“著書多格言”——論高一志《譬學》及其與中西修辭學傳統的關係

Proverbial Sayings and Late Ming Jesuit Writings: Alfonso Vagnoni's Pixue in the Context of Sino-Western Literary Exchanges

Abstract

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

明末耶穌會士高一志所譯《譬學》係首部傳入中國的歐洲修辭學專著，高氏中譯時所用的底本如今難考，但我們仍可因各種西方古典修辭學專著而窥見其人理論的淵源，更可因中國修辭學而察知《譬學》華化的情況。本文取宋人陳騤的《文則》以資比較，蓋此書可謂古來最完整的修辭學論述，也著稱於有明一朝。在歐洲方面，本文則借重亞里士多德、西塞羅與昆體良等希臘羅馬修辭理論宗匠。《譬學》二卷以“譬”或“喻”的理論及其實踐爲主，特重所謂“聯比”的譬式，亦即所論譬文都以聯語出之。在理論方面，本文所析者爲高一志的《譬學自引》，舉例則多出諸《譬學》正文。在詳析細比之後，本文認爲高譯係“西學爲體，中學爲用”的譯述典型，對清初基督徒的著作影響不小。高一志何以譯述《譬學》？此一問題乃終篇時本文最大考量：本文認爲明末清言盛行，加以歐人多以爲中文乃隱喻性語言，取譬設喻係寫作常態，所以欲行華化，語言上非得借助“譬學”不可。

This paper examines the Pixue 譬學, a book commonly accepted to be the first introduction to European rhetoric in China. The Pixue consists of two juans and was translated by the Jesuit Gao Yizhi 高一志 (Alfonso Vagnoni, 1568? -1640) in the Ming. My primary purpose in this paper is to compare Gao's volume with classical Chinese ideas about rhetoric, especially those expressed in the Song rhetorician Chen Kui’ s 陳騤 (1128-1203) Wenze 文則, a monograph generally considered to be the first complete discourse on rhetoric in imperial China. Since Gao’ s text foregrounds the use of syncrisis in its European sense, my comparison of the two texts focuses on the Chinese idea of pi 譬 or yu 喻 in couplets. I approach Gao’ s text by analyzing it, first of all, against works of Western classical rhetoricians such as Aristotle, Cicero, and Quintilian, and, secondly, against Chen’s highly acclaimed book which was also popular in the Ming. The double comparisons in my paper demonstrate Gao’s great debt not only to European rhetoric but also to traditional Chinese rhetoric in the formation of his theory of syncrisis. For Gao to write his Pixue is no act of happenchance: it displays foreignness in content while embodying Chineseness in form. I conclude my comparison with Pixue's impact on Christian writers in early Qing, and also with Western views of literaty Chinese as a language that is metaphorical by nature, a view that may have motivated Gao to “transwrite" the Pixue in late Ming China and, especially, to compose his “Introduction” to this pioneering work in rhetorical construction.