中国古代小说批评看似纷繁杂乱,但只要加以梳理,也能化零为整。其中,围绕小说功能与价值的“依经”论辩,即可自成谱系。一方面,针对某些道学家关于小说“淫邪”“低俗”等“不经”之论,小说批评者常依据“皆以情教”的《六经》,辩护小说写男女之情属于“正经”“雅道”。另一方面,针对某些按照史学家“信实”原则对小说“虚妄诞幻”的指责,小说批评者常“依经”予以辩驳,强调小说叙事写人合乎情理。最终,为调节相持不下的“经”与“不经”之辩,古代小说批评者常依据《周易》以来的“阴阳双构”“相反相成”等经学思维,推演出以“奇正相生”为主调的“雅俗共赏”“庄谐相映”等系列辩证话语。

The criticism of ancient Chinese novels seems to be complicated and messy, but as long as they are sorted out, they can be broken into pieces. Among them, the “based on scriptures” argument around the function and value of the novel can form its own pedigree. On the one hand, in response to some Taoists' theories about novels such as “exoticism” and “vulgarity”, novel critics often use the Six Classics, which is “emotional moral education” to defend the relationship between men and women in novels as “Confucian classics” and “elegance”. On the other hand, in response to certain accusations of the “fiction and absurdity” based on the historian's “faithfulness” principle, novel critics often “refer to the classics” to refute, emphasizing that the narratives of novels are reasonable. In the end, in order to adjust the difference between the stubborn “jing” (classics) and “non-jing” (non-classics), critics of ancient novels often followed the “Yin and Yang” or “opposite mutual formation” originated from Book of Changes and other classical thinking and deduced that the “coexistence of the direct and indirect” was a series of dialectical discourses, such as “elegant and vulgar appreciation” and “solemnity and humor”.