Chapter 35 Using the Historical Evolution Method to Test the Novel

An important and outstanding aspect of Hu Shi's sorting out the national heritage is textual research novels. ① In China, novels have never been considered literature; the study of novels has never been considered scholarship.Under the eyes of contempt and contempt, although the creation of novels has also grown in twists and turns, and many excellent works worthy of the forest of world literature have appeared, but the study of novels has long been neglected.During the Ming and Qing dynasties, novel criticism with preface, postscript and commentary as the main form has made great progress, while Li Zhi and Jin Shengtan were still regarded as heretics by the rulers and orthodox literati.In the late Qing Dynasty, Liang Qichao attached great importance to novels, and many monographs raised the status of novels as "the best literature";

② But they mainly focus on using novels to serve reformed politics.It was only from Hu Shi that the textual research and research of novels was truly regarded as the subject of academic research and an important content of sorting out the national heritage, thus raising its status on an equal footing with traditional Confucian classics and historiography. In the early days of the Literary Revolution, Hu Shi highlighted the "authentic" status of several traditional vernacular novels in the history of Chinese literature, pointing out that they were popular with the masses and sold for hundreds of years, making a major contribution to the popularization of vernacular.In order to promote the vernacular movement, Hu Shi also urged and assisted the Yadong Library in Shanghai to publish several classic Chinese traditional novels that they "sorted out".This "organized book" is the famous Yadong version of the new punctuated vernacular novels.There are two kinds of paperback and hardcover, all in 32 carats, a decorative pattern of a torch is printed on the cover, and the advertisement says "literature representing the spirit of an era".The so-called "organization" has three characteristics: one is to add new punctuation marks, the other is to print the text in sections, and the third is to have a newly written preface, introduction or textual research before the main text.The first thing they printed was, ③Wang Yuan put the punctuation, and Hu Shi did the textual research.This is the official opening of Hu Shi's textual research novels.

His "Water Margin Textual Research" is extraordinary as soon as he makes a move.Although it inevitably has some mistakes, the most important thing is that it provides a new method for the textual research and research of Chinese traditional novels.This is the "historical evolution method".Hu Shi believes that traditional Chinese novels can be divided into two categories, one is "novels gradually evolved from history" and is representative; the other is "creative novels" and is representative.The first type of novels have been circulated for hundreds of years. At first, most of them were popular stories, narrated by storytellers or ancient speakers, adapted and rewritten, and evolved over a long period of time. Finally, they were written in the present form.therefore,--

For these novels, we must use the historical evolution method to collect their various early versions to find out how they gradually evolved from some simple original stories to later literary masterpieces. ④ Hu Shi used the method of historical evolution to examine the spread, evolution and writing process of stories, from the "Song Jiang Stories" circulated among the people in the Southern Song Dynasty, to Gong Kai's "Thirty-Six People Praise of Song Jiang" and "Xuan He Sui Shi" in the Song and Yuan Dynasties. , the "Water Margin Opera" of the Yuan Dynasty, and later the literati sorted out additions and deletions, and created one hundred and eight generals. They made a systematic historical research and outlined the basic outline of the evolution into a book.

His conclusion is: It didn't fall from mid-air in the blue sky, but the crystallization of the "Liangshan Po story" of four hundred years from the early Southern Song Dynasty (early 12th century) to the middle of Ming Dynasty (the end of the 15th century). ⑤ Looking at it today, it is generally good to examine it from the perspective of this historical evolution.But when Hu Shi wrote this textual research, he only saw the 71-back edition that was popular on the market, and he had never seen many other editions.Therefore, his specific conclusion is inevitably wrong.The most prominent mistake was that he fell into the trap of Jin Shengtan, thinking that there really was a kind of ancient edition with 70 chapters in the middle of the Ming Dynasty.Later, Hu Shi successively collected a hundred chapters, a hundred fifteen chapters, a hundred and twenty chapters, a hundred and twenty-four chapters, a hundred and ten chapters and many other books.Based on the similarities and differences in the contents of these many different versions, he continued to research, and wrote "Outlaws of the Marsh" and "One Hundred and Twenty Chapters of Loyalty and Water Margin Preface", drawing on the reasonable opinions of Lu Xun and others, and correcting some of his original opinions. The mistakes and imperfections enriched the results of his textual research, and also perfected the "historical evolution method" of his textual research novels.

