During the Ming and Qing dynasties, the creation of vernacular novels entered an unprecedented stage of prosperity, and a large number of excellent novel works emerged, and the world love novel was one of them.
The love novel is a novel that shows the world and interpersonal relationships through literary works. Lu Xun, in the "Historical Outline of Chinese Novels", called such novels world love letters.
The most famous masterpieces of world love novels are Lanling Xiaoxiaosheng's "Golden Bottle Plum", Cao Xueqin's "Dream of the Red Chamber" and Western Zhou Sheng's "Awakening Marriage Legend".
A buried masterpiece of novel
The classical novel "The Legend of the Awakening Marriage", formerly known as "Evil Marriage", has a total of one hundred times and a million words.
Created in the late Ming and early Qing dynasties, "The Legend of the Awakening Marriage" is a very outstanding long-form vernacular love novel inheriting "Jin Ping Mei" and "Dream of the Red Chamber" under qi. The famous modern poet Xu Zhimo called it "a social sketch of an era", depicting the marrow of the middle and lower classes of citizens in the late Ming Dynasty. Mr. Hu Shi also praised: "This is a realistic novel of the seventeenth century", showing the social customs, imperial examination education, political corruption, people's livelihood pain, and religious life in China in the seventeenth century, "it is the richest and most detailed cultural historical material", and it is an indispensable research reference book for experts and scholars.
Mr. Lu Xun did not mention the "Tale of The Marriage of the Awakening World" in his "History of chinese Novels", and in his letter to mr. Qian Xuantong, a master of traditional Chinese studies, he once discussed this book, saying: "When you taste it, it is a book, and at most it is annoying, and it is difficult to finish it." Mr. Lu Xun was tired of the "retribution and cause talk" in the book, and only read it a few times and gave up halfway. However, he still considered the book to be carefully described, the sarcasm sharp, and "covered with its outstanding people also".
"Western Zhou Sheng" is Pu Songling
As with the study of "Dream of the Red Chamber", there has always been a debate in the academic community about who the author of "The Tale of the Awakening Marriage" is. But it is mainly divided into two views, one is that Western Zhou sheng is Pu Songling, and the other is that Western Zhou sheng has other people.
Hu Shi made a lot of research efforts on "The Legend of the Awakening Marriage", and wrote the "Examination of the "Awakening Marriage Legend", which is more than 30,000 words. He compared the "Tale of the Awakening Marriage" with Pu Songling's novel "Jiangcheng", and believed that the plot changes of the two, the description of the image of the humble woman and many other places were similar, and the book mostly used the Shandong native dialect. Hu Shi also analyzed three contents, such as geography, disaster samples, and characters, and deduced that the author of the "Tale of the Awakening Marriage" was "Western Zhou Sheng", that is, Pu Songling.
In addition, "Liaozhai Zhiyi" pays great attention to women's issues, in addition to "Jiangcheng", "Ma Jiefu", "Sun Sheng", "Big Man", "Zhang Cheng", "Lü Wuyi", "JinSer" and other novels, there are also images of humble women. The series of images of humble women in "Liaozhai Zhiyi" are actually the "charcoal painting small manuscripts" of the images of Qihu Sujie and Sending Sister in "The Legend of The Marriage of the Awakened World".
Moreover, the natural disasters described in "The Tale of the Awakening Marriage" coincide with the disasters in Zichuan County recorded in local chronicles such as Jinan and Zichuan and the Pu Songling Anthology.
The language used in "The Tale of the Awakening Marriage" is the local dialect of Pu Songling's hometown, which is contrasted with the novels with the popular songs written by Pu Shi, such as "You Jealousy Curse" and "Han Sen Qu", and there are many peculiar native songs written in popular songs and novels that are written in the same way, which proves that the two are the same person.
