日治時期台灣報刊小說的改寫現象及其敘述策略

Abstract

本文處理日治台灣報刊小說改寫現象及敘述策略，諸多改寫作品取材自文言筆記小說、社會新聞、翻譯小說，其改寫策略約可分為「改易時空」、「文白互改」、「小說詩文轉換」、「虛實等同」等手法，實際操作時，則落實在題目的更動、內文字句或段落的增刪改寫上，以及人稱敘述的轉變、故事刊載次序的倒換，或合併綜合不同文本。其中白話文改寫成淺近文言文，或文言文改寫成白話文，以及小說改寫成論述文，詩歌改寫成小說，其改寫方式，各類現象所在多有，有些恐是僅見於台灣報刊。由於編輯個人文學觀念、美學品味及客觀現實的考量，這些經過改寫的文本，除了保留原作精神外，也經常可見突顯因果報應、貞孝倫理道德思想及對商業消遣的追求，同時編輯也經常透過結尾的添寫，呼應殖民統治下官方意欲推動的政策，或改寫者個人主觀的評感。所增添內容五花八門，而此一改寫手法極易誤識作者為台灣人氏，因此本文特別強調版本考察、出處追索的重要性，避免誤入歧途及隨意擴大解釋。

This essay focuses on the phenomena of the rewriting of novels published in newspapers and magazines in Taiwan under Japanese rule, as well as the strategies of narration adopted in the process of rewriting. Among those original texts to be rewritten, many are note novels written in classical Chinese, news of the society and translated foreign novels. The strategies of narration can be classified into the following categories: substitution of the spatio-temporal background, translation from classical Chinese into vernacular Chinese or vice versa, transformation into another literary genre and misrepresentation of news (which are factual) as novels (which are fictional). As a result, in practice, the title of a text may be replaced; the words and sentences may be deleted or supplemented by extra ones; the order of paragraphs may be reversed; the grammatical person may be changed; the sequence of serialization may be altered; and different texts may be combined and intertwined with one another. With regard to the transformation of the literary genre in which the original text was composed, in particular, a novel may be transformed into an essay, a poem into a novel and so forth. The wide variety of different ways of transformation is miraculous, some of which might not have been seen in literature. Depending upon the editors’ varying conception of literature, aesthetic preferences and practical concerns, the rewritten texts not only preserve the gist of the original ones, but also make explicit the underlying idea of karma, implied Confucianist thoughts or the influences of the pursuit of commercial success. Besides, the editors may at times add further notes to the end of a text, responding to the policy promoted by the Japanese government or his or her subjective assessment of the text. The content of these additions also varies dramatically, some of which tend to mislead some other scholars working in this field to misidentify the author of an original text as a Taiwanese, as opposed to a Chinese. Therefore, this article puts great emphasis on the meticulous examination of different versions of a text and the tracking of the original one. It is strongly hoped that this contribution can help other researchers avoid committing further grave mistakes and making arbitrary interpretations of these texts that are, I am afraid, outright fallacious and wrong.