趙紅娟 [美] 魏愛蓮

(1.浙江外國語學院 中文學院， 浙江 杭州 310023； 2.維斯理學院 東亞系， 馬薩諸塞州 維斯理 02481)

小說·性別·歷史文化
——美國漢學家魏愛蓮教授訪談錄

趙紅娟1[美] 魏愛蓮2

(1.浙江外國語學院 中文學院， 浙江 杭州 310023； 2.維斯理學院 東亞系， 馬薩諸塞州 維斯理 02481)

《水滸后傳》雖然不足以列入一流經典，但在探討中國小說批評在金圣嘆等人影響下是如何形成的這一問題時，此書無疑具有作為例證的價值?！端疂G后傳》被作者陳忱用來表達對政治的疏離和不滿，書中引入了小說可以表達個人感情的觀念，這使作者站在時代的前沿。中國婦女文化經歷了明末清初以及18世紀末至19世紀末這兩個時期的發(fā)展，在第二個時期，女性可以是讀者、評論者甚至作者。女性讀者推動了小說的發(fā)展，到《紅樓夢》續(xù)書時表現(xiàn)尤為突出。各種《紅樓夢》續(xù)書顯示出女性可以是值得尊敬的小說批評家，續(xù)書的情節(jié)經?；貞缘年P切。出版、傳教和婦女之間有一定關聯(lián)。出版文化與婦女文化在19世紀末以前有所發(fā)展，中西小說在19世紀都擁有了更多的讀者。這一方面是因為中國讀者不斷增長的興趣；另一方面是書商們敏銳地意識到小說能帶來更多利潤。就傳教士而言，他們意識到小說能改變讀者的觀念。

魏愛蓮； 小說； 性別； 《水滸后傳》； 《紅樓夢》續(xù)書； 出版

魏愛蓮(Ellen Widmer)，美國學者。畢業(yè)于美國維斯理學院東亞語言與文化系，1974、1981年相繼獲哈佛大學碩士、博士學位?，F(xiàn)為維斯理學院東亞語言與文化系宋美齡及漢學終身教授、哈佛大學費正清研究中心教授，曾任維斯理學院東亞語言與文化系主任。研究領域主要有中國明清文學及女性文學、東亞比較文學、家族史、書籍史、傳教史等。著有《邊緣的烏托邦：〈水滸后傳〉與明逸民文學》(哈佛大學出版社1987年版)、《美人與書：19世紀中國的女性與小說》(哈佛大學出版社2006年版；北京大學出版社譯本2015年版)等專著，與人合編《明清女作家》(與孫康宜)、《跨越閨門：明清女性作家論》(與方秀潔)、《中國基督教大學：跨文化的連接點(1900—1950)》(與裴士丹)等，并發(fā)表《17世紀中國才女的書信世界》《19世紀中國女性的文學關系網絡》《〈紅樓夢〉之續(xù)書與19世紀中國的女性讀者》《19世紀70年代以降“精通媒體”的閨秀》《黃周星想象的花園》《杭州與蘇州的還讀齋：17 世紀的出版業(yè)研究》《缺乏機械化的現(xiàn)代性：鴉片戰(zhàn)爭前夕小說形態(tài)的改變》等諸多論文。筆者在哈佛大學訪學期間(2014年9月—2015年8月)通過會面及郵件對魏愛蓮教授進行了訪談。

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趙紅娟:魏教授好!很高興您能接受我的訪談。您的中國文學研究卓有成就，我久聞您的大名。記得數(shù)年前陪同波摩納學院白亞仁教授(Allan Barr)參觀湖州南潯時，我就和他談起您研究南潯作家陳忱《水滸后傳》的大著《邊緣的烏托邦：〈水滸后傳〉與明逸民文學》，后來白教授把他收藏的您的這一著作送給了我。所以，今天我就想從您的這一著作談起。這本著作出版于1987年，它是在您1981年哈佛大學博士論文的基礎上出版的。中國臺灣地區(qū)2010年出版有趙淑美的《〈水滸后傳〉研究》，它是在作者1978年東吳大學碩士論文基礎上出版的*趙淑美《水滸后傳研究》收入《古典文獻研究輯刊》第10編第14冊，(臺北)花木蘭文化出版社2010年版。此條信息由《浙江大學學報(人文社會科學版)》匿名評審專家提供，謹致謝忱。。你們在20世紀70年代末80年代初就已著手研究這部《水滸傳》續(xù)書，而那時中國大陸還很少有人關注它，且迄今也沒有專門研究這部小說的專著出版，2006年出版的陳會明《陳忱研究》主要是研究作家的*陳會明《陳忱研究》，(福州)福建人民出版社2006年版。主要研究陳忱生活的時代、生平事跡、交游、詩歌等，《水滸后傳》研究只是其中一章。。能否談談您為什么會選擇它做博士論文，您對它的文學成就有何評價？

魏愛蓮:我選《水滸后傳》做博士論文是因為這部小說里有作者陳忱的評點。當時我對金圣嘆提出的一些評點術語很感興趣，想看看一個作者會怎樣使用它們。我認為，當討論中國小說批評在金圣嘆等人影響下是如何形成的時，這部小說具有作為例證的價值。西方人可能會把《水滸后傳》當成一部小說，不過在我看來，陳忱關于如何結構小說的觀點和西方的小說觀很不一樣。

關于這部小說的文學價值，我認為某種程度上是瑕瑜互見的。它可能尚不足以列入一流經典作品的行列，但又具有許多有趣的研究方向。尤其有趣的是，早在17世紀陳忱就認為小說可以用來表達政治上的疏離和不滿。這種對小說形式的謹慎使用使他站在時代前沿，可以說他引入了小說可以表達個人感情的觀念，這種觀念在《紅樓夢》中也有體現(xiàn)。

趙紅娟:確如您所說，您一開始關注到的是《水滸后傳》的評點，這從您博士論文題目《17世紀中國小說批評背景中的〈水滸后傳〉》可以看出，但最后出版時書名成了《邊緣的烏托邦：〈水滸后傳〉與明逸民文學》，研究重點顯然轉向《水滸后傳》與明逸民文學，能否談談其中的原因？《水滸后傳》中英雄們創(chuàng)立的海外乾坤是一個烏托邦，您用了“邊緣”兩字加以修飾，有什么含義？

魏愛蓮:當博士論文快要寫完時，我在北京的國家圖書館里讀到了陳忱的詩，是我的博導韓南教授告訴我這個館藏信息。陳忱的這些詩給我的研究增添了一個新的維度，使我可以更加理解陳忱作為一個明逸民的一生，以及他與逸民友人們的關系。我發(fā)現(xiàn)明逸民的材料比陳忱小說里金圣嘆的評點術語更有趣。尤其在小說里的詩歌(不過還有更抒情化的片段)中，我深深體會到明逸民的心態(tài)，特別是他們在清朝統(tǒng)治下生活的失意和想要去往異域的愿望。一些明逸民包括陳忱的某些朋友東渡日本并定居下來，因此小說的烏托邦片段就與陳忱同時代人的生活似乎有所關聯(lián)。陳忱表達逸民感傷的載體由詩轉為了小說，這是另一個有趣的地方。當他用小說來表達難以言表的情感時，似乎把這種形式引向了一個新的方向。

