Chapter 5 A wrong history

When Mr. Hu Shizhi wrote the introduction to "History of Vernacular Literature", he used a very old method of planning articles.He wrote: Then, Hu Shi warned his disciples and taught him to find the literature of "unworthy children".And he gave evidence: when Wu Rulun, Ma Qichang, and Lin Shu were trying to be Fang Bao and Yao Nai's "Xiaozi", Li Boyuan was writing, Liu E was writing, and Wu Jianren was writing.Pushing forward, when Fang Bao and Yao Nai were writing Han Yu and Ouyang Xiu's "Xiao Zi", Wu Jingzi was writing, and Cao Xueqin was writing.Pushing it forward, when Li Mengyang and He Jingming of the Ming Dynasty tried their best to imitate the Qin and Han Dynasties, and Tang Shunzhi and Gui Youguang tried their best to restore the Tang and Song Dynasties, they also came out and came out.Therefore, Hu Shi concluded with his disciple: "Is there no literature that represents the times in the history of Chinese literature? But we should not look for it in the 'traditional history of ancient Chinese', but in the 'unworthy' literature slanted sideways. Find it here. Because it doesn’t respect the ancients, it can represent the present.”

Read this introduction with a shallow eye, and it is easy to read the meaning of "anti".After all, "every age has its own literature", if you always follow the footsteps of the ancients, you can't go against it. How can you "break through the tradition"?And how to "represent the times"?This is not to blame for Hu Shi, but because the matter of rebellion is too attractive and superficial.Didn't Wang Guowei say that back then? ——"The literary style has been popular for a long time, and there are many fingers. Although heroes cannot establish their own ears." In every era, there are many heroes who stand sideways and cannot "establish their ears" in the literary system that the predecessors have been involved in for a long time. ", so it became strange, so it was funny, so it rebelled.It is a pity that going sideways does not necessarily make a hero. In this regard, Hu Shi's accusation of "Xiaozi Xiaosun" is certainly more than enough, but it is obviously not enough to declare "unworthy".

Those who like to read and write novels should be sympathetic to Hu Shi's "pull" many novelists in the Ming and Qing Dynasties to the same or even higher status than the ancient writers.Although Hu Shi's "History of Vernacular Literature" only wrote the Yuan and Bai poems in the middle Tang Dynasty and then stopped abruptly, it did not explain at all from the novel: how Chinese literature "forever broke away from the old path of blind natural evolution and embarked on the A new way of intentional creation".However, nearly 70 years after the completion of "History of Vernacular Literature", Hu Shi's opinions and even the invention of many textual researches and concepts should not be regarded as "praising novels" and "flattering the contemporary".If the topics he touches on are not further discovered and developed, people who like to read and write novels will probably "never" understand: from Shi Naian to Wu Jianren, how did Han, Liu, Ou, and Su go sideways? Apart from Fang Bao, Yao Nai, Wu Rulun, and Lin Shu, who eventually became heroes?Even before Shi Naian, how many heroes who wrote novels without using the vernacular of "I write by my own mouth" have never been favored by Hu Shi and other masters of the vernacular movement?And how many rotten Confucian antiques who seem to be "the original Taoist scriptures, the sages and sages of the law" have actually written novels, but because of their own contempt and ignorance of novels, and the descendants they influenced have followed suit. Contempt and ignorance of novels, so that novels are reduced to "a kind" of literature, "a style" of literature, or even "a project" in vernacular literature?

At the beginning of the 20th century, scholars influenced by the history of Western literature wrote their own histories for Chinese literature one after another. The novel was not only regarded as a kind, a style, and an item of literature, but also had its own significance under the digging of many sources. It is far from ancient genealogy.However, most of these historians pre-existed some kind of view that the theory of evolution is also the theory of progress, and they often designed a set of tone of "coming out later and becoming better" when tracing back to the source.On the one hand, they believe that Chinese novels "have been around for a long time"; don't you see that the life experiences, imaginations, curious reactions and explanations of many "primitive people" in ancient myths have been passed down from generation to generation? Yet?On the other hand, they believe that these ancient myths and traditions are only the "rudiments" of real novels in the future; as if novels are like animals and plants, they have their embryonic, gestating, birth, growth, growth, and aging stages , and even the date of death is unexpected but will come soon.

The history of fiction is like a nursery rhyme, "Calendar, calendar, tear off a page a day", it is something I can hardly imagine.Hu Shi likes to use evolutionary terms to refer to the development of novels, which also disturbs me.The history of novels does not necessarily (or even necessarily) follow the theory of evolution of "come out later and become better", and the origin of novels does not necessarily (or even necessarily) return to "less mature" The early people of ancient times.The emergence and development of novels may be random, jumping, stagnating and degenerating, silent for thousands of years, and sprouting vigorously and violently.Novelists of different ages are fortunate enough to reveal a new view of the human condition and find a unique form for expressing this view. This novelist becomes the origin of the art of fiction—whether he was born three thousand years ago or five years ago. A hundred years later, no matter which "current world" he represents, and no matter whether he is "good or bad", and no matter what tradition he inherits from or sidelines.

