龔鵬程x浦安迪｜明清中國人識字率及文學欣賞水平遠勝歐洲

龔鵬程對話海外學者第一百零四期：在后現代情境中，被技術統治的人類社會，只有強化交談、重建溝通倫理，才能獲得文化新生的力量。這不是誰的理論，而是每個人都應實踐的活動。龔鵬程先生遊走世界，并曾主持過“世界漢學研究中心”。我們會陸續推出“龔鵬程對話海外學者”系列文章，請他對話一些學界有意義的靈魂。范圍不局限于漢學，會涉及多種學科。以期深山長谷之水，四面而出。

浦安迪教授（Professor Andrew Plaks）

世界著名漢學家，普林斯頓大學中國文學和比較文學教授。

龔鵬程教授：您好。您研究明清時期的 "經典"小說，成果豐碩。但這些早期也稱為"通俗 "小說的作品，是如何經典化的？

浦安迪教授：龔教授，您好。為了解決明清中國的"經典"與 "通俗"小說的問題，有必要對兩種不同的文化現象進行明確區分。

一方面，我們有一個非常活躍的傳統，即所謂的通俗敘事文學，通過口頭故事、專業講述和大眾舞臺等方式為廣大社會所知。

但是，當我們談到古典小說時，我們指的是范圍更窄的文學文本，包括所謂的"四大奇書"。《三國演義》、《水滸傳》、《西游記》和《金瓶梅》，其最完整的版本主要產生于16世紀中期至17世紀初，加上18世紀中期的偉大作品《紅樓夢》和《儒林外史》。

《三國》、《水滸》和《西游記》的基本英雄和娛樂性敘事通過簡化的印刷和口頭版本在中國廣為人知，但這些與它們最完整版本的復雜結構、美學和修辭模式以及語言上的卓越性相去甚遠——而且，有趣的是《金瓶梅》、《紅樓夢》和《儒林外史》除了某些借用的段落和后來的衍生版本外，無法與任何流行敘事傳統相聯系。

從本質上講，經典小說中的"通俗 "一詞更多地是指使用某種形式的漢語口語作為敘述的基本媒介（當然還有對話），而不是指一種廣泛的文化環境。即使在《三國演義》中也是如此，它完全是用古典成語創作的，但比大多數廉價流行版本中的簡化文言文要高級得多。事實上，將所謂的 "文言文 "發展成一種復雜的表達媒介，是明清古典小說的主要成就之一。

In order to address the issue of “classic” versus “popular” novels in Ming-Qing China, it is necessary to make a very clear distinction between two separate cultural phenomena. On the one hand, we have a very vibrantongoing tradition of what is called tongsu narrative literature known to the society at large through oral tales, professional storytelling, and the popular stage, etc.. But when we speak of the classic novels we are referring to a much narrower group of literary texts including the so-called “four masterworks” Sanguozhi yanyi, Shuihu zhuan, Xiyouji and Jin Ping Mei, whose fullest recensions were produced primarily from the mid-16th to the early 17th century, plus the great works Hongloumeng 紅樓夢 and Rulinwaishi 儒林外史 in the mid-18th Century. The basic heroic and entertaining narratives of Sanguo, Shuihu and Xiyou are universally known in China through simplified printed and oral versions, but these are a very far cry from the structural complexity, aesthetic and rhetorical patterns and linguistic excellence of their fullest editions – and, interestingly Jin Ping Mei, Hougloumeng and Rulinwaishi cannot be linked to any popular narrative traditions, except in certain borrowed passages and later spin-off versions. Essentially, the term tongsu with respect to the classic novels refers more to the use of a form of colloquial Chinese as their basic medium of narration (and of course in dialogue), than to a broad-based cultural milieu. This is true even in Sanguo yanyi, which is composed entirely in the classical idiom, but at a much higher linguistic register than the simplified wenyan of most cheap popular versions. In fact, it is the development of what is termed “literary vernacular” Chinese into a sophisticated medium of expression that represents one of the primary achievements of the Ming-Qing classic novels.