The historical evolution method used by Hu Shi is of universal value for the study of novels that "evolved gradually from history".He later used this method to research novels such as Romance of the Three Kingdoms, , , and so on, and he also succeeded.After his research, "Romance of the Three Kingdoms" was also "not made by one person, but a joint work of five hundred years of novelists", "it evolved from the change of the "story book" of "Shuo Sanfen" since the Song Dynasty"; ⑥It also "has a history of five or six hundred years of evolution" and "originated from folk legends and myths". ⑦As for the story of Concubine Li Chen in Zhongzhong, it has gradually evolved from the five or six hundred characters in the original "Song History? Concubine Biography" to a large book and a series of dozens of plays after eight or nine hundred years.Based on this, Hu Shi summed up a "snowball" theory, saying:

We can learn a good lesson by looking at the history of the changes and evolution of this story in the past 900 years.The growth of the legend is like a snowball, getting bigger and bigger. At first, there is only a simple story as the central "motif".Afterwards, through the legends of many people, the interpretation of Pinghua writers, the tailoring structure of dramatists, and the embellishment of novelists, the story changed day by day: the content became richer, the plot became more refined and complete, and the twists and turns became more complicated. , the characters are more animated. ⑧

Hu Shi mentioned the role of folklore and popular writers in the writing process of these famous literary works, which is undoubtedly a very correct and profound insight.And the "snowball" theory explained his "historical evolution method" more clearly, more perfect, and more visualized.This method can really be said to have played the role of "opening a new path" in the study of Chinese classical novels. ①Hu Shi said in his oral autobiography: "From 1920 to 1933, in just 14 years, I wrote roughly 300,000 words for 12 traditional novels in different ways such as 'preface' and 'introduction' [ Textual research article]." (See "Hu Shi's Oral Autobiography", Chinese translation by Tang Degang, Taipei Biographical Literature Publishing House, March 1981 edition, p. 194)

According to the materials collected by the author, from the "Resend Chen Duxiu to Answer Qian Xuantong" in May 1917 to the "Last Letter on the Dream of Red Mansions" written four days before his death in February 1962, in the 45 years before and after Hu Shi's traditional Chinese There are 46 textual research articles, letters and papers on novels, with a total of more than 450,000 words, and more than 20 kinds of novels are discussed.It has been compiled into the book "Hu Shi's Comments on Chinese Classical Novels", published by Changjiang Literature and Art Publishing House.In the preface of the book, Hu Shi’s novels are evaluated as follows:

These articles discussed more than 20 kinds of works, collected a large amount of materials, put forward many bold opinions, and provided a new research method; most importantly, he regarded the textual research and research of novels as a The subject of a scholarly study, mentioning the status of equal status with traditional Confucian classics and historiography.It should be said that Hu Shi's novel textual research has made remarkable achievements, has great academic value, and has relatively great influence. It has played a pioneering and foundational role in creating a new situation in the study of Chinese classical novels.

② Liang Qichao's "On the Relationship between Fiction and Group Governance", see Volume 17 of "Collected Works of Drinking Ice Room". (Third Edition Note) ③In "Water Margin Textual Research" written in July 1920, Hu Shi said: "My friend Wang Yuanfang re-read it with new punctuation marks, and it was printed and published by Shanghai Yadong Library. This is to use new punctuation The first time to reprint an old book." ("Hu Shi Wencun" Shanghai Yadong Library, August 9, 1926, Volume 3, p. 81) When oral history was given in 1857, Hu Shi said: it was 1919" "Appearing with a new attitude——punctuated book" (see pages 236 and 237 of "Hu Shi's Oral Autobiography") seems to have appeared a year earlier than the new style of punctuated book.He himself was clearly inconsistent.According to the investigation, there are 16 kinds of new-style punctuated traditional novels published by Yadong Library.The first is the first edition in August 1920; the second is the first edition in November of the same year; the third is the first edition in May 1921; the fourth is the first edition in December of the same year; ", ",,,,, "Eight Variations of the Song Dynasty", "Marriage of Awakening the World" and "The Twelfth Floor" and so on.The first 14 kinds "all have the sequence or introduction of Mr. Hu Shizhi's textual research". (Chinese language in the bibliographic advertisement of Yadong Library; the bibliography listed in the advertisement is the first 13, in the same order as above) ④ "Hu Shi's Oral Autobiography", p. 194. ⑤ "Water Margin Textual Research", see "Hu Shi Wen Cun" Volume 3, p. 90. ⑥ "Preface to the Romance of the Three Kingdoms", see "Hu Shi Wencun Two Collections", Shanghai Yadong Library, March 6, 1929, Volume 4, pp. 220 and 224. ⑦ "Journey to the West", see pages 72 and 105 of the letter above. ⑧ "Three Heroes and Five Righteous Prefaces", see "Three Collections of Hu Shi's Wencun", Shanghai Yadong Library, June 1931, Edition 3, Volume 6, pp. 685-686.