在所有研究里，我一直努力以小說為中心，然后注意補充性的證據。在陳忱小說的個案里，兩個最有用的補充性證據是陳忱自己的詩和對他本人作品的批評。至于標題中使用的“邊緣”(margins)一詞，有兩個含義。第一是指陳忱邊緣性的批評，我將此作為17世紀中期小說形式形成方式的一個重要證據。第二個含義是與《水滸傳》的一種英文譯名“The Water Margin”的關聯(lián)。使用“邊緣”時，我想強調《水滸后傳》作為續(xù)書的身份，它與其母本有聯(lián)系，但又有許多新內容。

趙紅娟:國圖藏有清抄本《東池詩集》五卷，它是陳忱與友人湯有亮、張非仲、吳楚等人東池聚會的唱和集。我也曾抄閱，并作有《關于陳忱和〈東池詩集〉》一文(見《古典文獻研究》2013年第16輯)。您所說的陳忱的詩是指收入這個唱和集的陳忱的詩吧。作為一部極具多面性和藝術性的小說，《水滸后傳》及作者陳忱現(xiàn)在越來越受到中西學者的關注。中國以外有關這部小說的研究以烏托邦主題或思想的探索最為集中，而且往往長篇宏論。您的著作是這方面的代表，我一直盼望中國能翻譯出版您的這一大著。許多年前，我從《安徽教育學院學報》1986年第3期孫宇知的一篇文章中了解到，春風文藝出版社好像曾打算翻譯出版，但后來一直沒有看到譯本，您知道這一事情嗎？

魏愛蓮:是《東池詩集》。我還沒有聽說任何把我的書TheMarginsofUtopia翻譯成中文的計劃。

趙紅娟:我關注到，您曾在2012年北京大學召開的“晚明至晚清：歷史傳承與文化創(chuàng)新”研討會上提交《黃周星想象的花園》一文。我對黃周星很感興趣，認為他是一個清微派道教徒，其沉水自盡是因逸民情結無法解脫且對道教“飛升”極度迷狂，而其想象的“將就園”如您所說，是通過傳奇《人天樂》轉化為一個天上的烏托邦樂園，沉水“飛升”正是將他本人超度到他夢里的花園。同為明代逸民，陳忱和黃周星的這種烏托邦思想是否有聯(lián)系？而且據我所知，現(xiàn)在美國學界很多學者關注中國明清文人的這類幻想。明清文人這種烏托邦思想的源頭是什么？是否與莊子無何有之鄉(xiāng)及陶淵明桃花源思想有關？

魏愛蓮:就像你能想到的，我在陳忱的烏托邦理想和黃周星的烏托邦理想之間看到了一種聯(lián)系。陳忱與《水滸后傳》研究是我的第一個課題，它為我研究黃周星做了準備。我對黃周星對小說(特別是《西游記》)的興趣十分關注，黃周星的這種興趣與陳忱對《水滸傳》的興趣相似。我相信在明逸民信仰與烏托邦理想間存在一種密切的關聯(lián)，在黃、陳二人身上如此，在其他作者如董說身上可能也一樣。我同時相信如果討論其他作家，人們可以在以下三個方面找到深入的聯(lián)系：明代逸民信仰、小說以及烏托邦理想。不過我的研究相對集中，不會嘗試在這一問題上做宏大概括。

我認為陳忱小說中的烏托邦在某種程度上與莊子和陶淵明提出的概念是相關的，不過，似乎還有其他含義，或許是暗示鄭成功在臺灣的政權。但這也可能與《水滸傳》本身架構指向的烏托邦主題有關。我曾寫過一篇文章，探討當烏托邦無法實現(xiàn)時，東亞其他地域的小說如何從《水滸傳》轉向海外遠游主題。當時我想到的是16世紀韓國的《洪吉童傳》和19世紀日本瀧澤馬琴的《椿說弓張月》，《椿說弓張月》直接受到《水滸后傳》的影響。這三本小說都用了以《水滸傳》為基礎的材料，也都以建立中國境外的島國結束。

趙紅娟:您的研究視野很開闊。您談到的《洪吉童傳》《椿說弓張月》與《水滸后傳》在中國境外建立島國的相似情況及其與《水滸傳》本身架構的關系，將對中國的《水滸傳》及其續(xù)書研究有所啟示。

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趙紅娟:您的研究不僅重視文獻考證、文本細讀等，而且重視性別。比如，您將女性和明清小說聯(lián)系起來，研究女性對小說的興趣以及女性的關注對小說創(chuàng)作的影響等問題，有《明代的忠義與〈紅樓夢〉之后小說中女性的聲音》《〈紅樓夢〉之續(xù)書與19世紀中國的女性讀者》《女性讀者眼中的〈鏡花緣〉》《美人與書：19世紀中國的女性與小說》等論文、論著。能否談談您在這方面的研究及主要收獲？

魏愛蓮:1985年胡文楷的《歷代婦女著作考》修訂本問世后，我認為理解女性如何被納入中國文學圖景，會是一件有趣而有意義的事情。我讀研究生時，沒人談論女性與明清小說界的關聯(lián)，我想胡文楷的著作加上圖書館里能看到的女性寫作的材料，會給我一個很好的機會去找到一些答案。當時，其他學者也開始關注這個問題，所以就可以組織座談和會議請他們參加，并向他們學習。但關鍵在于我想實踐韓南教授對我的訓練，把它用在這個新方向里。

我和其他學者的研究引出了一種假設：中國婦女文化在特定時期里經歷了急劇的發(fā)展。僅就江南來看，就會發(fā)現(xiàn)有明末清初以及18世紀末至19世紀末這兩個時期的發(fā)展。其中第二個時期，在小說領域出現(xiàn)了一個分支，女性可以是讀者(不僅是彈詞，還包括章回小說)、評論者甚至作者。

我的《美人與書：19世紀中國的女性與小說》是以伊恩·瓦特(Ian Watt)有關英國小說的理論起步的，他的理論有助于考察女性讀者的興起及后來女性小說作者的興起。盡管中國的情況很不一樣，但我仍感到女性讀者確實推動了小說的發(fā)展，到《紅樓夢》續(xù)書時表現(xiàn)尤為突出。目前所知的第一部《紅樓夢》女性續(xù)書是顧太清于1877年創(chuàng)作的《紅樓夢影》，但早在將近一百年前就有女性閱讀《紅樓夢》并在詩中加以吟詠。各種《紅樓夢》續(xù)書同樣顯示出女性可以是值得尊敬的小說批評家，續(xù)書的情節(jié)似乎經常回應女性的關切。我不能說這些續(xù)書一定都是偉大作品，但它們的確體現(xiàn)了女性對小說不斷增長的興趣和參與度。而且在這一續(xù)書鏈的盡頭，真正的女性小說家出現(xiàn)了。這種發(fā)展完全獨立于19世紀末開始的西方的影響，盡管后者表現(xiàn)在中國人生活中的很多方面。

