蔡襄《荔枝谱》中的地理叙事与方志话语

Geographical Narrations and Local Records Discourses in Cai Xiang's Litchi Handbook

北宋著名文臣蔡襄的《荔枝谱》是历史上第一部将荔枝作为专门研究对象的博物学著作,也是一部优秀的地方文献,体现了蔡襄的地理叙事和方志话语。但究其实,《荔枝谱》的文本形态并非标准的现代意义上的植物学著作,而是具有鲜明的中华传统博物学文本涵纳广阔的特质;在植物性状、分类等自然属性的归纳总结中寓含了深刻的闽西地理叙事与方志话语,是作为地方史文献的名物纪胜与家国情怀的高度融合,以特殊的复合文本的形式,于地方物华之中隐喻着作者的经世致用和情感波澜。

Litchi Handbook by Cai Xiang,the renowned courtier of Northern Song Dynasty,was a gem in natural history writings as the very first natural history work that took litchi as its specialized research subject.Meanwhile,it was an outstanding local history reference presenting Cai Xiang's geographical narrations and local records discourses.Yet as a matter of fact,the textual form of Cai Xiang's Litchi Handbook was not of modern sense of the phrase of a standard botanical work.The handbook is rather a traditional Chinese natural history work with the distinctive feature of having very broad contents.Among inductions and summaries of natural attributes such as plant shapes and properties and plant classification,it also contained deep geographical narrations on western Fujian and local records discourses.As local history literature with intensive integration of records of extraordinary objects and homesickness and patriotism,the author's humanistic pragmaticism and emotional upheavals were intertwined with extraordinary local objects in the form of special complex texts.