学术界一种比较流行的看法认为,小说兴国论是近代知识分子编造的一个神话,究其实质是儒家“文以载道”、“以文治国”论的变种,这种看法值得商榷。晚清知识分子笔下的“国”或“国家”不是传统意义上的王朝国家,而是现代意义上的民族国家。小说兴国论的提出,乃是基于小说这一特定文体与现代民族国家间的共谋关系。小说兴国不是一个美丽的神话,而是一个历史性的“事件”。 A popular academic view holds that the theory of rejuvenating the novel is a myth made by modern intellectuals. The essence of this is the variation of Confucianism, Debatable. In the late Qing Dynasty, the “country” or “state” written by intellectuals was not the dynastic state in the traditional sense but the nation state in the modern sense. The novel’s theory of rejuvenating the country is based on the conspiratorial relationship between this particular style of fiction and the modern nation-state. Rejuvenation of the novel is not a beautiful myth, but a historic “event ”.