趙紅娟:您《本土和全球視野下的單士厘1903年的〈癸卯旅行記〉》一文揭示了晚清女性單士厘游記寫作的歷史和社會含義，受到學界廣泛關注，收入胡曉真主編《世變與維新——晚明與晚清的文學藝術》、董玥主編《走出區(qū)域研究：西方中國近代史論集粹》等書。能否談談您為什么會對單士厘感興趣，您這篇文章的獨特之處是什么？

魏愛蓮:在關于單士厘的論文里，我嘗試做三件事。第一，1903年正是中國剛剛開始經歷世界現(xiàn)代化巨大沖擊的一年，當時的中國也意識到不得不對政策進行巨大的改變，我想把這重要的一點置于中心。第二，我還想把一些人的想法考慮進去，那些想法聚焦于女性，認為女性對社會變革有巨大作用。即便我確信中國婦女在19世紀末以前經歷了變化和發(fā)展，1900年前后開始的變化仍和之前不同，尤其是在她們與世界其他部分的聯(lián)系上。第三，單士厘是一個特別有趣的研究案例。她與受到眾多關注的秋瑾非常不同，不過仍有非常現(xiàn)代的觀念，并以她自己的方式表現(xiàn)出來。她對舊式閨秀文化的執(zhí)著，特別是對增補惲珠的《國朝閨秀正始集》的興趣，也十分吸引我。我確信，就像許多其他婦女一樣，單士厘試圖變得現(xiàn)代，但同時又保留著保守的趣味。

趙紅娟:您從跨學科的角度和比較研究的視野解讀這本女性游記，確實讓人耳目一新。關于您的女性文學活動研究，我有個疑問：據您發(fā)表于《清華大學學報(哲學社會科學版)》2008年第3期的《19世紀中國女性的文學關系網絡》一文，18 世紀中國女性文學活動是蕭條的，而據您發(fā)表于《中山大學學報(社會科學版)》2009年第3期的《18世紀的廣東才女》一文，您似乎又是以18世紀廣東女性文學活動沒有衰落(例證方面似乎僅提到八個廣東女作家的名字)，來證明前一觀點的不正確。這是我理解有誤，還是您對此前觀點進行了修正？或是這兩篇文章都是翻譯的，都沒有非常準確地表達您的觀點？

魏愛蓮:這是一個非常好的問題。我相信與只專注于江南相比，如果把目光放至江南以外，就能找到更多的形態(tài)。我還沒有深入研究廣東，但我希望將來有機會這么做。當然廣東并不完全與江南隔絕，不過它似乎自有風格。所以，是的，我確實相信廣東婦女文化在18世紀可能沒有經歷和江南一樣的衰落，或者至少它的衰落是以一種不同的形式出現(xiàn)的。我認為這不是與自己之前的其他研究矛盾，而更像是對我們研究明清的學者加以提醒，應該嘗試將研究更多地拓展至中國的其他地域。

三

趙紅娟:您的研究領域其實非常廣，除了明清文學與性別問題，您還關注書籍出版?zhèn)鞑ナ?、傳教史、晚清家族史等。目前我正在研究晚明江南望族的編刊活動與傳播，我發(fā)現(xiàn)您的《杭州與蘇州的還讀齋：17 世紀的出版業(yè)研究》《缺乏機械化的現(xiàn)代性：鴉片戰(zhàn)爭前夕小說形態(tài)的改變》等書籍史論文在學界也很有影響。能否談談您這些論文關注的主要是哪些問題，主要觀點是什么。

魏愛蓮:出版、傳教和婦女這三個話題間是有關聯(lián)的。關于還讀齋的文章是我在學術生涯相當早的時候寫的，那時我剛剛開始對婦女話題感興趣(這也與我早些時候對黃周星的關注有密切關系)。這篇論文中間部分引用的汪淇《尺牘新語》里收錄了許多婦女作品。多少由于這部文集，我開始注意到明末清初的一些著名女作家。你提到的另一篇文章不是著重關注婦女，但它探討了太平天國時期前后的書籍出版類型，也反映了傳教士和中國出版者在傳布書籍的手段與動機上的相似。這項研究幫助我更好地理解了19世紀出版、讀者及女性與書籍文化關系的問題，這些問題我在《美人與書》中進行了更集中的研究。書籍文化與婦女文化在19世紀末以前有所發(fā)展，這在《美人與書》中是我另一個重新提及的觀點。

這兩篇文章都與小說如何生產與傳播有關，但重點仍然是小說。關于還讀齋的文章特別關注了這家書坊推出的一種《西游記》版本，這似乎是第一個包含第九回的版本。我對某一類型的出版機構除小說外還出版哪類書籍也很感興趣，在還讀齋的個案里，還出版醫(yī)藥、商業(yè)和其他主題的書籍。我嘗試揭示出一種背景，在這種背景下一家出版小說的書坊開展全方位的出版?！度狈C械化的現(xiàn)代性》一文比起印刷本身更關心傳播。我將《鏡花緣》與19世紀中國的傳教士小說聯(lián)系起來，一個結論是傳教士利用了正在中國發(fā)展的(傳播)網絡，但他們并不創(chuàng)建網絡。中西小說在19世紀都擁有了更多的讀者，這一方面是因為中國讀者不斷增長的興趣，另一方面是書商們敏銳地意識到小說能帶來更多利潤。就傳教士而言，他們意識到小說能改變讀者的觀念。

趙紅娟:我關注到，2009年您還與裴士丹(Daniel H. Bays)合編了《中國基督教大學：跨文化的連接點(1900—1950)》一書，該書收錄了您《美國七姐妹女校聯(lián)盟與中國》一文。能否談談該書的編撰目的和您論文的主要觀點？

魏愛蓮:裴教授和我開過兩次會。一次是關于大學檔案里的傳教活動材料。其中有很多海外傳教士的通信，我們想讓它們更容易被讀者接觸到。另一次會議是現(xiàn)在這本書的基礎。我們想強調傳教活動不僅對中國，而且對美國、英國和其他文化也有影響。我關于七姐妹學院的論文意在展現(xiàn)推動美國大學生赴華的力量以及他們的海外經歷對母校的影響。在維斯理學院的個案中，學院的東亞研究與傳教活動就有緊密的聯(lián)系。

趙紅娟:近些年，您對晚清詹氏家族似乎感興趣，不僅發(fā)表了數(shù)篇論文，還去其浙江衢州老家考察，是否有這方面的大作將要出版？能否介紹下您這方面的研究情況和主要收獲？

