谈中国小说的晚出与晚成

在中国文学史上,小说与其它文学样式相比,尤其与诗歌相比,出现和成熟较晚。笔者认为,原因主要来自两方面:一方面,从我国古代小说的渊源看,它源于神话,而中国的古代神话并不发达;同时它又源于史传文学,但史传文学的真实性原则又阻滞了古代小说的发展,使小说创作由历史真实到艺术真实,经历了一个漫长的历史时期。另一方面,我国古代小说创作队伍的缓慢形成和封建统治阶级对小说创作的严重干预,也是我国古代小说发展繁荣滞后的重要原因。

On Late-Emergence and Slow-Development of Chinese Novels

Compared with other literal forms, especially with poetry, Chinese novels emerged late and developed slowly in the history of Chinese literature. There are two reasons for this . For one thing, Chinese classical novels originated from the myth and historical literature. The former was not well developed in the history of Chinese literature, and the authenticity of the latter blocked up Chinese classical novels development, taking so long a period of time for Chinese novel writing to grow from historical authenticity to artistic authenticity . The other reason is that the tardy growth of Chinese classical novel writers and strong interference from feudalist classes seriously affected the prosperity of Chinese classical novels.