以幻自見：《玄怪錄》的幻設敘事研究

Self-showing With Imaginary: The Imaginary-narrative Research of Xuanguai Lu

牛僧孺（780-848）的《玄怪錄》一向被視為唐人小說集的代表作品，於唐稗中自有不可忽視之地位，而「於顯揚筆妙之餘，時露其詭設之迹」的牛僧孺更被推舉為唐代小說作者有了自覺創作意識的代表人物之一。其中，〈元無有〉一文更作為唐人乃「有意為小說」最有力的佐證而不斷地為研究者所提及。除了〈元〉文，《玄怪錄》中的多數文本，皆具體展現了「欲以搆想之幻自見，因故示其詭設之跡」的撰作特色。然而，牛僧孺「以幻自見」所開創的幻設敘事手法，在唐人小說史上之意義，至今還遠未窮盡，尚待進一步探究。
本文以《玄怪錄》為主，並旁及與其成書時間大致相同的筆記、小說集，將《玄怪錄》置於當代文風下進行觀察，從作者們在創作心態與寫作手法上的不同，探查其中反映出的文學觀念。研究後發現，在《玄怪錄》中，牛僧孺藉由細節描寫和人物對話創造文本的奇幻感，時常有意設計幻想與現實兩個世界，使之相互映照。幻想與現實除了是一種相互對應的關係之外，另一方面，牛氏更藉此提醒讀者注意文本的虛妄性。在幻設性的敍事結構中，無論是時間、空間乃至於人物的設置，皆充分展現出牛僧孺複雜的小說創作觀念以及值得玩味的意識形態。突顯牛僧孺「以幻自見」的意義，可以對當時傳奇、小說乃至於筆記的各種不同風貌有更細緻的認識，當釐清眾文本之間的承衍關係以及各自所偏重之處後，將可使我們更逼近唐人小說寫作方式的特點以及文人集團交游的各個可能面向。

Niu SengRu's (牛僧孺780-848)Xuanguai Lu (玄怪錄) is a representative literary work of Tang story collection and seems to play an important role in the history of Tang literature. Niu SengRu was also elected as one of the representatives of the author of the Tang Dynasty tales who have self-awareness of creative consciousness. Most of the texts in the Xuanguai Lu show his writing characteristics “Want to express his fictional fantasy, so deliberately reveal his fictional traces.” (欲以搆想之幻自見，因故示其詭設之跡). However, in the Tang fiction history, the meaning of the Imaginary-narrative skills created by Niu SengRu needs to be further explored.
In this paper, compare Xuanguai Lu with other story collection and biji (筆 記) in the same writing style during Tang Dynasty. Moreover, we could get insight into its literary concepts by exploring the difference between creative mentality and writing skills of the Tang dynasty writers. After the study, in Xuanguai Lu, Niu SengRu creates the sense of fantasy of text by describing the minutiae of stories and major characters' dialog. Likewise, whether it is time, space and even the character settings in works of imaginary-narrative fully demonstrated Niu SengRu's complex fictional creative ideas and worth pondering ideology. Through the meaning of the “self-showing with imaginary” (以幻自見), we can have a more meticulous understanding on the chuanqi (傳奇) (Tang tales), xiaoshuo (小說) (fiction) and even biji (筆記) (the records of the lesser sayings). The thesis provides a step forward to deeper level of understanding of the meaning of creative of the authors of Tang Dynasty when we clarify the relationship between inheritance and transformation between texts.