魏愛蓮:是的，我有一本書寫的就是詹氏家族，它馬上就要由哈佛東亞中心出版了，我相信秋天就可以問世。它的標題是Fiction’sFamily:ZhanXi，ZhanKaiandtheBusinessofWomeninLateQingChina。在這本書里我聚焦于一個家庭里的四個人。母親王慶棣和父親詹嗣曾是19世紀后半葉的作家。他們有四個兒子，其中的兩個即詹熙和詹塏在清末寫作改良小說。我的研究集中于這四人身上，討論幾個問題。首先，這兩代作者間有一個比較。差異的一個主要原因是報刊新聞的出現(xiàn)，尤其是在上海。另一個問題是這位母親對失意情緒的表達與部分女性對失意情緒新式表達間的關系，這些新式表達(大致)開始于1872年的《申報》。實際上母親的一些作品出現(xiàn)在了這份報刊上，但表現(xiàn)出母親個人痛苦的詩是私下流傳的，而非她在報刊這種新媒體上公開發(fā)表的。這種痛苦一直發(fā)展，直到她生命最后感到被拋棄的時候。與之相關，我探討她的被拋棄感是否對兩個兒子決定寫作改良小說產生了影響。最后，我詳細考察兄弟倆的生平，以求弄清小說寫作在他們的余生中扮演了何種角色。女性就業(yè)與交際花的優(yōu)缺點等論題也受到了關注，尤其是與詹塏作品相聯(lián)系時。這一研究的整體重點在于從一個家庭的小范圍出發(fā)，對更大范圍的晚清內部變化力量進行解讀。

四

趙紅娟:韓南先生是學界公認的美國最有成就的中國古典小說研究專家之一，在漫長的教學生涯中，培養(yǎng)了許多風格各異的弟子。您是韓南先生的大弟子，我有幸在哈佛舉辦的紀念韓南先生的活動上認識您。能否談談他指導學生的一些情況？

魏愛蓮:韓南教授總是希望學生們能追隨他們自己的研究興趣。他不打算控制我們，所以我們每個人后來的發(fā)展很不一樣。在我和他相處的這段時間里，他自己也有很多變化。他起先主要是研究文學史，但在學術生涯的最后，他對翻譯產生了極大的興趣。

趙紅娟:韓南先生治學精于考證，是樸學一路。您的中國文學研究是否受到他的影響？能否談談您的學術背景和治學理念？

魏愛蓮:韓南教授無疑對我產生了巨大的影響，他是我在整個明清小說方面的啟蒙老師。1972年秋季，當我開始在哈佛攻讀研究生時，我對明清小說一無所知。我聽說過《紅樓夢》，不過其他小說就不知道了。除此之外，他向我傳授了考證的方法，在我寫作論文時告訴我如何使用那些對美國人開放的圖書館(當時我們是不能前往中國大陸的)，后來又幫助我在1982年取得赴華的獎學金，使我得以在北京讀到陳忱的詩。在我寫作論文的時候，他也為我提供了指導。正是通過韓南教授，我開始懂得，如果了解各個圖書館的館藏情況，以一種科學精神對待稀見資料，就可能在中國文學領域發(fā)現(xiàn)新的興趣點。而且，在他的有生之年，我們一直保持聯(lián)系。他始終知道我正在研究的內容，而我也始終知道他的。確實可以說，我們成了朋友。

本科時我學政治學專業(yè)，對中國實際上一無所知。但我對中國與美國的敵對關系以及中國大不相同的執(zhí)政理念產生了興趣。成為研究生后，我想或許可以攻讀考古學，不過后來我遇到了韓南教授，并且想和他一起工作。我的觀點是，中國小說是小說這種形式非常有趣的一種變體。當一個人研究在中國誰寫小說，誰來閱讀，誰來傳播，以及如何結構作品時，他就能了解中國小說在西方的影響到來之前是如何發(fā)展的。

趙紅娟:從明清小說與逸民到明清小說與女性，從明清小說的出版到傳教史、家族史，您的研究興趣圍繞小說而又不斷變化，能否簡單談談您學術興趣的這一變化過程及其原因？

魏愛蓮:我對西方影響來臨前的中國小說有極大興趣，這可以舉《紅樓夢》為例?！都t樓夢》顯示了一種不受西方影響的寫作風格，以視角來塑造人物的方式、某些次要人物只是用來聯(lián)結其他人物的寫法、伏脈千里的敘事手法——這些都展現(xiàn)了西方小說里沒有的特征。在學術興趣變化這件事上，我受同行們的研究影響很大。參加學術會議時，我聆聽發(fā)言，并從中得出自己的觀點。我學術興趣中唯一不太符合這點的就是傳教士研究。傳教活動及其對中國和西方的意義，長期以來我都很感興趣。

趙紅娟:今天和您對話非常愉快，我也獲益匪淺。您在研究中表現(xiàn)出來的文獻學功底、開闊的視野、跨學科的研究方法以及研究的創(chuàng)新性等，都令我肅然起敬。再次感謝您撥冗接受我的訪談。我曾經在湖州工作近二十年，對錢恂、單士厘所在的湖州長興、陳忱所在的湖州南潯十分熟悉，歡迎您以后有機會去考察。

魏愛蓮:也感謝你最后的評論。我一直想去你所說的地方，目前為止我還沒到過那里。也許將來我們會有機會一起游覽考察。

(本文魏愛蓮先生的回答以及英文摘要均由浙江外國語學院中文學院邊茜老師幫助翻譯，謹致謝忱。)

(本文英文全文請參見《浙江大學學報(人文社會科學版網絡版)》，http://www.zjujournals.com/soc/CN/abstract/abstract11439.shtml)

DOI： 10.3785/j.issn.1008-942X.CN33-6000/C.2016.01.122

Received date： 2016-01-12

Website： http：//www.journals.zju.edu.cn/soc

Online first date： 2016-09-30

Author profile： 1.Zhao Hongjuan(http://orcid.org/0000-0002-4512-3165), is a professor at the Institute of Humanities of Zhejiang International Studies University, and the focus of her research is on ancient Chinese novels; 2.Ellen Widmer(http://orcid.org/0000-0003-1559-1950), is a professor at the Department of East Asian Languages and Cultures of Wellesley College, and the focus of her research is on Chinese Ming-Qing literary.

