歷史、屍體與鬼魂－－讀話本小說〈楊思溫燕山逢故人〉

History, Remains, and Ghosts: Reading“Yang Siwen Meets Acquaintances in Yanshan”

本文由話本小說的研究條件限制出發，透過對於馮夢龍《古今小說》卷24〈楊思溫燕山逢故人〉的個案閱讀，探討話本小說與歷史書寫的關係。話本小說研究中最基本的問題之一，就是小說寫作年代因文本歷經不斷改寫而難以確定。讀者在缺乏明確的歷史年代作為參照的情況下，如何能夠對小說進行有意義的閱讀與理解，即是本文嘗試回答的問題。本文透過分析小說敘事與歷史書寫之間的關係，說明〈楊思溫燕山逢故人〉採用了南宋流行的故事類型作為骨架，並將靖康之變相關的時間、空間、人物與事件等歷史指涉吸納入原有故事類型的敘事結構加以重新構連，創造出一則以尋屍與毀屍為主軸的政治歷史鬼故事，展現屬於話本小說對於政治與歷史的獨特詮釋力量。藉由對〈楊思溫燕山逢故人〉的個案閱讀，我們看見小說敘事與歷史書寫其實都是由共享的話語網絡當中生發的文化產物。話本小說雖然歷經刪改與流失，卻仍然保留某些話語網絡的痕跡，讓當代讀者得以理解當時文人形塑歷史記憶的方式與其獨特的歷史敏感性。

One of the fundamental issues in the study of huaben 話本, or vernacular short stories, is the accurate dating of the texts, which has long been a confusing problem due to the fact that most of the huaben texts underwent continual revision. Taking this condition as point of departure, I try to address the following question: how can readers, lacking a specific date with which to pin down a text in historical context, carry out a meaningful reading of that text? This paper analyzes the relationship between huaben and historical writing through a reading of “Yang Siwen Meets Acquaintances in Yanshan” 楊思溫燕山逢故人, a story included in Feng Menglong’s 馮夢龍 Stories Old and New 古今小說, and demonstrates how the story exerts an interpretative power towards politics and history that is particular to huaben narrative. I argue that the story models its core narrative structure on popular Southern Song story types, incorporates and reorganizes historical references－to time, spaces, people, and events－within that structure, and creates a political history through a ghost story that revolves around the search for and destruction of human remains. This case study allows us to see how xiaoshuo 小說 narratives and historical writing are both cultural products that arise from a shared discursive network. Notwithstanding the losses and changes that resulted from continual revisions, the huaben texts still preserve traces of that discursive network, with which today’s readers may appreciate the historical sensitivity of huaben writers and the ways in which they shaped the historical memory of their age.