晚清新教来华传教士语境中的Literature概念--以马礼逊的《华英字典》为中心

摘要

As the first protestant missionary to China, Robert Morrison and his use of the word“literature” had a historical and profound significance.However, what was the possible relationship between the word“literature” in English literature or West-ern literature and in Chinese literature? All this results in a historical and comparative understanding of the word “literature”;meanwhile, we can generally conclude in his time that the dialogue and historical status had formed on the basis of the literature between the East and the West.The term “literature” both appeared in the Chinese-English Dictionary compiled by him and mentioned in his many letters and journals, which failed to show a clear reference to the contemporary or pure sense of literature both in the context of western literature and Chinese literature.Indeed, the word“literature” he applied referred to all kinds of literary documents or texts.%作为晚清最早一位新教来华传教士，马礼逊使用literature一词的历史经验意义无疑具有开创性甚至奠基性。而马礼逊在使用literature一词时的英国文学或外国文学之指涉，与他使用这一概念之时的中国文学之指涉，到底构成怎样一种对应互文之关系，自然也成为检核其对literature一词理解之关键，同时也可初步判断马礼逊时代中西之间在 literature 一词基础之上所初步形成的一种对话关系与历史形态。而在马礼逊的《华英字典》以及大量往来书札中所提及的literature一词，无论是在西方文学语境中抑或中国文学语境中，均未见显示出明显倾向于近代的、纯文学的寓意，更多则是指各种各样的文献或文本。