袁枚在女性墓志銘中所反映的思想

The Thoughts that Mei Yuan Reflected In Female Epitaphs

袁枚是乾嘉時期重要的文學家及思想家，歷來對他的研究多集中於詩論和詩作，本文另闢蹊徑，就袁枚在女性墓志銘中所反映的思想作探究，發現不同於袁枚的病中詩、自挽詩、告存詩、自壽詩以道家思想為主導，袁枚的女性墓志銘，有時以儒家思想為主：例如「男外女內」的書寫方式、重視女性延續香火的使命、對「三不朽」中「立言」的看重；有時思想擺盪在傳統與現代之間，既不完全依附傳統，亦不完全創新，顯得矛盾困惑：例如鼓勵女子讀書寫作，卻又認為有才德的女子皆早死、本身不相信陰陽術數，卻又認為生者以此來療癒面臨親人死亡的哀痛是可以被接受的；有時毅然反對傳統思想，大膽表現自己的看法：例如從人性的觀點出發，反對女子奉守「餓死事小，失節事大」的觀念、稱頌有獨特見識及作為的女性。總之，從袁枚的女性墓志銘中，可看出他真性情的展現，他的思想主要以儒家為主，又能走出儒家，提出個人的看法，他的思想有時前後不一致，擺盪於傳統與現代之間，呈現過渡時期的特色，而從他撰寫女性墓志銘的著眼點和內容，可看出他對女性生命價值的想法，和對自己生命歷程的呼應，另外，也提供了我們對袁枚生死觀另一個角度的認識。

Mei Yuan, was an important writer and thinker during Qian Jia period, most of researches have concentrated on his poetries and poems, this research explores the thoughts that reflected from Mei Yuan's female epitaph instead, and found the leading thoughts were Taoism in his sickness period poem, self-conclusion poem, public announce poem, self-birthday celebration poem, but sometimes, his female epitaphs were based on Confucianism: For example, his writing method of ”men should be outside, and women should be inside”, paying attentions to female heritage mission and ”to expound one's ideas in writing” in ”The Three Immortals”; sometimes his thoughts swung between tradition and modernity, neither incompletely depended on tradition, nor totally innovative, showed paradoxical and confusional: such as encouraged female to read and write, while considered the all female who had both talent and virtue died at young ages, did not believe in fortune-telling, but thought it as acceptable for healing the sadness when face to the deaths of dear ones. Sometimes, resolutely opposed to traditional thoughts and showed his views boldly: for example, from the humanity point of view, he was against that women should follow the concept ”starving to death is a small matter but being disloyal is a big matter”, praised the females who had unique insights and actions. In short, from female epitaphs that done by Mei Yuan, one can see the explorations of his true nature, his thoughts were mainly based on Confucianism, while he could be also out of Confucianism and proposed his personal points of view, his thoughts sometimes were inconsistent, swung between the tradition and modernity, showed the characteristics of transition period. From the points of view and contents in his female epitaphs, one can understand his thoughts regarding to female's life values which echoed to his life history, in addition, also provided us another understanding regarding to Mei Yuan's life and death concept from different points of view.