金聖歎批評《第六才子書西廂記》———傳承、創新與接受

Jin Shengtan’s The Sixth Genius Book: Continuation, Innovation, and Reception

Abstract

LANGUAGE NOTE | Document text in Chinese; abstract also in English.

本文擬將金聖歎評《第六才子書西廂記》放置於古典文論以及朱熹《讀書法》脈絡中，考察金批《西廂》有關創作與閱讀體驗自成一體的理論建樹。金批《西廂》一反傳統的“發憤著書論”以及作者寄身翰墨以期不朽的文化心理，強調古人／作者之不可知，將文本生産與天才作者的英雄人格相剥離，轉而將創作、閱讀主體共同放置於茫茫天地間洶湧萬世的時間潮流中。妙文成爲“普天下萬世錦繡才子”構成的精英讀者群體與聖歎間通過儀式性的情感交流以及“平心斂氣”的身體體驗得以從天下萬世人人心中“偷取”出的公共之寶。如此立論，看似與二十世紀後結構主義的“作者已死”觀念相貫通，實際却植根於十七世紀文人藉木刻本爲公共平臺，對古典文論如陸機《文賦》中靈感生成論的有力補充。其中折射的明清之際文人審美趣味，既承接朱熹以《讀書法》強調身體力行的閱讀功夫以對抗商業印刷業影響下的閱讀功利性以及量化趨向，又展現出晚明醫藥話語和禪、儒合一的專業性知識體系。有趣的是，金批《西廂》中針對閱讀體驗完整的理論體系，在清代的接受史中不敵刻書家、戲曲家對“才子”概念的慣性理解。追溯《第六才子書西廂記》對前人的選擇性繼承以及對後人的影響，呈現出閱讀接受史中種種吊詭與概念挪用。傳承、創新與接受因此而成爲富含張力與生命力的動態過程。

This paper situates Jin Shengtan’s (1608-1661) The Sixth Genius Book: The Western Wing in the context of traditional Chinese literary criticism and discourse on reading, in an attempt to examine Jin’s contribution to the history of reading. In his tremendously popular commentary on the romantic play The Story of the Western Wing, Jin defines the text as an artifact that captures the aesthetics of a single moment, which is utterly unique and unreproducible. Any writer does not possess his text once it materializes into “marvelous writings between heaven and earth” (tiandi miaowen), as these are treasures of talented men whose brilliance of learning renders the patterns of nature as the text’s simulacrum. The present essay examines how Jin uses this definition of the literary text to promote his understanding of reading as a bodily experience that fuses subjective identities of the author, the reader, and the commentator in a virtual community of reader- writers sharing “brocade-like minds” (jinxiu caizi). Jin’s theory of reading shares concerns in Lu Ji’s (261-303) “Poetic Exposition on Literature” and Zhu Xi’s (1130-1200) teachings on the act of reading: Lu Ji’s trenchant awareness of literary precedents and preoccupation with originality on the one hand and Zhu Xi’s wariness of commercialization of knowledge and its fragmentation in the age of printing on the other. Yet The Sixth Genius Book sets itself apart from these precedents with Jin’s evocation of medical and religious discourses that, by the seventeenth century, had become part of a broadly-shared repertoire of professional knowledge. Ultimately, Jin’s The Sixth Genius Book showcases the contested nature of the non-linear dynamics of continuation, innovation, and reception epitomized in his promotion of The Western Wing as a well-recognized cultural icon.