在中国现代戏剧史上，“年节叙事”，亦即剧情发生在“年节”期间、且情节相对完整的戏剧作品，是一个数量丰富且颇具生命力的存在。这些作品以现代戏剧独有的形式，呈现着中国传统社会最重要的节日；又在对传统“年节”的呈现中表现着包括社会革命、阶级斗争、民族救亡、政党权力等现代社会政治议题，从而为研究和探索二十世纪上半叶中国戏剧、文学乃至文化状况提供了一个独特的视角。本文以中国现代戏剧中的“年节叙事”为研究对象，分别从戏剧的“组织结构”、“话语形态”和“文化功能”三个层面展开分析和论述，进而探讨其艺术特征与文化价值。第一部分“年节叙事的组织结构”，将中国现代戏剧中的“年节叙事”视为一个具有内在共性的整体，从“年节”在“叙事”中的结构功能入手，概括“年节叙事”在组织结构方式上的一般特征：作为一个特殊时间，“年节”不仅规定了剧中的时空环境，更形塑了人物的内在动机与类型关系，从而构成了一种特定的戏剧情境；在此情境下，剧中的人物可分为“家庭成员”与“非家庭成员”两个基本类型，前者由“缺席者”与“留守者”组成，后者则可进一步细分为“援助者”与“敌对者”两类。这些叙事元素共同构建了“年节叙事”的基本情节模式，并体现出其特有的叙事逻辑、价值尺度和象征意蕴。第二部分“年节叙事的话语形态”，主要关注不同时期的“年节叙事”作品，从具体文本的话语形态出发，探索了不同社会政治议题如何在“年节叙事”的结构框架下得到表达：如《甲子第一天》借助传统纪年方式所承载的时间观念，为革命者的牺牲赋予更高的意义；而《年夜饭》一剧则在为阶级认同平添温情的同时，折射出家庭伦理与阶级革命间的价值矛盾；在《回春之曲》中，年俗被视为民族历史与身份认同的起点；而从《在关内过年》到《白毛女》的演变，则体现了叙事中政治逻辑的强化。社会政治议题在“年节叙事”中的出入，赋予作品一种内在的张力，更显现出“年节叙事”的现代品格。第三部分“年节叙事的文化功能”，进一步关注“年节叙事”背后的创作策略和文本生产机制，并将其置入二十世纪上半叶中国“文化冲突”的历史语境中加以审视，发掘“年节叙事”在现代中国社会文化方面的功能与意义：凭借戏剧艺术所特有的叙事特征，中国现代戏剧中的“年节叙事”成为了现代知识分子剧作家与其潜在受众、现代文化观念与民间传统生活方式之间的“中介”，不仅有效地唤起了下层受众的普遍经验与情感共鸣，更为不同文化群体之间传播现代知识、灌输现代价值理念打开了路径。

During the first half of the twentith century, the plays were fairly numerous in which the story just happened in Chinese New Year. It was a remarkable question that how a traditional, folk festival was narrated, imagined and applied by the modern intellectual playwrights in the form of modern drama, and contained society topics and political issues such as social revolution, class confliction and national unity. This paper studies on the narration of Chinese New Year in modern Chinese drama in three aspects: the construction of the plays, the ideological discourse in plays, and the cultural function of this narration in the historical context of China’s modernization drive.The first part of this paper focuses on the construction of the plays and the structure function of Chinese New Year in plays entirely. As a very special time point, Chinese Lunar New Year create a specific situation in plays, which influences the charactors’ motivation, movements and their relationship. There are two types of charactors: the Family and the Alien. The Family, whose desire is to create a ideal world in a perfect order at home symbolically during the New Year, includes the Absentees and the Attendances. And the Alien, according to their different effects on the Family’s desire, could be classified to the Adjuvent and the Opposant. Besides the types of charactors, the plays also share a common plot structure which embodis a specific narrative logic, a value systerm and symbolic meanings.The secord part of this paper anaylizes the ideological discourses of the texts, and studies on the question how the society topic and political issues are contained in the narration of Chinese New Year in drama. In plays, China’s traditional calendar may symbolically describe the picture of society’s evolution and give the martyr’s sacrifice a high value; the New Year Eve’s family dinner may consolidate the class relations by inviting a class member, but it never means the family ethic should be considered in class contradiction, too. Some New Year’s traditional folklores may be applied or even invented in the need of national indentity.And others, which represent the social order stable or not, are used to prove the validity of political power. In brief, there is a structral tension in plays ,which roots in the contradiction between the traditional meaning of Chinese New Year and the require of the political ideology.The third part of this paper studies on the cultural function of the narration of Chinese New Year in drama, by putting the production mechanism of the texts in the historical context of the China’s modernization drive and the cultural conflication. Showing the common expierences and the common feelings in drama, the Narration of Chinese New Year finds a way in lower classes to disseminate modern knowledges and values, which makes the narration of Chinese New Year in drama a mediation between the modern intellectual playwrights and their folk audience.