龔鵬程教授：中國傳統的批評方法和當代敘事理論，能在說明這些"通俗"小說具有經典價值時互相補益嗎？

浦安迪教授：關于中國古典小說的傳統批評寫作有兩種主要形式。首先，存在大量由主要文學家在個人信件中對主要文本的非正式討論，這些信件包括在其文集中的筆記和其他文段中，他們在這些信件中對自己喜歡的文本進行了隨意的評論或表達了更多的想法。

在某些情況下，如李贄和袁宏道的著作，我們在他們對《水滸傳》和《金瓶梅》等作品的贊美中感受到一種反文化的挑釁聲音。

與比較敘事理論的問題更相關的是，我們有另一種形式的本土"批評"，即在經典小說的最佳版本中，經常附有極其豐富的文本評論，特別是毛宗崗對《三國》的評論、金圣嘆對《水滸》的評論、張竹坡對《金瓶梅》的評論，更不用說《紅樓夢》最早的手稿中脂硯齋的寶貴旁注了。

在這些批評評論與當代敘事理論之間的交集中，最引人注目的是中國評論家對小說作品中散文美學模式分析的特別關注，他們從古文散文的批評中改編了許多現有術語。他們堅持將小說文本解讀為復雜的文學結構，其結構和修辭模式體現了思想層面上更深層次的意義模式——通常是具有顛覆性、諷刺性的思想——這為將"novel "這一外國術語應用于中國文學體裁提供了主要理由，而不是常用的 "小說 "這一誤導性的簡單標簽。

The traditional critical writings on the classic Chinese novel appear in two major forms. First, there exists a large corpus of informal discussions of the primary texts byleading literary figures in personal letters, entries in biji jottings, and other passages included in their collected writings in which they exchange casual remarks or more extended ideas about their favorite texts. In some cases, such as the writings of Li Zhi 李贄and Yuan Hongdao 袁宏道, we sense a defiant voice of counter-culture in their praise for works such as Shuihuzhuan and Jin Ping Mei. More relevant to the issue of comparative narrative theory, we have another form of native “criticism”, that is: the extremely rich body of textual commentaries regularly attached to the best editions of the classic novels, especially those by Mao Zonggang 毛宗崗 on Sanguo, Jin Shengtan 金圣嘆 on Shuihu and Zhang Zhupo 張竹坡 on Jin Ping Mei –not to mention the invaluable insights of the Zhiyanzhai 脂硯齋 marginal comments in the earliest manuscripts of Hongloumeng. The intersection between these critical commentaries and contemporary narrative theory is most striking in the special attention paid by the Chinese commentators to analysis of patterns of prose aesthethics in the fictional works, adapting much of the existing terminology from the criticism of guwen prose. Their insistence on reading the novel texts as complex literary constructs whose structural and rhetorical patterns embody deeper patterns of meaning at the level of ideas – often ideas of a subversive, ironic nature – provides the primary justification for applying the foreign term “novel” to the Chinese literary genre, as opposed to the misleadingly simple label of “fiction”in common usage.

龔鵬程教授：傳統上，通俗小說，如其名稱，應該代表了社會通俗大眾的生活與思想。可是您卻非常強調它們可以體現明清文人文化的復雜審美和思想表達，為什么？

浦安迪教授：通俗小說一詞，意味著明清主要小說在表達"通俗 "文化的經驗和價值觀方面的主要親和力，這與 "文人士大夫 "階層的高雅放縱和自命不凡相對立。

但在評估這些作品的文化意義時，有兩點是很重要的。

首先，可以肯定的是，這些書的讀者比文學精英本身更廣泛，因為在明清中國的商人階層和其他人中，實用識字——甚至達到文學欣賞的水平——遠比在當時歐洲更普遍，而且現有的宗族結構，使得接受教育和為考試制度做準備的機會比人們通常認為的更廣泛。

另一方面，主要文本的最完整版本，通常以昂貴的木刻版流通。更重要的是，它們充滿了博學的表達方式和文學典故，似乎是針對修養水平較高的讀者。因此，需要一定程度的文學修養才能理解。《三國演義》是對三國時期歷史人物的批判性重新評估，《水滸傳》對以自我利益為目的的權力斗爭的暴力過度行為提出了黑暗的看法，100章的《西游記》將佛教和道教啟蒙哲學的深刻寓意強加于其通俗敘事之上，甚至《金瓶梅》也在其對殘酷和腐敗的骯臟揭露中反映了對空色辯證法的嚴肅沉思。《紅樓夢》和《儒林外史》的作者運用了多種文學手段來表達他們對人類狀況的看法，這遠遠超出了一個感性的愛情故事或對社會腐敗的嚴厲諷刺。

