方苞古文義法與《史記評語》——比事屬辭與敘事藝術

Rules and Principles in Ancient Chinese Prose of Shi Ji Ping Yu by Fang Bao: “Shu Ci Bi Shi”and Narrative Art

司馬遷私淑孔子，《史記》典範《春秋》。《春秋》之制義法，既體現於比事屬辭之教，於是《春秋》書法影響《史記》之敘事義法。方苞說義法，所謂「義以為經，而法緯之」，亦由比事觀義、屬辭見義、筆削示義轉化而來。今持比事屬辭之《春秋》教，作為詮釋古文義法與敘事藝術之研究視角。方苞《史記評語》58則，評點《史記》辭章，對於「義法」多所揭示，今作為研究文本。其中如詳略互見、筆削取捨，各有義法；先後位次、比事措置，皆義法不得不然；虛實損益、約其辭文云云，則為屬辭修飾之道，要皆《春秋》書法體現為《史記》敘事之藝術者。「義法」說所謂「法以義起，法隨義變」，此中多所見證。方苞《春秋通論．序》所謂「或筆或削，或詳或略，或同或異，參互相抵，而義出於其間」。由此觀之，《春秋》書法、古文義法與敘事藝術，自可以相互發明。

Sima Qian studied Confucianism indirectly through others; hence Shi Ji (The Records of the Grand Historian) by him had adopted Confucius’s doctrine in writing. It is noticeable that the writing technique of ShiJi had followed the writing technique of Confucius’s Chun Qiu (Spring and Autumn Annals), which is “Shu Ci Bi Shi”, a.k.a. method of choosing words according to the incidents. Fang Bao, a philosopher of the early Qing dynasty advocated that the two writing techniques were Yi and Fa, which referred to the content regarding righteousness and the literature genre, respectively. These two techniques remain important today to comprehend the Yi Fa theory of old literature and/or narrative art. This article starts with a detailed introduction of the Yi Fa theory of our major research text─Shi Ji Ping Yu (Aggregation of criticism on The Historical Records) by Fang Bao, and follows by comparisons of different Yi Fa writings. Moreover, examples of how Fa derived from Yi and/ or changed according to Yi were also included. According to preface of Chun Qiu Tong Lun (The General Theory of Chun Qiu) by Fang Bao, the author proposes the expression of judgment in the Chun Qiu can interact with rules and principles in ancient Chinese prose and narrative art.