Fiction， Gender， History and Culture: An Interview of Professor Ellen Widmer，a Famous American Sinologist

Zhao Hongjuan Ellen Widmer

(1.InstituteofHumanities，ZhejiangInternationalStudiesUniversity，Hangzhou310023，China；2.DepartmentofEastAsianLanguagesandCultures，WellesleyCollege，Wellesley,MA02481,USA)

□ translated by Bian Qian

Ellen Widmer, American. B.A. of Department of East Asian Languages and Cultures of Wellesley College; M.A. of Harvard University in 1974, Ph. D. of Harvard University in 1981. She is Mayling Soong Professor of Chinese Studies and Professor of East Asian Studies at the Department of East Asian Languages and Cultures of Wellesley College, and professor at Fairbank Center for Chinese Studies. She was Chair of the Department of East Asian Languages and Cultures of Wellesley College. Her research mainly covers Chinese Ming-Qing literature, women’s literature, East Asian comparative literature, family history, the history of books and the history of Christian missions. She is the author ofTheMarginsofUtopia:Shui-huHou-chuanandtheLiteratureofMingLoyalism(Cambridge: Harvard University Press1987) andTheBeautyandtheBook:WomenandFictioninNineteenth-CenturyChina(Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2006; Beijing: Peking University Press, 2015), and a co-editor ofWritingWomeninLateImperialChina(with Kang-i Sun Chang),TheInnerQuartersandBeyond:WomenWritersfromMingthroughQing(with Grace S. Fong) andChina’sChristianColleges:Cross-CulturalConnections, 1900-1950 (with Daniel H. Bays). She also published many essays including ″The Epistolary World of Female Talent in Seventeenth-Century China,″ ″The Literary Network Among Chinese Women in the Nineteenth Century,″ ″HongloumengSequels and Their Female Readers in Nineteenth-Century China,″ ″The Huanduzhai of Hangzhou and Suzhou: A Study in Seventeenth-century Publishing,″ ″Modernization without Mechanization: The Changing Shape of Fiction on the Eve of the Opium War.″ The authors interviewed Professor Widmer face-to-face and by e-mails from September 2014 to August 2015.

Ⅰ

Zhao Hongjuan: Hello, Professor Widmer! I am glad that you can accept my interview. I heard so much about your excellence in the studies of Chinese literature. I remember that several years ago I talked with Professor Allan Barr aboutTheMarginsofUtopia:ShuihuHouchuanandtheLiteratureofMingLoyalism, your book on Chen Chen, a writer of Nanxun, and later Professor Barr gave me the book from his collection. Therefore, today I want to start from this book. It was published in 1987 on the basis of your doctoral dissertation of Harvard University in 1981. In Taiwan, Zhao Shumei’s A Study of Shuihu houzhuan was published in 2010 on the basis of the author’s master’s thesis of Soochow University in 1978*Zhao Shumei, ″The Studies of Shuihu houzhuan″, Collection of Classical Literature Research, Book 14, Volume 10, Huamulan Culture Publishing Company, 2010. Sincere thanks for anonymous Professor’s offering the information.. In late-1970s-early-1980s period, you and Professor Barr set about studying the sequels ofShuihuzhuan(TheWaterMargin) while in Chinese mainland few people paid attention to it at that time and no monograph on it has been published until now. Chen Huiming’sTheStudiesofChenChenpublished in 2006 mainly studies the author*Chen Huiming, The Studies of Chen Chen, Fujian People’s Publishing House, 2006. It maily studies Chen Chen’s time he was living in, his life story, company, poems, etc. The study of Shuihu houzhuan is just one chapter in the book.. Could you talk about why you chose it for your doctoral dissertation, and how would you evaluate its literary achievements?

Ellen Widmer: I picked the topic ofShuihuhouzhuan(《水滸后傳》) for my thesis because the novel was accompanied by critical comments by the author. I was interested in the critical terms introduced by Jin Shengtan(金圣嘆), and I wanted to see how an individual author would apply them. It was only at the end of the thesis that I found out about the poems by Chen Chen(陳忱) in the National Library in Beijing. Those added a whole new dimension to the project and allowed me to understand more about Chen’s life as a Ming loyalist and his relationships with loyalist friends.

Zhao Hongjuan: Indeed as you say, at the very start you focused on the comments ofShuihuhouzhuan, which can be seen from your dissertation title ″shui-hu hou-chuan in the Context of Seventeenth Century Chinese Fiction Criticism,″ but when the book was published the title became ″The Margins of Utopia:Shui-huHou-chuanand the Literature of Ming Loyalism,″ in which the research emphasis clearly turned toShuihuhouzhuanand the literature of Ming loyalism. Could you talk about the reason of that? The overseas world created by the heros inShuihuhouzhuanis a Utopia, and you picked the word ″margin″ to modify it. What is the meaning of it?

Ellen Widmer: In the end I found the material on Ming loyalism to be more interesting than the relationship of Jin Shengtan’s critical terms to Chen’s novel. Through the poems, especially, but also through some of the more lyrical moments in the novel, I gained a good sense of the mind-set of Ming loyalists, especially their frustration with life under the Qing Dynasty and their wish to set sail for another land. Since some Ming loyalists, including some of Chen’s friends, actually did sail to Japan and set up life there, there seemed to be a correlation between the novel;s utopian moments and the lives of people in Chen’s own time. The fact that Chen turned from poetry to fiction to express loyalist sentiments was another point of interest. Chen seemed to be taking the novel form in a new direction when he used it to express difficult emotions.

In all of my work I have always tried to put the novel at the center and then to look at supplementary evidence. In the case of Chen Chen’s novel, my two most useful supplements were Chen’s own poems and his critical comments about his own work, as found in the marginal commentary. My use of the word ″margins″ in my title has two meanings. The first is Chen’s marginal commentary, which I regard as important evidence of how the novel form was taking shape in the mid-seventeenth century. The second meaning is a reference to one of the English titles forShuihu, ″The Water Margin.″ When I said ″margins″ I intended to emphasize Chen’s novel’s role as a sequel. It is connected to the ″parent novel″ but takes many new steps on its own.

Zhao Hongjuan: National Library of China preserves the Qing five-volume transcription ofDongchiShiji, which is the responsory collection of the meet at Dongchi among Chen Chen and his friends including Tang Youliang, Zhang Feizhong and Wu Chu. I also read and transcribed it, and wrote an essay ″On Chen Chen andDongchiShiji.″ The poems written by Chen Chen as you mentioned I guess means the poems of his in the collection. As an extremely multi-faceted and artistic fiction,Shuihuhouzhuanand its author, Chen Chen, has caught more and more attention of Chinese and Western scholars. Outside Chinese Mainland, the researches on the novel mostly concentrate on exploring the ″Utopian″ topic or thought, and are often very long. Your book is the representative of them. I have been looking for the translation and publication of it in Chinese mainland. Many years ago, I learnt from an article written by Sun Yuzhi in Journal of Anhui Institute of Education (No.3, 1986) thatChunfengLiteratureandArtPublishingHouseintended to translate and publish it, but afterward I have never seen the translation. Do you know this thing?

Ellen Widmer: It isDongchiShiji. I have not heard of any plans to translate my book The Margins of Utopia into Chinese.

Zhao Hongjuan: I notice that you submitted ″The Garden Imagined by Huang Zhouxing″ to ″The Late Ming and the Late Qing: Historical Dynamics and Cultural Innovations″ workshop held by Peking University in 2012. I am interested in Huang Zhouxing. I think he was a Taoist of Qingwei School, and he submerged himself because of inextricable loyalism together with extremely ecstasy over Taoist ″fly upward;″ the ″Jiangjiu Garden″ he imagined, as you said, is a heavenly utopian paradise embodied by thechuanqi,Rentianle. The submergence and ″flying upward″ was just releasing Huang himself from purgatory into his dream garden. Being a Ming loyalist as well, is Chen Chen related to Huang Zhouxing’s such utopian thought? And as far as I know, many American scholars are paying close attention to such fantasy of Chinese Ming-Qing literati. What is the source of Ming-Qing literati’s such Utopian thought? Is it linked with Zhuangzi’s ″wuheyouzhixiang″(a world where nothing really exists) thought and Tao Yuanming’s ″taohuayuan″(the Peach Garden) thought?

