吳趼人歷史小說及歷史小說理論之研究

A Study of Wu Jian Ren's Historical Novel and the Theory of Historical Novels

吳趼人（1866-1901）是晚清重要的一位小說家，其重要作品有《二十年目睹之怪現狀》、《痛史》、《瞎騙奇聞》、《活地獄》、《電術奇談》、《盜偵探》、《恨海》、《劫餘灰》、《最新社會齷齪史》、《新石頭記》、《上海游驂路》、《發財秘诀》、《兩晉演藝》、《糊塗世界》、《雲南野乘》等小說。其中，《痛史》、《兩晉演義》、《雲南野乘》三是被歸類在「歷史小說」。這三部小說可惜都沒有寫完，其中尤以《雲南野乘》只寫了三回而已，無甚探討之價值。《痛史》寫了二十七回，《兩晉演義》二十三回，這部兩小說很有趣也值得研究的是，雖是同一人的作品，卻用了兩種截然不同的寫法，《痛史》重興味，多虛構。《兩晉演義》卻標榜忠於史實，言必有據。這兩種不同的寫作方式，其得失如何？何者較合於小說之原理？是本文探討的重點。此外，本文還利用統計數字，如二書中的「起訖年代」、「總數字」、「總出現人物數」、「回數」、「每回出現人物數」、「平均每回字數」、「人物出現回次」、「見於正史中之人物比率」、「只出現一回」的人物比率等等數據，來做比較分析。探討兩部小說在「人物刻劃」上的得失。

Wu Jian Ren(1866-1901) is an important novelist in late Qin dynasty. His important works include The Strange State of the World Witnessed over 20 Years, The History of Pang, Nonsensical Stories of Fantasy, The Live Hell, The Fantastic Stories of Dian Shu, Robber Detectives, The Sea of Hatred, The Dust after the Calamity, The Latest Social Dirty Stories, The New Story of Stone, Shanghai You Tsan Road, The Knack of Making a Large Fortune, The Romance of Two Jin Dynasties, A Muddled World, Tales of Yun-nan. Among the works, The History of Pang, The Romance of Two Jin Dynasties, and Tales of Yun-nan are classified as historical novels. It is a pity that none of the three novels were completed. Among them Tales of Yun-nan only contains 4 chapters and thus is not worth studying. The History of Pang contains 24 chapters, and The Romance of Two Jin Dynasties 23 chapters. What makes the two novels interesting and worth studying is that though they are works of the same author they were written in different styles. The History of Pang pays more attention to amusement and is more fictitious. The Romance of Two Jin Dynasties claims to be faithful to history. What are the advantages and disadvantages of these two styles of writing, and which of the two is more in accordance with the principles of fiction are what this essay aims to investigate. Furthermore, this study also uses statistical methods to examine the following data of the two novels: the beginning and the ending years, the total numbers of words, the total numbers of characters, the numbers of chapters, the number of characters in each chapters, average number of words in a chapter, the number of chapters in which characters appear, the percentage of historical personages in characters, the percentage of characters appearing only in one chapter, etc. The purpose Of this effort is to evaluate the advantages and disadvantages of the two novels in characterization through a comparative analysis of these data.