1、中文 2250 字 英文文献资料 (要求达到 2000 字) Beginnings and Departures: the dream of the red chamber Yao Huashi ( Wake Forest University) Abstract: Chapter One of the Dream of the Red Chamber (Honglou meng)consists of a series of beginnings or “false starts” as one critic has characterized them. The first of thre
2、e narrative episodes which make up the prologue casts the protagonists mythic origin in the primordial past. Key words: the beginning, innovation ,vestige of tradition A brief summary of the familiar story runs as follows. In order to repair a leaky sky, the goddess Nwa moulds 36, 501 five-colored r
3、ocks. In the end she finds use for only 36,500 of them. Having become sentient and quasianthropomorphic, the supernumerary rock is despondent over his rejection. One day, while lamenting his misfortune, Stone sees a Buddhist monk and a Daoist prelate approaching and overhears them reminiscing about
4、the prosperity of the sublunary world. Stone is sorely tempted to partake in the sensual pleasures that the two have described so vividly and begs them to help him descend to earth. Having unwittingly enticed Stone, the Buddhist and the Daoist now try to warn him of the transient and illusory nature
5、 of earthly pleasures. Their words, however, fall on deaf ears. Stone is determined to seek his fulfillment on earth. The subsequent narrative, or the novel proper, is thus literally consequent upon Stones fateful departure from the ethereal world. An immense time span separates the first episode fr
6、om the next. Eons have passed before a Daoist named Vanitas chances upon Stone, who has since returned to the ethereal world. Or rather, the Daoist finds a rock bearing an inscription of Stones earthly sojourn; hence the original title of the novel, the Story of the Stone.5 After perusing it, the Da
7、oist acknowledges to Stone, author of the inscribed tale, that it indeed has some interest, but he maintains that it is also seriously flawed. Despite his initial reservations, Vanitas agrees to transcribe the narrative. This episode, which contains a lengthy debate between Stone and the Daoist on t
8、he tales literary merits or lack thereof, is an important point of departure from what Stone describes as an exhausted narrative tradition. As such, this section will feature prominently in the subsequent discussion. The third and final episode of the prologue introduces a set of new characters incl
9、uding the penurious scholar Jia Yucun, who serves an ingenious narrative link between the mundane and the ethereal world. Vestige of Tradition or Sign of Innovation Despite its exceedingly complex nature, scholars are curiously indifferent to the beginning of the Dream of the Red Chamber. Instead, t
10、hey are fixated on the missing part the ending of the novel, looking for clues and hints in every conceivable place. A review of the scholarly and critical literature on the novel reveals few studies of the novels extraordinary beginning. In a way, that is only to be expected. The prospect of “ comp
11、leting” the novel in some way, or even figuring out its overall design is too tantalizing a challenge to resist.6 From time to time new theories put forward, some more plausible than others. Granted, to the extent that the significance of a narrative rests on its ending, the task of evaluating the n
12、ovel is made more difficult without its conclusion. The absence of critical attention to the beginning of the novel can also be attributed to other factors, some of them ideological. Critics in mainland China dismiss the mythic elements of the Dream of the Red Chamber as dregs of a “ feudal” belief
13、system, choosing to emphasize realistic elements instead.Expatriate scholars such as Zhao Gang hold that the allegorical elements in the Dream of the Red Chamber result from the influence of its commentator Zhiyan Zhai.8 Still others, Yu Pingbo and Wu Shichang among them, dismiss the mythic framewor
14、k on textual grounds, seeing it as a spurious interpolation by Gao E, editor of the first printed version of the novel.9 Lumping together the supernatural elements in the novel, Wu Shichang writes, These stories are obviously too superstitious to be convincing. They are hardly relevant to the centra
