故事连环不仅是章回小说的一种独特的结构方式,也非常普遍地存在于宋元之际的话本小说中,并涉及多种类别的作品。之所以在话本小说中会出现这种结构,与小说叙述视角的转换、本事改编的需要以及话本体制的特性都有着密切的关联。此外,联系话本小说的发生机制可以看到,叙事性的“头回”与“正话”不只是小说开头部分的引子与正文,还有可能在小说内部复制,形成连绵往复的状态,这是故事连环结构在话本小说中大量出现更为关键的原因。对于话本小说中连环结构的考察,有助于我们摆脱长篇或短篇的概念,从古代小说共生发展的角度探讨这一结构的成因。 The story chain is not only a unique structural style of Zhang Hui’s novels, but also very commonly exists in the calligraphy novels of the Song and Yuan dynasties and involves many kinds of works. The reason why such a structure appears in storytelling novels is closely related to the transformation of narrative perspectives, the need of adapting the skills, and the characteristics of the speech book system. In addition, it can be seen that the narrative “first back ” and “positive ” is not only the introduction and the main text of the beginning of the novel, but also may be copied within the novel to form a continuous reciprocation State, which is the key reason for the emergence of a large number of story-chain structures in the storytelling. The study of the chain structure in the story of a calligraphy helps us to get rid of the concept of long or short, and explore the cause of this structure from the viewpoint of symbiotic development of ancient novels.