“笔说”《聊斋》系列小说之通俗教育功能

The Popular Education Function of the Strange Tales from a Chinese Studio that Serializedin the Newspaper

《聊斋志异》自问世以来,一度被“精英文化圈”的士子们奉为“研文之助”,而到了清末民初的北京,借由新兴媒介——报刊之功,其受众扩展至“平民文化圈”。当时的有识之士从形式到内容等多方面对《聊斋志异》进行了改编,努力使之成为合格乃至优秀的通俗教育蓝本,以期实现此系列小说“消愁破闷的心理疗愈功能”“破除迷信、启牖民智之功能”“隐恶扬善、有功名教之功能”和“讥刺时弊与‘达民隐’功能”。

Since its publication,Strange Tales from a Chinese Studio was once regarded as“the help of literary research”by scholars in the“elite cultural circle,”while in Beijing at the end of the Qing Dynasty and the beginning of the Republic of China,its audience expanded to the“civilian cultural circle”through the new media newspapers.At that time,intellectuals made various adaptations to Strange Tales from a Chinese Studio in terms of form and content,striving to make it a qualified and even excellent blueprint for popular education,in order to realize“the psychological healing function of relieving depression and boredom,”“the function of dispelling superstition and enlightening the people,”“the function of concealing evil and promoting good,and standardizing people’s morality,”and“function of satirizing current evils and empathizing the suffering of the prople”of this series of novels.