Tan Tian Yuan. “Do the Parts Add Up? Textual Systems and Segments of Sijie Ji (The Four
Seasons) in Ming Anthologies.” Journal of Chinese Ritual, Theatre and Folklore 225 (2024.9): 17-57.
陳靝沅。〈聚零為整？明代曲選中《四節記》的文本系統與零散文本〉。《民俗曲藝》225 (2024.9): 17-57。
Abstract
Sijie ji 四節記 (The Four Seasons)
is a set of four plays believed to have been composed in the mid-Ming. Each of
these four plays is based on an episode related to a season in the lives of
four famous literati: Du Fu (spring), Xie An (summer), Su Shi (autumn), and Tao
Gu (winter). The full texts of these plays are no longer extant, but because
they were widely popular during the Ming dynasty, excerpts of various shapes
and forms can be found in more than twenty qu anthologies dating from as
early as 1553. In other words, Sijie ji is a lost work, of which only
certain parts are preserved, and exclusively so, through anthologies. How, for
a work whose partial survival is closely connected to anthologies, do we
approach this body of disparate, anthologized drama parts that all appear to be
associated with Sijie ji? This paper explores the significance of
reading these segments of Sijie ji not necessarily as parts of an
elusive whole but instead as individual, meaningful textual units belonging to
more than one textual system; it also considers the role of anthologies in
textual relations and the circulation of knowledge within qu texts and
across various genres.
《四節記》創作於明代中期，由四部短劇組成。其中每一部戲各自以四位文人生命中的一個季節片段為背景而展開，分別為：杜甫（春）、謝安（夏）、蘇軾（秋）、陶穀（冬）。《四節記》今不見全本，但此劇在明代曾廣為流傳。自嘉靖癸丑（1553）始，超過二十種曲類選本採摘了該劇各式不同樣貌及形態的散齣零曲。換言之，《四節記》是一部僅存散齣曲文的佚作，且這些散齣曲文又僅以曲選的形式被保存下來。面對這樣一部戲劇作品，我們要如何更好地處理曲選中所見眾多貌似均與《四節記》相關、然又各式不同的零散文本？本文提出我們不能理所當然地將這些零散文本都視為源出於同一部《四節記》，即將之作為單一整體中的部分來理解，而是應將它們視為隸屬於多個文本系統且具有獨立意義的文本單元。通過探討此一閱讀策略的重要性，本文進而考察選本在曲本內部及不同文類之間的文本關係與知識傳播中所起到的作用。