唐代小說中長安的城市空間場景與敘事之關係

Relationship of Spatial Settings in Urban Chang'an and Narrative in Tang Dynasty Fiction

本篇論文主要探討唐代小說中長安的城市空間場景與敘事的關係。從敘事的角度而論，這一層關係可以分為兩個意義內容，一是長安的城市空間作為敘事的對象，即小說的敘事主要在摹寫長安城市空間之種種內蘊，最為鮮明的代表就是孫棨的《北里志》，全書完全以敘述長安城平康里所發生的事件為主。另一則是小說文本中長安的城市空間場景在人物形象塑造、情節鋪陳、和書寫意義的形成上，具有關鍵性的作用。例如長安城的空間場景，往往成為形塑人物形象的重要因素，特別是空間的場景描寫與人物身份的關連；又長安城的空間場景多與敘事情節形成因果的關係，即具體的地理上的空間關係，牽動了情節的發展；此外，事件發生的長安城市空間場景，亦關涉故事書寫意義的形成。無論是作為敘事的對象或參與實際的敘事運作，都顯示長安的城市空間場景在唐代小說的敘事文本中，扮演積極而重要的角色。

This paper will look at the relationship between narrative and spatial settings in urban Chang'an in Tang dynasty fiction. From the perspective of narrative, there are two different aspects of this relationship that warrant attention. First, urban spaces can serve as a narrative object, that is to say, the narrative serves primarily to describe various spatial aspects of the city of Chang'an. The quintessential example of this type is Sun Qi (孫棨)'s Beili zhi (北里志), a work devoted primarily to the telling of events that occurred in the administrative district (里) of Pingkang (平康) in Chang'an. Alternatively, the urban spatial settings can play a key role in the author's description of characters, setting out of the story, and formation of meaning. For example, such special settings frequently serve as an important element in creating a character's image, especially in terms of the connection between a character's identity and the description of spatial setting. Likewise, spatial settings in works of fiction often stand in a causal relationship to events in the story, that is to say, a particular geographical spatial relationship serves to drive the development of the story. By the same token, the spatial setting of events in works of this type of fiction can be implicated in the formation of meaning in the story itself. Both of these aspects, i.e., the use of spatial setting as a narrative object and its involvement in the actual narrative scheme, demonstrate the active and crucial role that urban spatial settings set in Chang'an play in the narrative of Tang dynasty fiction.