These insights are derived from the study of the novel paper and are highly convincing. Moreover, there is a note in the "Zhao Dynasty Series" of Yang Fuji's "Dream And Miscellaneous Pens" that clearly states that the author of the "Tale of the Awakening Marriage" is Pu Songling, which provides strong support for the research of Hu Shi and others. The article states:
A hundred years after Pu Liuxian's "Liaozhai Zhiyi" was unscripted, no one was responsible for it. Qianlong Yiyou, Chengjiao, Chuzhong and Zhejiang were simultaneously granted Zi. Chu Ben is Wang Lingjun, and Zhejiang Ben is published by Zhao Taishou Qigao. Bao Yiwenyun: Liu Xian still has a novel of "Awakening marriage", which gaishi really refers to. Books are written by their families, to the point of being humbled. ...... Nian Gengzi, the son of Zhao Taishou, once met with Liu Xian's grandson in Thorny, and described his reasoning; and it is said that there are hundreds of unpublished articles in "Zhiyi", which are still hidden at home.
Yang Fuji, the author of "DreamIng of Trivial Pens", lived mainly during the Qianlong period and was close to Bao Yiwen in the past. Bao Yiwen, also known as Bao Tingbo, was the person who published and engraved "Liaozhai Zhiyi" on behalf of Zhao Qigao. Bao Yiwen's words should have come from Zhao Qigao. Zhao is a native of Laiyang, Shandong. It can be seen that in some places in Shandong, people know that Pu Songling wrote a novel entitled "The Legend of the Awakening Marriage".
Another issue worth exploring is that a scholar personally went to Pu Songling's hometown, Zichuan Pujiazhuang, to inquire about the leader who excavated Pu Songling's tomb in that era.
According to the grave diggers, at that time they found several seals in the tomb, and now these seals are preserved in the Pu Songling Memorial Hall, and what is important is that when the tomb robbers answered the scholars' questions, they clearly stated that the manuscript under Pu Songling's pillow was not "Liaozhai Zhiyi", but another thick manuscript, but because they did not understand protection, the manuscript was quickly weathered and shattered after being unearthed, and it was too late to see the name of the manuscript in the future.
From the above information, it can be seen that after Pu Songling's death, he did not bring "Liaozhai Zhiyi" into the tomb, and the other possibility is "The Legend of the Awakening Marriage".
Western Zhou Sheng had another person
Since the 1930s, when the author of "The Tale of the Awakening Marriage" was Pu Songling, scholars have proposed candidates such as Ding Yaokang, Jia Kaixi, Zichuan Gao Shunzhi during the Reign of The Unknown, the Chongzhen Dynasty, and Pu Zhen, making the dispute over the author of the novel a protracted mystery.
The evidence used by scholars who denied Pu Songling was a letter written by Zhou Zaijun to Yan Guangmin, in which he said: "The novel of the evil marriage, which was first submitted in five volumes, I think I have read it, but I am fortunate to pay the price." Because Wu Men had recently finished, he came to borrow a pair and wanted to send it to his ear. ”
Commentators have verified that this letter was written around the twentieth year of the Kangxi Dynasty (1681), thus inferring that the "Xin Ugly" recorded in the "Tale of the Awakening Marriage" (originally known as "The Bad Marriage") is the eighteenth year of Shunzhi (1661), that is, the book is no later than this year, and then concludes that Pu Songling is only 22 years old this year, and it is impossible to write such an imperial masterpiece as "The Tale of the Awakening Marriage".
The novel is written in the dialect of central Shandong, the background of the story is mainly the Town of Mingshui in Xiujiang County (Zhangqiu's nickname for Zhangqiu) in Jinan Province, Shandong Province, with a strong local atmosphere, and the actual personnel affairs in this area at the end of the Ming Dynasty are written in the middle, such as Jinan's "Deputy Envoy of shoudao Li Zhiran" (the twenty-first time), "Yan Wei" (Chongzhen sixteen years) Chinese New Year's Eve "Big Thunder Thunderbolt, Hail And Wind" (twenty-seventh time), which are recorded in the "Chronicle of Jinan Province". This shows that the author of the novel is a literati living in this place in the late Ming and early Qing dynasties, and the novel was written in the late Ming Dynasty.