從古史書寫到演義小說：論《盤古至唐虞傳》對《路史》的繼承與革新

Abstract

《盤古至唐虞傳》是明末以上古史為範疇的演義小說，其內容與神話歷史敘事長詩《黑暗傳》及南宋羅泌《路史》的上古史記述皆有所重疊。小說作者結合了兩種層次的神話素材，進而敷演小說：一類是民間所流傳的神話傳說；一類則是史家所建構的上古史圖像。本文所探究的議題有以下幾點：其一，小說作者如何游移於「上層／文人／書面領域」的古史脈絡與「下層／民間／口傳管道」的神話傳說，在這兩類素材中進行選擇？其二，《盤古至唐虞傳》是否產生演義小說的獨立意識，衍生出自己的歷史書寫意識？本文試圖在這樣的基礎上，宏觀思考古史書寫對「上古史演義小說」形成發展的影響，進而釐清「上古史演義小說」在神話書寫中的價值與定位。

Legends from Pangu to Tangyu is a Chinese historical novel from the Ming dynasty that recounts the history of ancient China. In this novel, certain historical accounts overlap with those in the Legend of Darkness, a folk songbook narrating the mythological history of ancient China, and Lushi, a historical text from the Southern Song dynasty written by Luo Mi. Specifically, the plot was developed by combining mythological elements from records of Chinese folk myths and legends with official texts and images about ancient Chinese history by historians. This study explored the following topics: (1) How the author of Legends from Pangu to Tangyu selects story elements from the aforementioned two types of text (i.e., official history records considered “higher-class/scholarly/written literature” vs. mythological writing categorized as “lower-class/folk/oral literature”); and (2) whether Legends from Pangu to Tangyu evolves from descriptions of historical facts as a historical novel and develops its own written consciousness of Chinese history. In addition, this study adopted a macroscopic approach to discussing the effects of historical texts on historical novels composed based on ancient Chinese history, to elucidate the value and position of such novels in Chinese mythological literature.