《紅樓夢》中「情」與儒教觀的博弈

Can Sentimentalism Survive?: Revisiting the Negotiation between Qing 情 and Confucian Ideology in Honglou meng 紅樓夢

學者大多認為《紅樓夢》中的「情」與儒家正統規範是二元對立的關係。本文提出「情」作為一種新的身份定義機制，與儒家正統規範構建了一種較二元對立更為複雜的互動關係。本文將對《紅樓夢》的解讀納入明清時期的文化思潮轉型的歷史背景中，著重分析曹雪芹在幻想式的懷舊過程中探討「有情人」在腐敗墮落的儒家社會中構建並保留「情」之空間的可能性。曹雪芹通過文學創作虛構出一個「文學的他者」來重演「過去的自我」，從而將現時之「自我」與過去之「自我」進行間離。因此，現時之「自我」可以通過對過去之「自我」的觀察，探討其能否抑制腐敗墮落的儒家禮教的同化，並藉助「情」重新定義自我，最終回歸傳統的儒家本真。本文指出曹雪芹最終否認了「情」在腐朽的儒家社會中構建新秩序的可能性。這時，宗教（佛教／道教），以其與儒家正統的融合能力同時又否定一切塵世價值的出世思想，成為連接「情」與儒家社會的唯一通道。唯有藉助宗教，小說主人公寶玉才能從能夠腐蝕一切的現實社會中全身而退並最終回歸「情」的理想世界。因此，寶玉最終的「懸崖撒手」與其說是皈依佛門不如說是在「情」的空間崩塌後逃離現實社會的儀式化姿態。本文指出曹雪芹在小說中的回眸與反思也是對明清時期文化流變和思潮轉型的契合與折射。

The 18th-century novel Honglou meng 紅樓夢 (Dream of the Red Chamber) by Cao Xueqin 曹雪芹 is among the most eloquent voices of the cult of qing 情 (a concept that roughly translates to sentiment, love, passion, or feeling) in late imperial China. In their studies of the Dream, scholars tend to present qing and Confucian orthodoxy in binary opposition to one another. However, I argue that the Dream sketches a more complex interplay of qing and Confucian ideology. Cao Xueqin, using qing as an alternative self-identification scheme to Confucian ritualism, explores the possibility for a sentimental individual to achieve self-differentiation via qing and thus to embrace an authentic Confucian tradition rather than rebelling against or being assimilated into the hypocritical Confucian society. In this paper, I revisit the supposed dichotomy of qing and Confucian orthodoxy by placing it in the historical and cultural context of the late imperial China. The contextualization of the Dream in the intellectual transformation shows that the author weaves a reflection on his imagined past into the ongoing debates about qing and orthodox Confucianism. In creating a literary “other” to represent his past “self,” the author designs a character that becomes both the subject to perform in the narrative and the object to be observed under the current self’s gaze. In this way, the novel presents Cao’s review of his past life as a way of exploring the sentimental individual’s negotiation for a space of qing within a corrupt Confucian society. My research examines the “stone-jade,” the protagonists, the Prospect Garden, and the Land of Illusion as paradoxical constructs that display how sentiment (qing) derives from and strives to co-exist within Confucian orthodoxy. I argue that the novel finally dismisses the possibility of qing’s survival and suggests that sentimentalism is doomed to be encroached upon and transformed by the overwhelming power of Confucian orthodoxy. Religion (Buddhism/Taoism), marked by its bipolar capacity both to syncretize with and to renounce Confucian values, offers the last resort for the male protagonist Jia Baoyu 賈寶玉 to uphold his faith in qing. Thus, Baoyu’s ultimate conversion to Buddhism functions as his rite de passage from reality into the sentimental world after the collapse of the sub-space of qing. I illustrate Cao’s reflection on the past dovetails the dynamic transformation of the intelligentsia in late imperial China.