早出与晚熟:中国古代小说文体流变

Early Emergence and Late Maturation:Stylistic Changes in Ancient Chinese Novels

小说作为文学样式在千年的历史长河中经历了从概念、篇幅长短、叙事手法、题材选择、人物塑造、语言方式等各个方面的变化,终在封建社会末期得以大丰收。用现代学术眼光去看它,中国古代小说不仅是中国古代文学的重要组成部分,也是中国传统文化的重要组成部分。中国古代小说中所包含伦理道德、社会理想、人生体验、审美追求,它经历两千余年才沉淀为中国本土文化的基本内涵,它所描绘的中国乃是与现实中国所对应的文化中国,它描绘的内容虽然多半出自虚拟,但至今仍活跃在中国人生活和思想里面,所以我们应该进行充分的发掘和研究。本文从古代“小说”一词涵义入手,结合中国古代各个历史时期与小说的关系梳理中国古代小说演变演进的轮廓和各阶段的重要作品,研究中国古代小说的发展、演变乃至成熟。

As a literary style,novels have experienced changes in concept,length,narrative techniques,theme selection,characterization,language and other aspects in the long history of a thousand years,and finally achieved a Dafengshou(Salad of assorted fresh vegetables)harvest in the late feudal society.From a modern academic perspective,ancient Chinese novels are not only an important part of ancient Chinese literature,but also an important component of traditional Chinese culture.The Chinese ancient novels contain ethics,social ideals,life experience,and aesthetic pursuit.It took more than 2000 years to precipitate into the basic connotation of Chinese local culture.The China it describes is the cultural China corresponding to the real China.Although most of the content it describes is from the virtual,it is still active in Chinese life and thought.Therefore,we should fully explore and study it.This article starts with the meaning of the term"novel"in ancient China,and combines the relationship between various historical periods and novels in ancient China to sort out the outline of the evolution of ancient Chinese novels and important works in each stage,studying the development,evolution,and even maturity of ancient Chinese novels.