论《世说新语》的“语料体小说”性质

On the Features of“Language-Material Fictions”in New Collections of Anecdotes of Famous Personages

《世说新语》是中国古代“志人小说”的代表。相比于其他“志人小说”,《世说新语》具有独特的玄学文化特征。自东晋中期开始,世族阶层纯粹的思辨性的谈玄活动逐渐被其他形式的玄学活动取代,这个短暂的文化变迁时期和后来的文化追怀时期合称为“后玄学时代”。在“后玄学时代”,谢灵运的山水诗成为新的内容,而比谢灵运稍早,一种在世族中风靡的具有语料传播功能的作品应需而生,《语林》《郭子》正是这类作品的代表。这些“语料”迅速成为世族子弟领会玄学精神、学习名士风范的指南。《世说新语》正是对这种文化风尚的总结。结合现代文学意义的“小说”定义,《世说新语》可称为“语料体小说”。

New Collections of Anecdotes of Famous Personages is a representative of ancient Chinese personal stories.This paper attempts to explore the influence of the cultural environment which advocated metaphysics by distinguished fami-lies or aristocratic class during the West Jin Dynasty.Since the middle period of the East Jin,the absolute metaphysical anal-ysis and debates among the aristocratic personages have gradually been replaced by other forms of philosophical activities.It can be referred this brief period of cultural change and the later period of cultural nostalgia as the“post-philosophical era”.In this era,Xie Lingyun’s landscape poetry became a new content,and earlier than Xie,some popular texts with the func-tion of language-material dissemination among aristocratic stratum emerged as needed.Yulin and Guozi are representative works of this phenomenon.These“language materials”quickly became a guide for aristocratic stratum to understand the spir-it of metaphysics and learn the demeanor of personage.And New Collections of Anecdotes of Famous Personages is a summa-ry of this cultural trend.In terms of the definition of“fiction”in modern literature,this paper attempts to refer to it as“lan-guage-material fictions”.