從《古今譚概‧微詞部‧寓言》談馮夢龍的寓言概念

Feng Menglong’s Conception of Fables in A Chat about the Present and the Past

寓言一詞，在中國歷史上一直未獲明確之定義與範圍。馮夢龍既被現代學者視為明清詼諧寓言代表作家之一，然而，究竟馮夢龍個人對於寓言體裁的認識為何？與現今所謂之寓言有何差距？實可從其本人著作中尋找線索。《古今譚概．微詞部．寓言》共有五則故事，篇幅不長，取材多樣，來源不一，馮夢龍將之並列，稱篇名為〈寓言〉，顯示馮夢龍對於寓言此一名詞自有標準。藉由〈寓言〉的分析，並與《古今譚概》、《笑府》作參照，可發現馮夢龍對寓言的定義與現今有相通之處，又有所不同，反映出在中國寓言發展史上，明代寓言如何向詼諧靠攏的軌跡。

There had been no plain definition of fables in Chinese history. Feng Menglong has been regarded as one of the representative writers of Ming-Qing humorous fables; however, his notion of the form of fables has not been recognized clearly. This paper aims at analyzing the distinction between Feng's fables and the modern fables. In A Chat about the Present and the Past, Feng selected five short stories and classified them as 'fables.' This paper reviews the fables in A Chat about the Present and the Past and the stories in The Joke Palace, and discusses the differences and similarities between Feng's notion of fables and the modern definition of fables. Thus this paper shows the tracks how Ming fables leaned toward humorous stories in the history of the development of Chinese fables.