当夜色笼罩着外边的世界，穴居人空闲下来，围火坐定时，小说便诞生了。他因为恐惧而颤抖或者因为胜利而踌躇满志，于是用语言重现了狩猎的过程；他详细叙说了部落的历史；他讲述了英雄及机灵的人们的事迹；他说到一些令人惊奇的事物；他竭力虚构幻想，用神话来解释世界与命运；他在改编为故事的幻想中大大夸赞了自己。在高度发展的现代世界，穴居人炉边故事中的组成部分有许多都已经成为我们推论和研究的学科了——例如，历史学、文学、物理学、神学，以及心理学。我们发现在我们的小说里有许多原始的冲动在发挥作用。然而，我们发现它们并不是抽象地在发挥作用——像我们发现它们在心理学或哲学课本中那样——而是在人们现实生活的形象中发挥作用，像在小说或戏剧中那样。正如我们富于想象力地进入小说境界时那样，小说使我们扩大了经验，并使我们对于自我可能遭遇的情况增加了知识。小说是进行中的生活的生动体现——它是生活的一种富有想象力的演出，而作为演出，它是我们自我生活的一种扩展。 我们最好提醒自己，小说追溯到史前史，它体现了我们的某些最为深切的需要与利益，这是很恰当的。不过，还要提醒自己，小说经过多少年代，已经成为一种综合的艺术，正如西斯廷教堂中米开朗琪罗的壁画不同于史前洞穴中的动物绘画那样，它已不同于炉边故事，这也是很恰当的。 因此，让我们来探讨一下现代的实例及其组成要素。我们必须记住，随着世道的改变，小说也改变了，每一时代产生出自己的那种小说。更为重要的是，我们必须记住，虽然在我们的技术世界中，改变一般总被认为意味着进步，艺术世界中的改变（而小说基本上是一门艺术）则未必意味着进步；谁也不会认为最近的一部畅销书就一定比荷马的或莎士比亚的作品好。更为常见的是，我们预料到起伏不定，往往还有衰退。因此，我们在本书中探讨小说时，既涉及新的，也涉及老的，既涉及它们差异之处，也涉及它们类似之点。我们试图在可能范围内找出一些持续不变的原则。不过本书的主要目的不是叙述短篇小说的历史，而是加深我们对各种形式的小说的鉴赏，从而加深我们对小说的兴趣。 让我们首先看看我们一般同意称之为小说的所有作品中的三个基本要素：情节、人物和主题。 Intention and Elements of Fiction As soon as the cave man had leisure to sit around the fire while darkness covered the world beyond, fiction was born. In words, he relived, shivering with fear or gloating in victory, the events of the hunt; he recounted the past history of the tribe; he narrated the deeds of heroes and men of cunning; he told of marvels; he struggled in myths to explain the world and fate; he glorified himself in daydreams converted to narrative. In the sophisticated modern world, many of the elements involved in the cave man's fireside tales have led to branches of speculation and study—history, literature, physics, theology, and psychology, for instance—and we find in our fiction many of the original impulses at work. We find them at work, however, not in the abstract—as we find them in the textbook of psychology or philosophy—but in images of life in the process of being lived as in fiction or drama. Fiction, as we enter into it imaginatively, broadens our experience and increases our knowledge of the possibilities of the self. Fiction is a vital image of life in motion—it is an imaginative enactment of life—and, as such, it is an extension of our own lives. It is well to remind ourselves that fiction goes back to prehistory and that it embodies some of our deepest needs and interests. But it is well to remind ourselves, too, that fiction has, over the ages, become a complex art, as different from the fireside tale as Michelangelo’s frescoes in the Sistine Chapel are from the animal paintings in prehistoric caves. So let us consider modern practice and the elements that go into it. We must remember that fiction changes as the world changes, that each age produces its own kind of fiction. More important, we must remember that, though in our world of technology, change is generally taken to mean progress, change in the world of art (and fiction is primarily an art) does not necessarily mean progress; nobody would think that the last best seller is necessarily superior to Homer or to Shakespeare. More generally, we expect fluctuation, and sometimes decline. So in considering fiction here we are concerned with both the new and the old, with both their differences and their similarities. We are trying, insofar as possible, to find continuing principles. But our main purpose here is not to give a history of the short story. It is to deepen our understanding of, and consequently our pleasure in, the various forms of fiction. Let us begin by looking at three basic elements found in all the compositions that we generally agree to call fiction: action, character, and theme.