the Ming Dynasty

明万历六年(1578年),据元毛直方编《新编增了事联诗学大成》和元林桢编《联新事备诗学大成》增删而成的《古今名家诗学大成》刊行,影响巨大,不仅被增删改编成多种诗学启蒙读物,还成为编创《古今清谈万选》和《幽怪诗谭》等小说作品的直接参考书。《古今名家诗学大成》深刻影响了明代传奇小说文体的发展:一是有力助推诗歌大量进入小说作品,形成以诗歌为骨架的小说叙事形态;二是使塑造的小说人物形象多是功能性的、符号化的;三是体现出以小说为戏、重视虚构的小说观念。《古今名家诗学大成》使《古今清谈万选》《幽怪诗谭》集诗选、诗学、诗话于一体,兼具品诗的批评价值、学习写诗的实用意义和小说的叙事功能,体现出诗学和小说学的双重价值。这既有作者炫才的原因,也是明代小说虚构观念发展的结果。

In the sixth year of Wanli Reign in the Ming Dynasty(1578), based on Mao Zhifang's Great Achievement of the Shilian Poetics and Lin Zhen's Great Achievement of the Lianxin Shibei Poetics in the Yuan Dynasty, The Great Achievement of Ancient and Modern Poetics was published and exerted great impact in the literary world. It not only was adapted into a variety of reading primers for poetic enlightenment, but also became an immediate reference for the compilation of fictional works such as the Selected Works of Ancient and Modern Grotesque Stories and Youguai Shitan. It deeply influenced the development of the genre of legendary fiction in the Ming Dynasty. First, it enabled poetry to enter fiction in large numbers, generating a narrative form with poetry as its skeleton. Secondly, it made the fictional characters more functional and symbolic. Finally, the book embodied the view that fiction could work as play and attach great importance to the concept of fiction. The Great Achievement of Ancient and Modern Poetics re-created the Selected Works of Ancient and Modern Grotesque Stories and Youguai Shitan as a collective work of poems, poetics, and poetic remarks. It also served as a criticism of poetry, a teaching of practical poem writing, and a fictional narrative. In short, it embodied the dual value of poetics and fiction. The book was at once a showcase of its author's talent and the result of the development of the concept of fiction in the Ming Dynasty.