15、l theme of the novel or to other stories. Even if they are well written, so many of them must be boring to any reader; and the great space they occupy in the last forty chapters does little justice to the novel or to its reader. They look like grotesque buildings artificially scattered on one-third
16、of a well-designed garden, neither serving any useful purpose or adding any pleasant sight for the visitor.10 Other critics regard the beginning of the novel as a product of literary inertia. In his preface to Chi-chen Wangs English translation of the Dream of the Red Chamber, the venerable sinologi
17、st Arthur Waley comments on its framework within the historical context of the Chinese narrative tradition. Waley begins by noting the historical hierarchy governing Chinese literature or written texts in which the Confucian canon was ensconced at the top while fiction was relegated to the bottom. T
18、herefore, to ensure a measure of respectability, the author of the vernacular narrative superimposed a didactic framework on his work. Waley writes, “Even the most licentious of Chinese novelists did indeed make some show of pointing a moral, but the pretense is usually carried out in such a way as
19、to irritate those who read for pleasure without appeasing those who read for improvement.” Despite its overall break from convention, Waley sees the Dream of the Red Chamber as tradition-bound in two important respects, namely, in its didactic framework and its oral mode of narration. Unlike its pre
20、decessors, the Dream of the Red Chamber does not recycle historical materials, but it nevertheless shares certain characteristics with them: “It has their inordinate length their lack of faith in the interestingness of the everyday world, leading to the conviction that a realistic story must necessa
21、rily be set in a supernatural framework. It has the storytellers tendency to put far more art into the technique of the individual sance or chapter, than into the construction of the work as a whole. It has the same moralizing tendency; for as I have said, Chinese fiction is always on the defensive
22、is always, with an eye on official Puritanism, trying to prove that, like serious and approved literature, it has a “message.” According to Waley, what makes the Dream of the Red Chamber such a milestone in Chinese literature is its realism. Waley asserts that all realistic novels are autobiographic
23、al. Following Hu Shis lead, Waley asserts that Cao Xueqins innovation lies in modeling his characters upon himself and his family. Indeed, only by using a “ rigid framework imposed by tradition” is Cao able to prevent himself from committing “ the error of transcribing with too careful a fidelity th
24、e monotonies of actual life.” To Waley, then, the beginning is paradoxically a shortcoming as well as an asset. However, the novels debt to tradition appears rather modest if one examines the Honglou meng carefully. The Dream of the Red Chamber departs from convention at the very outset in conspicuo
25、usly lacking the customary prefatory poem and its attendant prose commentary.14 Even such a full-fledged literary work as The Scholars preserves the entire traditional opening sequence. However, the oral residues in the Dream of the Red Chamber are minimal. They are confined to the retention of the
26、traditional framework and some terminology from oral storytelling. However, as I intend to argue, the framework is put to such a radically different purpose that it is no longer a simple throwback to the huaben tradition. 英文文献中文翻译 (要求达到 2000 字) 来源: 维克森林大学新西兰杂志亚洲研究七 作者: 姚华士(维克森林大学) 出版社: YILI PEOPLE S
27、 PRESS 出版时间: 2005 年 6 月 由石头离开引发的开端 论红楼梦的叙事结构的起源艺术 姚华士(维克森林大学) 摘要: 红楼梦第一章由一系列开端,或者说“假托”组成,就像一个评论家在表述。前三段的故事情节,为主角虚构了远古时期他的神奇的来源。下面探讨一下这个让人疑惑的小说开头。 关键词: 开端,传统延续,革新 为了修补有漏洞的苍天,天神女娲铸造了 36501 块 5 色岩石。最后,她只使用了其中的36500 块。由于石头已经具有灵性,它对于自己被遗弃感到非常沮丧。一天,当石头对自己的不幸哀叹不已,它看到一个和尚和道士走过来,并无意中听到他们回忆起红尘的荣华富贵。石头被这两个人生动描
28、绘的俗世浮华景象所深深吸引,它急切地想体验一下其中的乐趣,于是它请求他们将它也带到人世。因无意中引诱了石头去凡间走一遭的欲望,和尚和道士试图警告他俗世的繁华是短暂和虚幻的。但石头一心只想着要去人世体验一番,他们的话就如随风过隙。接下来的故事,恰当地说,是整本小说,就是石头离开天上后发生的 事情。 第一个情节与以后的故事相差的时间跨度很大。当空空道人遇见已回到天上的石头时,已经过去很多时代了。更确切地说,道士看到了石头背后刻着文字才辨认出了这块就是曾经由他携带入尘世的顽石,因为这些文字详细地讲述了石头在尘世的际遇。因此,小说原来的书名是石头记。细读之后,道士认为写下故事的作者,石头以及石头上的故事确实有些趣味,但他同时认为,它也有大的缺陷和不足。尽管如此,空空道人还是同意抄录这个故事。这个情节,转录了石头和道士之间对这个故事的文学价值和不足之处的长篇讨论,将一块身心俱疲的石头作为故事的出 发点而形成的重要的叙事传统。有鉴于此,本节在随后的讨论中将着重这一部分。在序言第三部分也就是是最后一个情节中,一系列人物被牵引出来,其中包括穷困的文人贾雨村。通过他,人世和天上的故事巧妙地被链接起来。 传统的延续,创新的标志 尽管开头很复杂,学者们却难以置信地忽略了红楼梦的开头。相反,他们关注小说的缺失部分,即结尾,期望从可能的地方找到线索和提示。回顾一下研究红楼梦的研究文献,