Ellen Widmer: As you can imagine, I saw a connection between Chen Chen’s utopianism and that of Huang Zhouxing(黃周星). It was the first project that prepared me to do the second. I was also interested in Huang Zhouxing’s interest in fiction (especiallyXiyouji), an interest that ran parallel to Chen’s interest inShuihuzhuan. I believe there is an intimate connection between Ming loyalism and utopianism in these two writers and perhaps in other writers, such as Dong Yue (董說). I also believe one could find a deep connection between all three interests: in Ming loyalism, in fiction, and in utopianism if one brought in other writers; but mine was a rather narrow study and I did not attempt to draw a large conclusion on this matter.

I think it is very possible that the utopia in Chen Chen’s novel refers in part to concepts developed earlier by Zhuangzi and Tao Yuanming. However, there seems to be something else going on, perhaps a reference to Zheng Chenggong’s brief rule on Taiwan. But it may also be something about the wayShuihuzhuanitself is constructed that led to the utopian theme. I have written an article on how novels elsewhere in East Asia move fromShuihuto the theme of travel abroad when things don’t go well to utopian settings. The novels I had in mind were The Story of Hong Giltong from Korea (sixteenth century) and Takizawa Bakin’s Chinsetsu Yumiharizuki of the nineteenth century. The Japanese example was directly influenced byShuihuhouzhuan. All three novels usedShuihu-based materials but end up in island kingdoms off the coast of China.

Zhao Hongjuan: You have a wide research vision! The similarity of island kingdoms off the coast of China in The Story of Hong Giltong, Chinsetsu Yumiharizuki andShuihuhouzhuan, and its relationship with the original framework ofShuihuzhuan, as you said, will be inspiring to the studies ofShuihuzhuanand its sequels in Chinese mainland.

Ⅱ

Zhao Hongjuan: Your research pays attention to not only things like textual research of literature and close reading of text, but also gender. For example, you connect women with Ming-Qing fiction, studying issues like women’s interest in fiction, and the impact of women’s attention to fiction writing. You are the author of monographs including ″Ming Loyalism and the?Women’s Voice inHongloumengSequels,″ ″HongloumengSequels and Their Female Readers in Nineteenth-Century China,″ ″Jinghuayuanin female readers’ eyes″ andTheBeautyandtheBook:WomenandFictioninNineteenth-CenturyChina. Could you say something about your studies and main achievements?

Ellen Widmer: My studyTheBeautyandtheBookbegins with theory developed by Ian Watt about the novel in England, which has to do with the rise of women readers and then writers of novels. Although the situation in China is very different, it seems to me that women readers did help to shape the development of this form, particularly when it comes to sequels toHongloumeng(TheDreamofRedMansion). Although the first known sequel to be authored by a woman is Gu Taiqing’sHongloumengyingof 1877, almost one hundred years before that one starts to see signs that women were readingHongloumengand responding to it in their poems. The various sequels toHongloumengalso give evidence that women could be respected critics of fiction; and the plots often seem to be responsive to women’s concerns. I do not want to claim that the sequels were necessarily great literature, but they are signs of a growing interest among women in the novel and growing involvement with the form. And at the very end of the chain of sequels an actual woman novelist emerges. This development is completely independent of the influence of the West on so many aspects of Chinese life that begins at the end of the nineteenth century.

After 1985, when Hu Wenkai’s (胡文楷) revisedLidaifunüzhuzuokao(《歷代婦女著作考》)，came out, I thought it would be interesting better to understand how women fit into the picture of Chinese literature. No one talked about women in connection with the Ming-Qing fiction field when I was in graduate school, and I thought that Hu Wenkai’s book, plus all the material by women available in libraries, would give me a good chance to discover some answers. Also, at the same time, other scholars were getting interested in this problem, so it was possible to organize panels and conferences with them and to learn more that way. But the main point was that I wanted to take the training I acquired under Professor Han Nan and turn it in this new direction. One hypothesis that emerged from my own and others’ research is that Chinese women underwent waves of development in certain eras. If one looks only at Jiangnan, one can see development at the end of the Ming and the beginning of the Qing, and also from the late-eighteenth to the late-nineteenth centuries. The second of these two periods, but not the first, had ramifications in the field of fiction, where women could be readers (not just oftanci, but also ofzhanghuixiaoshuo) and even writers.

Zhao Hongjuan: Your article ″Foreign Travel through a Woman’s Eyes: Shan Shili’sGuimaolüxingji(《癸卯旅行記》) in Local and Global Perspective″ reveals the historical and social meaning of the travel notes writing of Shan Shili(單士厘), a woman in the late Qing, and widely catches attention of academia. It is included in books like Transformation and Reformation — Literature and Arts in the Late Ming and the Late Qing edited by Hu Xiaozhen, and Beyond Area Studies: Selected Western Scholarship on Modern Chinese History edited by Dong Yue. Could you tell us why you would become interested in Shan Shili, and what is the distinctiveness of this article?

Ellen Widmer: In the essay on Shan Shili I was trying to do three things. First, the year 1903 was a time that China was just beginning to experience the full shock of world modernization and to realize that vast policy changes would have to be made. I wanted to put this big point in the center. I also wanted to consider the implications of the idea that some people focused on women as a way of bringing about significant change. Even though I do believe that Chinese women experienced change and development before the end of the nineteenth century, the kind of changes that began around 1900 were different from those found earlier, especially in their connection to other parts of the world. Shan Shili is a particularly interesting case study. She is very different from Qiu Jin(秋瑾), who has attracted so much attention, and yet in her own way she had very modern ideas. I was also interested in her tie to old-fashionedguixiu(閨秀) culture, particularly her interest in extending Yun Zhu’s(惲珠)Guochaoguixiuzhengshiji(《國朝閨秀正始集》). I’m sure like many other women, Shan tried to be modern, but she retained conservative interests at the same time.

Zhao Hongjuan: It is really refreshing of you to interpret the women travel notes in a cross-disciplinary perspective and a comparative-study vision. I have a doubt about your research on women’s literary activities. According to your article ″The Literary Network Among Chinese Women in the Nineteenth Century″ in theJournalofTsinghuaUniversity(No.3, 2008), Chinese women’s literary activity in the eighteenth century is bleak, while as you wrote in ″Guangdong’s Talented Women of the Eighteenth Century″ in theJournalofSunYat-SenUniversity(No.3, 2009), it seems that you prove the former view wrong by the fact that women’s literary activity in Guangdong in the eighteenth century did not decline (as to the examples, there seem to be only eight names of female writers in Guangdong). Is it my misunderstanding, or your adjustment to the former point of view, or inaccuracy of your ideas because both articles are translated?

