《儒林外史》的"三复情节"及其意义

《儒林外史》研究向来较少注意到它与《三国演义》《水浒传》等前代小说传统的联系,其实此书暗用“三顾茅庐”之类“三复情节”模式不止一端,其用笔隐微几于使人不觉,而作品的讽刺意义因而更为深广,如马二先生游西湖是从“食色,性也”角度写他内心理欲之争等。这既是前代小说“三复情节”模式的影响,更是古代礼数观念和社会上“事不过三”等重“三”的风习潜移默化的结果。这一发现使中国古代小说“三复情节”模式的普遍性获得新的证明,也使“三复情节”概念对于中国古代小说研究的理论意义得到加强。这对于总结中国古代小说艺术的民族特点以及建立有中国特色的关于中国古代文学的理论也应当能有所帮助。

"The Three Times Plots" in Scholars and its Significance

Studies on Scholars present few connections with previous traditional classics as Heroes of Marshes andthe Romance of Three kingdoms. In fact, for many times "the three times plots" like "three visiting on ZhugeLiang" was indirectly used in this book. The skillful writing technique made the book presented wide spread ironicsignificance with concealed "three times plots". This is the result of the impact of "never do things over threetimes" and the tradition of "attaching importance to three". The discovery of "the three times plot" in Scholarsproved again the theory itself and its universality. This will facilitate the national feature analyses of ancient fictionsand the theory of ancient literature with Chinese characters.