「錦繡才子」與社會性閱讀──新論金聖歎《第六才子書西廂記》

Staging An Elite Reading Community: Jin Shengtan’s Commentary on The Western Wing

本文擬將金聖歎評《第六才子書西廂記》放置於閱讀史脈絡中，考察金批《西廂》中有關「錦繡才子」之戲劇性展演。金批《西廂》一反傳統的「發憤著書論」以及作者寄身翰墨以期不朽的文化心理，強調古人／作者之不可知，將文本生產與天才作者的英雄人格相剝離，轉而將創作、閱讀主體共同放置於茫茫天地間洶湧萬世的時間潮流中。妙文成為「普天下萬世錦繡才子」構成的菁英讀者群體與聖歎間通過儀式性的情感交流以及「平心斂氣」的身體體驗得以從天下萬世人人心中「偷取」出的公共之寶。如此立論，看似與二十世紀後結構主義的「作者已死」觀念相貫通，實際卻植根於聖歎作為十七世紀江南才子，藉木刻本為公共平臺，對社會性閱讀理想化的構想。本文通過情感紐帶、身體體驗、洞察力培養三方面考察聖歎展演的社會性閱讀之內涵──其中折射的明清之際文人審美趣味既承接儒者身體力行的閱讀功夫，又展現出晚明醫藥話語和禪、儒合一的專業性知識體系。有趣的是，金聖歎對「錦繡才子」的訴求在清代的接受史中不敵刻書家、戲曲家對「才子」概念的慣性理解。然而聖歎的「才子觀」因其突破時空限制，且以共同的倫理、文化、文本記憶為界定，具有超越地域、政治實體、身分的開放性。由此可見金聖歎對預期讀者理想化建構之影響值得放置於東亞語境內進一步考察。

 

This paper situates Jin Shengtan’s The Sixth Genius Book: The Western Wing in the context of the history of reading. In his tremendously popular commentary on the romantic play, The Story of the Western Wing, Jin defines the text as an artifact that captures the aesthetics of a single moment that is utterly unique and incapable of reproduction. Any writer does not possess his text once it materializes into marvelous writings between Heaven and earth (tiandi miaowen), as these are treasures of talented men whose brilliance of learning renders the patterns of nature as the text’s simulacrum. I will examine how Jin uses this definition of the literary text to promote his understanding of reading as a social activity that entails emotional, embodied, and cognitive experiences that fuse subjective identities of the author, the reader, and the commentator in a virtual community of reader-writers sharing brocade-like minds (jinxiu caizi). Jin’s theory of reading may resonate with the Poststructuralist perspective on the death of the author—a text is always already embedded in a tissue of signs; to impose an author is to impose a limit on that text. Yet Jin’s anticipation of the reader’s community is premised on a pursuit of those with equal intellectual capacities. There is therefore no “reading public” within Jin’s purview. Ironically, the publishers and editors who produced no fewer than ninety editions based on Jin’s commentary did not respond well with Jin’s call for a reading community. To fully appreciate the significance of the sociology of reading staged in Jin’s commentary, we need to look beyond commercial printing in Qing China and at Chosŏn Korea, where men of letters were inspired by Jin’s commentary to re-evaluate the acts of reading and writing.