Pu Songling was born in 1640 and died in 1715 at the age of 76, which is considered to be a high lifespan.
His self-portrait exists in the Pu Songling Memorial Hall, a national first-class cultural relic. This portrait has been preserved in the hands of Pu's descendants, passed down from generation to generation, and was donated to the Management Committee of Pu Songling's Former Residence in 1954, and was jointly kept by Pu Wenqi and others. In 1961, Pu Yushui, a full-time cadre, sent him to the Palace Museum in Beijing for unveiling and repair, and copied two paintings, one for exhibition at the China History Museum and one for display in the main room of Pu Songling's former residence.
Pu Songling's ancestors were officials in Shandong, so the descendants of the Pu family settled in Zichuan, Shandong, which is now Zibo City, Shandong Province. His grandfather was named Pu Shengwei and had five sons, his father was called PuPan, who had studied for several years, and then because his family was poor, he abandoned school to run a business outside. However, because he is flexible and a little learned, and then does some money-making business, his father is still a little famous in the local area.
Pu Songling's father had a total of three wives and gave birth to five sons, the eldest son died early, leaving only four sons, and Pu Songling was the third oldest in the family. Judging from Pu Songling's origin, he was only a child who grew up in a declining small and medium-sized landlord family. In ancient times, people thought that reading was high, and they did not attach importance to business, and even looked down on businessmen, so Pu Songling followed his father to study from a young age.
In addition, he was very intelligent at a young age, able to remember everything, and was a very talented child. As early as he was 19 years old, he took the boy exam and won the first place in the county, the prefecture and the province, which can be said to be a famous exam. Moreover, the articles written by Pu Songling were even praised by Shi Yanzhang. You know, Shi Yanzhang was a very famous poet and writer during the Kangxi period of the Qing Dynasty.
It can be said that Pu Songling started very high, but he repeatedly failed in the later imperial examinations. This is mainly because when Pu Songling was 25 years old, a very big change occurred in the family, which gave him a big blow at a critical moment in his life.
At that time, Pu Songling's brothers in the family turned against each other, and the four brothers began to split up. As the third eldest, Pu Songling could not compete with the other brothers, and in the end, he was only assigned to three old houses on the farm, and they were dilapidated.
In this way, the first exam results were very good, but now, even the basic residence can not be guaranteed, let alone with peace of mind to review, careful preparation. Because his family was too poor, in order to live, Pu Songling had to choose to teach. He had a friend named Sun Hui, who was in Baoying County, Jiangsu Province, and Pu Songling served as his aide. For some reason, though, he stayed there only for a year and then went home the next year.
For the reason why Pu Songling chose to resign and go home, people have two speculations:
The first, because he had written an article called "Shangsun's Letter of Advice", which was mainly about the Sun family's bullying and insulting servants, pu Songling was very unaccustomed to this, so he wrote a letter to advise Sun Hui to discipline these people. Probably for this reason, he could not stay in the Sun family, so he chose to leave.
Second, Sun Hui had several small wives, among them, there was a young wife who was quite talented and very interested in composing poetry, so she asked Pu Songling for advice. One after the other, the two people became acquainted. It is possible that the two people's contacts were known to Sun Hui, or that Pu Songling felt that such a relationship was inappropriate, so he took the initiative to leave in the second year.
Of course, there is not much evidence to support these speculations, but from "Liaozhai Zhiyi", we can see that Pu Songling has written a lot of love stories, and these stories have a common feature, that is, whether the heroine in the story is a demon or a person, whether it is a flower or an animal, the male protagonist in the story is usually married. The seemingly beautiful love story between them is now a disgraceful "extramarital love".
Pu Songling's life was poor, living by being a teacher and writing, and his life was quite difficult. Moreover, he had lived in the countryside for many years, and had only made one trip to the south, that is, he had been to Jinan when he had taken the exam before, and the rest of the time had been spent in the backwoods of the poor countryside. Therefore, in his life, there is very little access to external women. In addition, Pu Songling's wife's surname is Liu, and the two people have a deep affection and are quite affectionate.
After Liu's death, Pu Songling wrote a long article to mourn his wife. In the article, the process of loving husband and wife for many years, and in difficult days, the two support each other and spend together, which also shows his reluctance to his deceased wife.
However, in this way, it is even more puzzling for Pu Songling's "habit" of liking to write stories about extramarital love.
Because creation has always had a basis or inspiration, many of them come from life, and Pu Songling rarely has the opportunity to be close to women. Moreover, as a husband, he has a very good relationship with his original wife, so how did Pu Songling come up with these stories? Is it all up to his own imagination? This question has always been a mystery.
Many scholars who have studied "Liaozhai Zhiyi" have put forward two bold conjectures about this problem:
Guess one, Pu Songling once mentioned a portrait of a woman surnamed Cheng in his poems, so someone "studied" this woman and thought that this person should be Pu Songling's extramarital partner.
However, this claim is only a guess and analysis, and there is not enough evidence.
Guess two is the little wife of Sun Hui mentioned earlier who likes to write poetry. Because this little wife has a good relationship with Pu Songling, Pu Songling even wrote some poems for her. From this, it is inferred that Pu Songling should have a relationship with this woman.
In short, people are more inclined to have something in their lives, so that they will write so many love stories of gods and ghosts and married men in his works. Unfortunately, no direct evidence has been found to corroborate either analysis.
Although Pu Songling did have contact with Sun Hui's concubines during his tenure as an aide, whether they developed into a romantic relationship still needs further investigation.
However, Pu Songling only did this once as a staff member outside, and the rest of his life was occupied by examinations and teaching. At the age of 33, he taught in a family bookstore, but not for long. From the age of 40 to the next 30 years, he sat in the home of his friend Bi Jiyou and a landlord and taught classes.
Especially during the time when the landlord was teaching, it was quite helpful for his literary creation. Because this landlord's family is very rich, the collection of books is very rich, and He has also given a good treatment to Pu Songling, who is a teacher, and let him live alone in the garden. Here, Pu Songling has the conditions, but also has the opportunity to read a large number of books, accumulated more story themes, to be precise, some of his works are completed here.
With more than 30 years of teaching, Pu Songling has improved his literary creation and living conditions. Although his income as a teacher is meager, it solves the problem of food and clothing for his family. Therefore, he worked for 30 years, until he was 70 years old, he really couldn't teach, and then he returned to his hometown. However, after all, the income from teaching is not much, and daily eating and drinking is not a problem, but it is still difficult to get rich.
Therefore, Pu Songling has been in a relatively poor living environment all his life.
However, the advantages and disadvantages of everything are interdependent, and the teaching career of more than 30 years of poverty has allowed Pu Songling to have more quiet writing environment and be able to carry out literary creation with peace of mind, so there is this famous literary version of the short story collection "Liaozhai Zhiyi". Pu Songling's literary career in his life oscillated between traditional elegant literature and folk literature, and even Mr. Guo Moruo once commented on him and his articles:
"Writing ghosts and writing demons is superior to others, and stabbing greed and stabbing into the bone is three points."
Resources:
["Pu Songling Zhi", "Pu Songling Commentary", "Pu Songling's Life And Writings Examination"]