古典文學中具功名仕宦意象的植物及其文化意涵探討－以槐、紫薇、柏、桂爲例

在科舉盛行於中國的一千三百年中，追求功名可說是社會普遍認同的價值取向；能在治世中「學而優則仕」更是大多數知識分子的想望。而這樣的心理和情感，也時常投射在文人的題詠之中，只是表達的方式通常較爲含蓄蘊藉，往往藉由外物隱曲以達。植物由於與日常生活關係密切，因此常成爲文人興發情感的媒介，或是筆下摹寫、譬喻的素材。在「萬般皆下品，惟有讀書高」的社會風氣影響之下，知識份子追求功名仕宦，或因而歷經世俗檢視評價的心路歷程便不時流露於筆端，許多植物的功能用途或生長特質都因而成爲文人豐富想像力之下的巧譬妙喻。而足以表徵功名仕進意涵者，尤以槐樹、紫薇、柏樹與桂樹等四種植物爲最，因此本文嚐試綜理古籍之相關論述與歷來文人題詠，以助於研讀古籍之際更能理解其意象與文化意涵。

關鍵字

槐；紫薇；柏；桂；文化意涵

並列摘要

During the one thousand and three hundred years of dominated civil service examination system, pursuing official career is perhaps the most commonly recognized value orientation within the society; while to be able to ”learn excellently to achieve a prosperous official career” in a ruled time is the desire of most intellectuals. Such mentality and sensation are usually projected on the compositions among those intellectuals, only the way of expression may be more implicit and often the emotion is hinted vaguely through external objects. Since plants have close connection with people's daily lives, they become the media for literati to express their sensations or become the materials of depiction and metaphor that literati write about. Under the social influence of ”nothing is as high as pursuing study”, intellectuals' mentality of pursuing official career or what mundane criticism they have been through is often revealed in their writings. The usages and growing features of many plants have naturally become marvelous comparisons and metaphors to be applied under literati's creative imaginations. Among them, four plants, namely pagoda, crape myrtle, cypress and cinnamon, may be the best to represent the connotation of official career. Therefore, this paper tries to summarize related discussions from ancient books and literati's compositions back in the history to help better understand the plants' image and cultural meanings when studying ancient books.