Ellen Widmer: This is a particularly good question. I believe that if one looks outside of Jiangnan one can find different patterns than if Jiangnan is the sole focus. I have not yet studied Guangdong deeply, but I hope to have a chance do so. It is of course true that Guangdong is not completely disconnected from Jiangnan, but it seems to have rhythms of its own. So, yes, I do believe that Guangdong’s women’s culture may not have undergone the same retraction in the eighteenth century that one finds in Jiangnan, or at least that the retraction might have taken a different form. I do not see this as a contradiction with other research I have done but rather as a reminder that we who do research on the Ming and Qing should try and branch out more to other parts of China.

Ⅲ

Zhao Hongjuan: Your field of study is actually very extensive. Besides the issue of Ming-Qing literature and gender, your interest is attracted by history of books, missionary and families in the late Qing. Now I am studying the editing and publishing activities of distinguished families in late-Ming Jiangnan area. I find your theses on the history of books, such like ″The Huanduzhai of Hangzhou and Suzhou: A Study in Seventeenth-Century Publishing″ and ″Modernization without Mechanization: The Changing Shape of Fiction on the Eve of the Opium War,″ have much influence in academia. Could you talk about what questions are mostly focused in these theses and what is the main point?

Ellen Widmer: There are ties between the topics of publishing and missionaries and the topic of women. The article on Huanduzhai(還讀齋)was written much earlier in my career, when I was only just becoming interested in women. (It also has a strong tie to my earlier interest in Huang Zhouxing.) The collection at the center of this piece, Wang Qi’s (汪淇)Chiduxinyu(《尺牘新語》), does contain quite a few writings women’s writings. It was partly because of this collection that I began to find out about some of the famous women writers of the late-Ming and early-Qing. The other article you talk about is less specifically about women, but it explores patterns in book publication from around the time of the Taiping rebellion. It also brings in parallels between the ways missionaries and Chinese publishers distributed books and what they wanted to accomplish in doing so. This research helped me better to understand questions about publishing, audiences, and women’s relationship to book culture during the nineteenth century, questions that I took up more centrally inTheBeautyandtheBook. The idea that book culture and women’s culture saw development before the end of the nineteenth century is another that I return to inTheBeautyandtheBook.

These two articles are about how fiction was produced and distributed, but the emphasis is still on fiction. The Huanduzhai article is especially interested in a version ofXiyoujithat was turned out by the firm. It appears to be the first version to contain the ninth chapter. I was also interested in what besides novels a certain kind of publishing house would turn out. In Huanduzhai’s case these included works on medicine, business, and other topics. I was trying to build up a sense of the context in which a firm that published novels conducted its full range of operations. The article on modernization without mechanization is more interested in distribution than in printing per se. There I look atJinghuayuanin conjunction with the novels in Chinese that were turned out by missionaries in the nineteenth century. One conclusion is that missionaries took advantage of networks that were developing in China but they did not create those networks. Both Chinese and Western works of fiction reached more readers in the nineteenth century because of growing interest among Chinese readers and sensitivity of booksellers to profits that could be made from fiction, or, in the case of missionaries, of the power of fiction to change readers’ minds.

Zhao Hongjuan: I notice that you editedChina’sChristianColleges:Cross-culturalConnections, 1900-1950 with Daniel H. Bays, and this book is referred in your article ″The Seven Sisters and China, 1900-1950.″ Could you talk about the objective of editing this book and the main idea of your thesis?

Ellen Widmer: Professor Bays and I ran two conferences. One was about the materials on missionary experience that can be found in college archives. There is a lot of correspondence from missionaries abroad that can be found in such places, and we wanted to make it more accessible to readers. The other conference was the basis for the volume that emerged. We wanted to emphasize that missionary experience had an effect not just on China but on American, British, and other cultures as well. My essay on the Seven Sisters starts out by showing what drew American undergraduates to China and what effects their experience abroad had on their home schools. In the case of Wellesley College, the study of East Asia on campus was closely connected to missionary experience.

Zhao Hongjuan: In recent years, you seem to be interested in Zhan family in the late Qing. Not only publishing several thesis but also going to its home, Qu zhou in Zhejiang Province, for an investigation, will you publish a book soon in this field? Could you introduce your studies and main harvest in this field?

Ellen Widmer: Yes, I have a book on the Zhan family. It is about to come out from Harvard East Asia Center. I believe it will be out in the fall. Its title is Fiction’s Family: Zhan Xi, Zhan Kai and the Business of Women in Late Qing China. Here I focus on a family of four. The mother, Wang Qingdi (王慶棣), and the father, Zhan Sizeng (詹嗣增), were writers during the second half of the nineteenth century. Two of their four sons, Zhan Xi (詹熙) and Zhan Kai (詹塏), wrote reformist novels at the end of the Qing. Concentrating on these people, I discuss several questions. First, there is a comparison between these two generations of writers. One major reason for difference is the advent of print journalism, especially in Shanghai. Another question is about the mother’s relationship to the new expressions of feminine frustration, which begin (more or less) withShenbao(《申報》) in 1872. In fact a few writings by the mother do appear in this periodical. However, it is the mother’s old-fashioned poems, not her short pieces inShenbao, that indicate personal unhappiness. This unhappiness developed toward the end of her life, when she felt abandoned. Relatedly, I ask whether her sense of abandonment played any role in the decisions of two of her sons to write reformist novels. Lastly, I go into detail about each of the two brothers’ careers in order better to understand how novel writing fit into the rest of their lives. Issues such as female employment and the merits and demerits of courtesans receive attention, particularly in connection with Zhan Kai’s writings. The overall point of the project is to use the small compass of one family to understand more about the larger dynamics of the late Qing.

Ⅳ

Zhao Hongjuan: Acknowledged by academia, Mr Han Nan is one of the most scholars in Classical Chinese fiction. In a very long teaching career, he trained many students of different style. You are the senior student of Mr Han Nan, and I had the opportunity to acquaint with you in the memorial to him held by Harvard University. Could you say something about his research and the feature of his studies?

Ellen Widmer: I valued his teaching because he wanted students to follow their own interests. He did not try to control us, and we have all turned out very differently. He himself changed quite a bit during the time I knew him. At the beginning he was primarily a scholar of literary history, but at the end of his career he became very interested in translation.

Zhao Hongjuan: Mr Han Nan’s studies are skilled in textual research and goes in a way of Puxue. Are you influenced by him in the studies of Chinese literature? Could you talk about your academic background and philosophy of study?

Ellen Widmer: Of course Professor Han Nan had a huge influence on me. He basically introduced me to the whole field of Ming-Qing fiction. I knew nothing about it when I started graduate school at Harvard in the fall of 1972. I had heard ofHongloumeng, but not of any other novel. Beyond that, he introduced me tokaozheng(考證) methodology, told me how to use the libraries that were open to Americans when I wrote my thesis (we could not go to mainland China at the time), then later helped me to get a scholarship to go to China in 1982 so I could read Chen Chen’s poems in Beijing. He also advised me as I wrote my thesis. It was through Professor Han Nan that I began to understand that if one knew what was in which library, and if one approached rare materials in a scientific spirit, one could discover new points of interest in Chinese literature. Furthermore we stayed in regular touch for the rest of his life. He always knew what I was working on, and I always knew what he was working on. One could really say that we became friends.