正是由于這個原因，我創造了"文人小說 "一詞來描述這種非常特殊的前現代中文敘事模式。

The term tongsu xiaoshuo implies a primary affinity of the major Ming-Qing novels with expressing the experience andvalues of “popular” culture, this as opposed to the refined indulgences and pretensions of the “scholar-official” class. But in assessing the cultural significance of these works, it is important to make two essential points. First, the audience for these books was, to be sure, broader than the literary elite per se, since functional literacy – even to the level of literary appreciation – was far more diffused among the merchant class and others in Ming-Qing China than it was in contemporary Europe, and the existing clan structure made access to education and preparation for the examination system more widespread than is often assumed. On the other hand, the fullest recensions of the major texts were often circulated in expensive woodblock editions, and more important, were replete with erudite expressions and literary allusions that seemed directed toward readers of higher levels of cultivation. And so, it would take a degree of literary sophistication to grasp that Sangui yanyi is a critical reassessment of the historical figures of the Three Kingdoms period, that Shuihuzhuan presents a dark view of violent excesses in the name of self-serving power struggles, that the 100-chapter Xiyouji imposes on its popular quest-narrative a profound allegorical layer of Buddhist and Daoist philosophy of enlightenment, and even Jin Ping Mei reflects in its sordid expose of cruelty and corruption a very serious meditation on the dialectics of emptiness and illusion. And the authors of Hongluo meng and Rulinwaishi exercise a wide range of literary devices to convey their vision of the human condition that goes far beyond a sentimental love story or a scathing satire on societal corruption. It is for this reason that I have coined the term “literati novel”to describe this very special mode of pre-modern Chinese narrative.

龔鵬程教授：我記得有人形容您，說您早期做小說研究，后來轉向思想，對《中庸》和《大學》進行了新的評論和詮釋性翻譯。但對《中庸》和《大學》的關注，似乎正是明清通俗小說評論的特色。您能針對這一點做些闡述嗎？

浦安迪教授：我之所以關注儒家 "四書"，特別是《大學》和《中庸》，認為它們是構成明清中國 "文人小說 "的思想基礎的核心學說，是因為這些著作在經典小說的主要讀者群的世界觀和價值體系中具有無可比擬的中心地位。

從宋元時期開始，特別是在明清時期，文人的意識和身份是通過一個教育過程形成的：首先是掌握文本本身，逐漸進入權威的評論，然后進入基于作文的考試系統，其主題幾乎完全來自這些文本。

這里需要指出的是，所謂的"八股文"，盡管從晚清開始就被認為是腐敗制度核心的無用功，但在最好的情況下，卻深刻地展示了作者清晰的思想和表達能力——正如當時一些領先的知識分子所寫的范文中所體現的。

“四書”本身也有一個常見的誤解，因為在粗略的閱讀中，它們似乎只不過是儒家道德陳詞濫調的串聯而已。但是，在中世紀和晚期中國的一些主要思想家，如李翱、朱熹、王陽明、王夫之等人的大量評論指導下，對這些文本的更深入的研究帶出了新儒家思想中關于自我修養和實現人的先天性等問題的最深層思考——這些問題在主要小說評論家的解釋分析中經常得到反映，有時還被明確提及（例如金圣嘆對《水滸傳》的長篇評論）。

My focus on the Confucian“Four Books”, and the Daxue 大學 and Zhongyong 中庸 in particular, as the core teachings that form the intellectual underpinnings of the “literati novel” in Ming-Qing China, is based on the unparalleled centrality of these writings underlying the world view and value system of the members of the audience for whom the classic novels were primarily intended. From Song-Yuan times on, and especially during the Ming and Qing, the consciousness and identity of the literati were formed through a process of education beginning with mastering the texts themselves, gradual plunging into the authoritative commentaries, then moving on to the examination system based on the composition of essays drawing its topics almost exclusively from these texts. It needs to be pointed out here that the so-called “eight-legged essays”, despite their reputation, from late-Qing on, as sterile exercises at the heart of a corrupt system, were, at their best, a profound demonstration of the writer’s lucidity of thought and expression – as exemplified in model pieces written by some of the leading intellectuals of the time. The Four Books themselves are also subject to a common misperception, since in a cursory reading they may seem to be little more than a stringing together of Confucian moral platitudes. But a more profound study of these texts, guided by the extensive commentaries of some of the leading thinkers of medieval and late-Imperial China, men like Li Ao 李翱, Zhu Xi 朱熹, Wang Yangming 王陽明, Wang Fu 王夫之 and the like, brings out the deepest layers of Neo-Confucian thought regarding such issues as self-cultivation and realization of one’s inborn nature – issues that are often reflected and occasionally explicitly referenced (for example in long chapter-comments by Jin Shengtan on Shuihuzhuan) in the interpretive analyses of the major fiction commentators.

龔鵬程，1956年生于臺北，臺灣師范大學博士，當代著名學者和思想家。著作已出版一百五十多本。

辦有大學、出版社、雜志社、書院等，并規劃城市建設、主題園區等多處。講學于世界各地。并在北京、上海、杭州、臺北、巴黎、日本、澳門等地舉辦過書法展。現為中國孔子博物館名譽館長、美國龔鵬程基金會主席。