When Hu Shi wrote the introduction to "History of Vernacular Literature", he actually imitated an ancient tradition.He wrote: "A student came to ask me the day before yesterday." Two days before writing this introduction, did a student (character) really come to ask (action) Hu Shi?This cannot be verified by anyone.Even if there is such a person, such a visit, such a question and such an answer, did it really happen "the day before yesterday" when Hu Shi wrote this introduction?This is also impossible for anyone to verify.However, this question and answer cannot happen on "today" or "yesterday", because it is too close and it seems too coincidental.It also cannot happen a few days or months ago, because it is too far away, and it is difficult for the person involved, Hu Shi, to convince his readers that the conversation that happened so long ago was recorded in such detail.So "the day before yesterday", exactly.

Hu Shi rebelled against the ancients for most of his life, but he never got rid of the palms of the ancients.His paragraph "A student came to me the day before yesterday asked me... I answered..." is the most adept and most commonly used method of setting questions and answers in the pre-Qin period. It is also because it is always regarded as The fictitious means of "the embryonic form of the real novel" in the future. One of the prototype novels most often cited by the literary historians of the prototype school is the story of "the people of Qi are proud of their wives and concubines".This story is separated from "Mencius Lilou Zhangju Xia", as if it has an independent identity, because it is a complete story, and it can easily show the intention of satirizing human nature and hypocrisy. Literary historians hold this story with pride. The people of the country said: Such excellent short stories appeared in China more than two thousand years ago.

The conclusion seems to be right—at least for the Chinese who have been frustrated by the progress of civilization and lagging behind the Western world for a long time, there are ancient cultural crafts that are indeed very precious; The premature wisdom of Yan Wuguo's novels, on the contrary, has lost the connection between Mencius, a "novelist", his "works" and the world that Mencius, a debater, faced at that time. The story of Qi people is very popular.It tells the story of a husband who eats and drinks outside all day long, and when he returns home, he brags about how he has made riches and nobles, which makes his monogamous and concubine suspicious. Also (where did the husband go)".As a result, the whereabouts of the Naqi man became clear: he just went to the cemetery outside the east city every day to beg for some leftover wine and meat for sacrifices.When the wives and concubines learned the truth, they hugged each other and cried, but the husband didn't know it, and he still returned home triumphantly, "proud of his wife and concubine".

However, this story originally had another head and tail that was cut off by the literary historians of the embryonic school.It turned out that a man named Chu Zi came to tell Mencius: "The king envoy, Master, is it really different from others (the King of Qi sent someone to secretly spy on Master, to see if you really look different from ordinary people)?" Mencius He replied: "Why are they different from humans? Yao and Shun have the same ears as humans. (What is so different from ordinary people? Aren't Yao and Shun also like ordinary people?)" After finishing this paragraph, Mencius deliberately made a peace The stories related to the word "►" are used to laugh at oneself—Mencius is the object of voyeurism, and the situation of being voyeurized but actually having nothing to voyeurize is fictitious in jokes and humor by the Qi people who are "proud of their wives and concubines".As for the voyeur, it is Mencius's self-deprecating and mocking joke: in the story, they are wives and concubines, but in reality they are the envoy of King Qi and King Qi.After making enough jokes, Mencius didn't take his place, but cleverly derived another set of truths to cover up the joke. He said: "From the perspective of a gentleman (using the eyes of a superior), the reason why people seek Those who are rich and powerful (then those who seek wealth and high fortune), the wives and concubines are not ashamed and do not cry! (I am afraid that there are very few wives and concubines who do not cry because of shame!)”

If the story of "Qi people are proud of their wives and concubines" is regarded as one of the origins of Chinese short stories, the allegory in the story cannot be extended beyond the story, linking Mencius and the king of Qi, Mencius and the Warring States period in which he lived If the tradition of vertical and horizontal discourse among the princes is combined, the text that will inevitably become dull after the separation is only a prototype, and it is a deformed prototype.In fact, among the pre-Qin philosophers' questions and answers, the novel has never left the atmosphere and function of debate, and it should not be cut off by short-sighted literary historians to use it It fits the vulgar appearance of modern western short stories.The origin was opened by Mencius, but was thrown into the toilet by Hu Shi and other vernacular athletes.

The world of novels fused with eloquence, jokes, absurd stories, allegories, and language games is enough to make the masters of Chinese studies heartbroken. "Debate Handbook" can also be a novel in addition to "the road of Jingguo and the promotion of education without publication".On the one hand, the historians of literature in modern times are still eager to carve the boat of Western literary terms in order to find the sword of the origin of Chinese novels; on the other hand, they dare not believe that the history of novels cannot be imitated by any linear analogy.So I couldn't help sighing, imitating Hu Shi's tone and saying: You have read the history of novels wrong, so you think that Chinese novels can only originate from myths, and ancient novels can only be regarded as the embryonic form of later novels.In fact, the "history of literature" you read is just "history of literature and law".In this "History of Literature and Law", only the writers and works of previous dynasties and subsequent generations are lined up, and many of them have been given the wrong place.In this "history of literature and law", there is no seat for Mencius.The old man said with emotion: "Is it easy to argue? I have no choice." Mencius's works have been "►" for two thousand years, but there is still "►" why, so he cried.