龚鹏程x浦安迪｜明清中国人识字率及文学欣赏水平远胜欧洲

龚鹏程对话海外学者第一百零四期：在后现代情境中，被技术统治的人类社会，只有强化交谈、重建沟通伦理，才能获得文化新生的力量。这不是谁的理论，而是每个人都应实践的活动。龚鹏程先生遊走世界，并曾主持过“世界汉学研究中心”。我们会陆续推出“龚鹏程对话海外学者”系列文章，请他对话一些学界有意义的灵魂。范围不局限于汉学，会涉及多种学科。以期深山长谷之水，四面而出。

浦安迪教授（Professor Andrew Plaks）

世界著名汉学家，普林斯顿大学中国文学和比较文学教授。

龚鹏程教授：您好。您研究明清时期的 "经典"小说，成果丰硕。但这些早期也称为"通俗 "小说的作品，是如何经典化的？

浦安迪教授：龚教授，您好。为了解决明清中国的"经典"与 "通俗"小说的问题，有必要对两种不同的文化现象进行明确区分。

一方面，我们有一个非常活跃的传统，即所谓的通俗叙事文学，通过口头故事、专业讲述和大众舞台等方式为广大社会所知。

但是，当我们谈到古典小说时，我们指的是范围更窄的文学文本，包括所谓的"四大奇书"。《三国演义》、《水浒传》、《西游记》和《金瓶梅》，其最完整的版本主要产生于16世纪中期至17世纪初，加上18世纪中期的伟大作品《红楼梦》和《儒林外史》。

《三国》、《水浒》和《西游记》的基本英雄和娱乐性叙事通过简化的印刷和口头版本在中国广为人知，但这些与它们最完整版本的复杂结构、美学和修辞模式以及语言上的卓越性相去甚远——而且，有趣的是《金瓶梅》、《红楼梦》和《儒林外史》除了某些借用的段落和后来的衍生版本外，无法与任何流行叙事传统相联系。

从本质上讲，经典小说中的"通俗 "一词更多地是指使用某种形式的汉语口语作为叙述的基本媒介（当然还有对话），而不是指一种广泛的文化环境。即使在《三国演义》中也是如此，它完全是用古典成语创作的，但比大多数廉价流行版本中的简化文言文要高级得多。事实上，将所谓的 "文言文 "发展成一种复杂的表达媒介，是明清古典小说的主要成就之一。

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 红楼梦 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.

龚鹏程教授：中国传统的批评方法和当代叙事理论，能在说明这些"通俗"小说具有经典价值时互相补益吗？

浦安迪教授：关于中国古典小说的传统批评写作有两种主要形式。首先，存在大量由主要文学家在个人信件中对主要文本的非正式讨论，这些信件包括在其文集中的笔记和其他文段中，他们在这些信件中对自己喜欢的文本进行了随意的评论或表达了更多的想法。

在某些情况下，如李贽和袁宏道的著作，我们在他们对《水浒传》和《金瓶梅》等作品的赞美中感受到一种反文化的挑衅声音。

与比较叙事理论的问题更相关的是，我们有另一种形式的本土"批评"，即在经典小说的最佳版本中，经常附有极其丰富的文本评论，特别是毛宗岗对《三国》的评论、金圣叹对《水浒》的评论、张竹坡对《金瓶梅》的评论，更不用说《红楼梦》最早的手稿中脂砚斋的宝贵旁注了。

在这些批评评论与当代叙事理论之间的交集中，最引人注目的是中国评论家对小说作品中散文美学模式分析的特别关注，他们从古文散文的批评中改编了许多现有术语。他们坚持将小说文本解读为复杂的文学结构，其结构和修辞模式体现了思想层面上更深层次的意义模式——通常是具有颠覆性、讽刺性的思想——这为将"novel "这一外国术语应用于中国文学体裁提供了主要理由，而不是常用的 "小说 "这一误导性的简单标签。

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 李贽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 毛宗岗 on Sanguo, Jin Shengtan 金圣叹 on Shuihu and Zhang Zhupo 张竹坡 on Jin Ping Mei –not to mention the invaluable insights of the Zhiyanzhai 脂砚斋 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.

