博物‧感通‧變形：唐代小說中的草木書寫研究

Abstract

唐代小說中，存在大量草木書寫，從《酉陽雜俎》、《北戶錄》、《嶺表錄異》等博物記述，對殊方異草的鑽研；乃至《博異志》、《宣室志》、《乾𦠆子》等志怪傳奇，敘草木精怪之幻化，相關文本橫跨文類邊界，歷來多被各歸其類、分別處理。本文嘗試將諸類文本並置考察，指出無論實寫與虛構、紀聞與創作，皆反映唐人一貫的世界觀：即以理解「異」為動力，同時為「常」與「異」並存的開放世界。 這套世界觀的核心，是以「人」為中心，向外推擴、連類比附的認知模式。唐代小說上承博物傳統，以「人」的感知和經驗為起點，命名、翻譯、徵實，透過與人的關係，將異物嵌入有序的知識框架。此一「納異為知」述異模板，使唐人得以彈性、持續的擴張認知版圖，在氣化宇宙的世界底色下，「人」乃以自身為中樞向外投射，由我及物、以己度物，使草木承載「人」的比附與聯想，進入醫藥、巫術、仙道等意義網路，物性與人文深度交織。當這套觀物方式推展至極，便形成幻化成精的想像。草木得以跨越物我界線，參與人間交往、寄託情感、映照世態；而精怪終須歸位的敘事結構，則反映「人」既是精怪想像的端點，亦是秩序的終點，唐人希求於開放流動的世界中，持守井然有序的常道。 以往研究多依循文類框架，使博物筆記與志怪傳奇所共享的觀物邏輯難以呈現。本文嘗試調整閱讀路徑，以唐代小說的草木書寫為核心，重新建立博物、感應與精怪書寫之間的連續關係，呈現唐人觀物、知物與想物的完整圖景，並藉此指出草木由異物而感物、由感物而化人，皆源於同一套以「人」為中心的觀物邏輯，為理解後世花妖狐魅、草木有情等書寫傳統，提供可供追溯的思想根源。

Tang dynasty fiction contains a substantial body of writing on plants and trees, ranging from botanical records such as Youyang Zazu, Beihu Lu, and Lingbiao Luyi, which investigate exotic vegetation, to anomaly tales such as Boyi Zhi, Xuanshi Zhi, and Qianhe Zi, which narrate the transformation of plant spirits. These texts span generic boundaries, and have long been treated separately according to their respective classifications. This study attempts to read them across generic lines, arguing that whether factual or fictional, documentary or creative, this body of writing on plants and trees consistently reflects a unified worldview shared by Tang people: an open world driven by the "anomalous," in which the ordinary and the extraordinary coexist. At the heart of this worldview is a mode of cognition centered on the “human,” expanding outward through analogical reasoning and categorical association. Drawing on the botanical tradition, Tang fiction takes human perception and experience as its point of departure, employing naming, translation, and verification to embed the unfamiliar within an ordered framework of knowledge. This template for incorporating the anomalous into the known enabled Tang people to expand their cognitive horizons with flexibility and continuity. Against the backdrop of a qi-transformation cosmology, the “human” projects outward from the self as its axis — extending from the self to things, measuring things by the self — such that plants and trees come to bear human analogies and associations, entering networks of meaning encompassing medicine, ritual, and religious cultivation, with the material and the cultural deeply intertwined. Taken to its furthest extent, this mode of perceiving the world gives rise to the imagination of plant spirits. Plants and trees cross the boundary between self and other, participating in human affairs, giving expression to emotion, and reflecting the human condition; yet the narrative structure in which spirits must ultimately return to their proper place reflects the understanding that the "human" is both the endpoint of the spirit's imagination and the endpoint of order — Tang people sought to maintain a well-ordered constancy within an open and fluid world. Previous scholarship has largely followed generic frameworks, rendering the shared logic of perception underlying botanical records and anomaly tales difficult to discern. This study attempts to reorient the reading path, placing botanical writing, resonance writing, and spirit-transformation narratives in continuous relation, presenting a complete picture of how Tang people observed, knew, and imagined plants and trees. In doing so, it argues that the movement from plants and trees as anomalous objects, to objects of resonance, to beings transformed into human form, all derive from the same human-centered logic of perception, providing a traceable intellectual origin for later traditions of flower spirits, fox demons, and the sentience of plants and trees.