As an undergraduate I majored in political science and knew virtually nothing about China. But I became interested in China’s rather hostile view of the US and its very different sense of how to govern. When I went to graduate school I thought I might major in archaeology, but then I met Professor Han Nan and wanted to work with him. The theory behind my studies is only that the Chinese novel is a very interesting variant on the novel form. When one studies who wrote novels in China, who read them, who distributed them, and how they were constructed one gets a picture of how they evolved before Western influence set in.

Zhao Hongjuan: From Ming-Qing fiction and loyalists to Ming-Qing fiction and women, from Ming-Qing fiction to history of missionary and family, could you briefly introduce your transformation of academic interest and the reason of that?

Ellen Widmer: On the question about my interest in novels before the influence of the West became so strong, an example can be seen inHongloumeng. There one finds evidence of a style of writing fiction that has nothing to do with Western influence. The way point of view is used to develop characters, the fact that some characters only connect other characters but are not important themselves, and the way events are predicted long before they actually take place — these are examples of features not found in the same way in Western fiction. On the evolution of my interests, I am much influenced by what colleagues are studying. When I go to conferences I listen to presentations and from them get ideas of my own. The only one of my interests that doesn’t quite fit this pattern is the one on missionaries. I have long been fascinated by the missionary experience and what it meant for both the Chinese and the Western sides.

Zhao Hongjuan: It gives me great pleasure and benefit to talk with you. Your philological foundation, extensive vision, inter-disciplinary method and innovation in research fill me with admiration. Thank you again for taking the time to accept my interview. Having worked in Huzhou for nearly twenty years, I am very familiar with Changxing and Nanxun in the city. Qian Xun and Shan Shili lived in Changxing, and Chen Chen lived in Nanxun. I welcome you to go there and conduct an investigation in the future.

Ellen Widmer: And thank you for your final comment. I always wanted to get to the places you mention and have never been there. Perhaps we will be able to visit them together some day.

Innovation: Professor Ellen Widmer has abundant research achievements and a great influence on Chinese and American sinology. Late last year Peking University Press published her bookTheBeautyandtheBook, which raised attention in mainland China; the sixth issue of theFudanJournal(SocialSciencesEdition) in 2015 published Yuan Jin’s ″The Host’s Words″ and Professor Widmer’s ″Beauties and Books: Chinese Women and Novels in 19th Century.″ However, there has not been an interview about her in Chinese academia until now. This interview focuses on her researches into fiction and loyalists, women’s literature, publication and missionary, and families. It reveals the features of Professor Widmer’s research: wide interest and vision around fiction, emphasis on textual research of literature and close reading of text, and focus on the perspective of gender. From this interview, one can not only have a more comprehensive understanding of the academic achievements, philosophy and background of Professor Widmer, but also can see overseas scholars’ vision and methods different to Chinese peers in their studies.

Fiction， Gender， History and Culture: An Interview of Professor Ellen Widmer，a Famous American Sinologist

Zhao Hongjuan Ellen Widmer

(1.InstituteofHumanities，ZhejiangInternationalStudiesUniversity，Hangzhou310023，China；2.DepartmentofEastAsianLanguagesandCultures，WellesleyCollege，Wellesley,MA02481,USA)

Ellen Widmer is professor of East Asian Studies and Mayling Soong Professor of Chinese Studies at the Department of East Asian Languages and Cultures of Wellesley College; she is also professor at Fairbank Center for Chinese Studies at Harvard University. She has contributed distinctive researches on issues including Ming-Qing fiction and Ming loyalism, Ming-Qing fiction and women, Ming-Qing fiction and publication, the history of books and the history of Christian mission. She thinks thatShuihuHouzhuanprobably does not deserve to be ranked as a first-rate classic, but its value as a manifestation of how the novel form took shape in China under the influence of Jin Shengtan and others is remarkable. The novel was used by its author, Chen Chen, to express political alienation and dissent; introducing the idea of fiction’s capability of expressing personal emotion put Chen ahead of his time. Chen Chen’s loyalism may be related to the utopia in his novel, and such utopia perhaps is a reference to Zheng Chenggong’ s rule in Taiwan while referring in part to concepts developed earlier by Zhuangzi and Tao Yuanming; it may also be something about the wayTheWaterMarginitself is constructed that led to the Utopian theme.TheStoryofHongGiltongfrom Korea (the sixteenth century) and Takizawa Bakin’sChinsetsuYumiharizukiof the nineteenth century usedTheWaterMargin-based materials but end up with the establishing of island kingdoms off the coast of China. Chinese women underwent waves of development in certain eras. If one looks only at Jiangnan area, one can see development at the end of the Ming and the beginning of the Qing, and also from the late-eighteenth to the late-nineteenth centuries. The latter of these two periods had ramifications in the field of fiction, where women could be readers, critics, and even writers. Women readers help to shape the development of fiction, particularly when it comes to sequels toTheDreamofRedMansion. The various sequels toTheDreamofRedMansiongive evidence that women could be respected critics of fiction; and the plots often seem to be responsive to women’s concerns. Although the sequels were not necessarily great literature, they are signs of a growing interest among women in the novel and growing involvement with the form. And at the very end of the chain of sequels an actual woman novelist emerged — Gu Taiqing, who wroteHongloumengyingin 1877. This development is completely independent of the influence of the West, which affects so many aspects of Chinese life since the end of the nineteenth century. There are ties between the topics of publishing and missionaries and the topic of women. Publication culture and women’s culture developed before the end of the nineteenth century, and both Chinese and Western works of fiction gained more readers in the nineteenth century because of growing interest among Chinese readers and sensitivity of booksellers to profits that could be made from fiction, or, in the case of missionaries, of awareness of the power of fiction to change readers’ minds. When one studies who wrote novels in China, who read them, who distributed them, and how they were constructed one gets a picture of how the form of novel evolved before Western influence set in.

Ellen Widmer; fiction; gender;ShuihuHouzhuan; sequels toTheDreamofRedMansion； publication

10.3785/j.issn.1008-942X.CN33-6000/C.2016.01.122

2016-01-12

[本刊網址·在線雜志] http://www.journals.zju.edu.cn/soc

[在線優(yōu)先出版日期] 2016-09-30 [網絡連續(xù)型出版物號] CN33-6000/C

國家社科基金一般項目(10BZW050)

1.趙紅娟(http://orcid.org/0000-0002-4512-3165)，女，浙江外國語學院中文學院教授，文學博士，主要從事中國古代小說研究； 2.魏愛蓮(http://orcid.org/0000-0003-1559-1950)，女，美國維斯理學院東亞系教授，文學博士，主要從事中國明清文學研究。