龚鹏程教授：传统上，通俗小说，如其名称，应该代表了社会通俗大众的生活与思想。可是您却非常强调它们可以体现明清文人文化的复杂审美和思想表达，为什么？

浦安迪教授：通俗小说一词，意味着明清主要小说在表达"通俗 "文化的经验和价值观方面的主要亲和力，这与 "文人士大夫 "阶层的高雅放纵和自命不凡相对立。

但在评估这些作品的文化意义时，有两点是很重要的。

首先，可以肯定的是，这些书的读者比文学精英本身更广泛，因为在明清中国的商人阶层和其他人中，实用识字——甚至达到文学欣赏的水平——远比在当时欧洲更普遍，而且现有的宗族结构，使得接受教育和为考试制度做准备的机会比人们通常认为的更广泛。

另一方面，主要文本的最完整版本，通常以昂贵的木刻版流通。更重要的是，它们充满了博学的表达方式和文学典故，似乎是针对修养水平较高的读者。因此，需要一定程度的文学修养才能理解。《三国演义》是对三国时期历史人物的批判性重新评估，《水浒传》对以自我利益为目的的权力斗争的暴力过度行为提出了黑暗的看法，100章的《西游记》将佛教和道教启蒙哲学的深刻寓意强加于其通俗叙事之上，甚至《金瓶梅》也在其对残酷和腐败的肮脏揭露中反映了对空色辩证法的严肃沉思。《红楼梦》和《儒林外史》的作者运用了多种文学手段来表达他们对人类状况的看法，这远远超出了一个感性的爱情故事或对社会腐败的严厉讽刺。

正是由于这个原因，我创造了"文人小说 "一词来描述这种非常特殊的前现代中文叙事模式。

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.

龚鹏程教授：我记得有人形容您，说您早期做小说研究，后来转向思想，对《中庸》和《大学》进行了新的评论和诠释性翻译。但对《中庸》和《大学》的关注，似乎正是明清通俗小说评论的特色。您能针对这一点做些阐述吗？

浦安迪教授：我之所以关注儒家 "四书"，特别是《大学》和《中庸》，认为它们是构成明清中国 "文人小说 "的思想基础的核心学说，是因为这些著作在经典小说的主要读者群的世界观和价值体系中具有无可比拟的中心地位。

从宋元时期开始，特别是在明清时期，文人的意识和身份是通过一个教育过程形成的：首先是掌握文本本身，逐渐进入权威的评论，然后进入基于作文的考试系统，其主题几乎完全来自这些文本。

这里需要指出的是，所谓的"八股文"，尽管从晚清开始就被认为是腐败制度核心的无用功，但在最好的情况下，却深刻地展示了作者清晰的思想和表达能力——正如当时一些领先的知识分子所写的范文中所体现的。

“四书”本身也有一个常见的误解，因为在粗略的阅读中，它们似乎只不过是儒家道德陈词滥调的串联而已。但是，在中世纪和晚期中国的一些主要思想家，如李翱、朱熹、王阳明、王夫之等人的大量评论指导下，对这些文本的更深入的研究带出了新儒家思想中关于自我修养和实现人的先天性等问题的最深层思考——这些问题在主要小说评论家的解释分析中经常得到反映，有时还被明确提及（例如金圣叹对《水浒传》的长篇评论）。

My focus on the Confucian“Four Books”, and the Daxue 大学 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 王阳明, 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.

龚鹏程，1956年生于台北，台湾师范大学博士，当代著名学者和思想家。著作已出版一百五十多本。

办有大学、出版社、杂志社、书院等，并规划城市建设、主题园区等多处。讲学于世界各地。并在北京、上海、杭州、台北、巴黎、日本、澳门等地举办过书法展。现为中国孔子博物馆名誉馆长、美国龚鹏程基金会主席。