A Grand View of the Red Chamber Dream: General Introduction

歐麗娟教授在臺大MOOCS開設的「紅樓夢」，

榮登 Coursera華人最受歡迎課程的前四名。

本書匯集歐麗娟老師十餘年紅學研究菁華，內容比線上課程更豐富，

不僅沒上過課的讀者該讀，上過課的同學更應一讀。

 

「都云作者癡，誰解其中味？」《紅樓夢》為中國偉大的古典小說，經數百年的流傳，衍生出無數精彩的話題與討論，讀者與作品之間的對話始終未曾停歇，對於這部經典的研讀與探究，甚至獨立成為一門學問――「紅學」。

 

魯迅曾說，經學家在《紅樓夢》裡看見《易》，道學家看見淫，才子看見纏綿，革命家看見排滿，流言家看見宮闈秘事……。有一千個讀者，就有一千個紅樓夢。每個《紅樓夢》的讀者都有自己心目中的賈寶玉和林黛玉。臺大中文系歐麗娟教授窮盡十餘年心血寫成本書，讀出那些隱藏在《紅樓夢》文字之間與文字之外的聲音，讀出《紅樓夢》的真滋味。

 

歐麗娟教授在本書提醒我們，人們往往以既有的成見理解他們所看見的事物，如同黑格爾所言，「人們總是很容易把我們所熟悉的東西加到古人身上去，改變了古人。」今日閱讀《紅樓夢》，也不能以今人的眼光讀之，而必須放在過去的時空脈絡下理解。既然《紅樓夢》是一部描寫滿清貴族世家的小說，因此理解《紅樓夢》，必須先理解滿清貴族世家及其思想、信仰、價值觀、心理感受；讀者必須回到傳統之中，才能理解這部在傳統中誕生的經典。

 

《紅樓夢》是一闋宏大的悲劇交響曲，所有的美好人事物都註定是要幻滅的，樂園的命運就是崩壞。這部作品的本質是對繁華往事的眷戀與追悼，以及對於失落的悲慟與自我譴責，它的主旋律也就是對青春生命、塵世人生的輓歌，以及貴族世家之輓歌。世家大族在小說中由盛轉衰，賈寶玉由眷戀人間而遠離紅塵，但歐麗娟老師指出，寶玉的出家不是受到打擊後的灰心絕望，不是對於現實世界的逃避與抗議，而是大徹大悟，是抵達圓善之後的超離與了結。於是悲劇也就不僅只是悲劇，而能化為飽含滄桑之後的豁達與慈悲，再回首往事，還可以綻放出一朵含淚的微笑。

 

本書「綜論卷」作為歐麗娟老師《大觀紅樓》系列的第一部，帶有總論的性質，全書從作品主旨、版本研究、神話主題、愛情觀、才子佳人模式、度脫模式等各個不同層面析論《紅樓夢》；不僅只是對文本的解讀、對作品的賞析，還有更多對人生、對有情世界的感悟，是品讀《紅樓夢》經典的極佳良伴。

 

When we look into the depths of this gem and see the essence of Dream of the Red Chamber, is there still a central theme that supported and assisted the author to finish the hundreds of thousands of words during his “ten years of extraordinary hard work” and walk through his“tearful and sorrowful” journey of creation? In her book A Grand View of The Red Chamber (General Introduction), Professor Li-Chuan Ou of the Department of Chinese Literature of National Taiwan University points out that the unavoidable common problems in the hundreds of years of Redology [a field of study devoted to Dream of the Red Chamber] were caused by our excess self-consciousness: “self-satisfaction projected in the vision of the general public.” Readers do have the right to speak of history, but if they uphold the understanding that “the past and the present share unequivocally the same context,” they will easily fall into the trap of “all Six Classics are my footnotes,” and reading the classics will also translate into the readers’ pursuit of self-positioning. They will adopt an attitude of “taking things for granted” about a world with which they have never been in contact, resulting in a misunderstanding of the distance created by self-awareness and the gap in time.

Therefore, the first introduction to A Grand View of The Red Chamber takes the form of a re-reading and understanding of Dream of the Red Chamber. Professor Ou returns to the times and social class of the author, and sets the tone of the book to be “remembrance and repentance.” Dream of the Red Chamber is a remembrance of the author Cao Xueqin about his past experiences, but it is also, in the moment when everything has decayed, his sadness and repentance about the glory of the past. 

Dream of the Red Chamber is the narrative of a woman’s tragic destiny, but it is also Cao Xueqin’s silhouette of the fate of his family collapse. The two tragedies are combined into one, and they reinforce each other and thus form scenes of “Qinhuai and Yangzhou are old dreams, but the people remain and have long awakened from the dreams.” They are sighs and remembrancesof changes in phases, and endings. This deep pain is from the destruction of a family, but it is also from the passing of youthful years, and it can be further applied from a family to the entire world. In this repeated reasoning, it brings forth a beautiful but inevitable disillusionment of the cosmos.

The author was remembering the “past” and lamenting fate. Instead of the traditional Redology discourse that takes this as criticism of the feudal aristocracy,

Professor Ou believes that writing about aristocracy, which has been regarded as ironic and extravagant in the past, is in fact the beautiful memories that the author had used his whole life to write into the novel. The collapse of paradise in Dream of the Red Chamber was truly built on the exclusive spiritual nobility of the true aristocracy.