| 摘要: | 由明代文學家馮夢龍所編著的《古今小說》（《喻世明言》）、《警世通言》及《醒世恆言》(以下簡稱《三言》)，作為中國文學史上，擬話本小說開端的代表之作，其中所收錄的小說篇章在題材內容上豐富多元，故事情節引人入勝，人物形象立體鮮明，使得數十年來探討《三言》者持續不減，有關於《三言》的研究論文和期刊發表更是多如過江之鯽。
而就筆者蒐羅《三言》相關的學位論文發現，大多數的研究者特別著重於《三言》的「人物」與「情節」研究；當然，《三言》本為「小說」文體，無論是古典小說抑或現代小說，「人物」與「情節」在小說中都是影響故事發展最重要的兩個因素。
不過，在這些以「人物」與「情節」的研究論文中，筆者卻發現，多數的研究者容易陷入以「題材分類」作探析的窠臼。例如研究「人物」者，即將《三言》中的人物區分為官吏、士人、商人、僧尼、娼妓和三姑六婆等等若干類型，針對不同的人物類別作形象研究；而關注「情節」者，則將《三言》中的篇章分類為公案故事、愛情故事、青樓故事、戒淫故事、異類故事及幻奇故事等等方向，主要歸納該類型故事的共通性。是以，目前仍缺乏從作者馮夢龍編著的角度來仔細探討，《三言》裡的人物描寫技巧，以及其對情節安排的意義；作者透過什麼方式描述人物，如何從對人物的細緻描寫，展現人物的心境與性格，以及人物的描寫，如何帶動、甚至影響故事情節的發展等等。因此，筆者此篇論文擬從作者馮夢龍編著的視角切入，分析《三言》裡的人物描寫，期待能有別於過去從《三言》故事中以題材分類所作的研究。
Edited by the famous literary writer Feng Menglong in the Ming Dynasty, "Three Words" which includes Clear Words to Illustrate The World (Yu Shi Ming Yan), Ordinary Words to Warn the World (Jing Shi Tong Yan), and Lasting Words to Awaken The World (Xing Shi Heng Yan), set the origin of Chinese short stories. Over decades, researchers have been keen to conduct journals and studies on the Three Words to explore its rich content, fascinating storyline, and vivid portrait of the characters’ images.
Most of the existing researches focus on either the characters or the plot, for these are two key elements of a fiction. In those studies, however, the characters are usually divided into certain groups such as the government officials, the prostitutes, the businessmen, the gossiping female neighbors or so. Moreover, the stories are often categorized by their plots as those of legal judgment, of love, of corruptive nuns and monks, etc. There is so far no research that analyze the Three Words from the perspectives of how it is collected and edited, why Feng chose to compile certain stories, and how he uses the characters to develop the plot. Seeing the lack of studies from this angle, the thesis would like to reexamine the Three Words from the author’s point of view when he compiled these works. |
