Absurd truth-seeking, persistent beauty - Pu Songling's Life Struggle (III) Rousseau's Note: Today, no matter whether his scientific expedition is successful or not, his great works will still illuminate the forest of ancient Chinese literary creation as scheduled.

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<h1 class= "pgc-h-arrow-right" > Rousseau's note: Today, regardless of the success of his scientific expeditions, his great works will still illuminate the forest of ancient Chinese literary creation as scheduled. </h1>

What is beauty seeking?

In short, it is a romantic life, a poetic life – giving a cold and bland life a romantic color, living a lifetime in an imaginary world. Seeking beauty and seeking truth and seeking goodness are listed as the three fundamental meanings of life and life. In real life, most people who pay attention to inner balance, harmony and freedom are beauty seekers. For example, tourists, practitioners, and people engaged in various artistic activities. I believe that the essence of beauty is the harmony, freedom, unity and integration between the subject and the subject of imagery. It is somewhat similar to the unity of heaven (things) and people that the ancient Chinese said, where the heavens (things) are not physical, but image entities processed by the artist's imagination.

Through literature and art, Pu Songling wants to take the true self away from the shell of life and run to the eternal kingdom he envisions, to reach the realm of the unspeakable nature of life in the ideal kingdom, which can only be grasped by the imagination of the subject, invisible and untouchable, which is his ultimate aesthetic holy place.

Pu Songling is essentially a literary artist. He did not turn to literary creation after failing the scientific expedition, but from his youth to his old age, he always regarded literary creation as the home of his life, and it was precisely this kind of "not doing the right thing" that he could not resist, which caused him to regret the high price of the scientific expedition for life. In his bones, he has always been a romantic and beautiful talent, and his lifelong innocence is so sad that he has always stubbornly fantasized about pursuing rigorous merits with romantic feelings, and wants to use his aesthetic romantic taste for the harsh and cold examination of the soldiers.

Its indulgent and uninhibited freedom and looseness, such an emotion, is extremely incompatible with the rise of realism such as the rise of practical learning in the late Ming and early Qing dynasties, and the application of the world. The writing requirements of the Eight Strands of Literature: Its rational and legal tone must be clear, true, elegant, and correct. Pu Songling had studied scientific research all his life, but he was far from the eight-strand framework required above. The artist is a world of imaginary and dreamy images, and its natural endowment is that it cannot be integrated into the creation of cruel and cold real materials. He was the same kind of person as Tao Yuanming and Xie Lingyun of the Eastern Jin Dynasty.

However, today, regardless of the success of his scientific expedition, his passion for literary and artistic creation will not be extinguished, and his great works will still illuminate the forest of ancient Chinese literary creation as scheduled. This is not what the traditional judge thinks: it was his failure to pass the imperial examination, but it completed him and fulfilled his great achievements in literature and art. This point is inferred from his rational choice between seeking beauty and truth—that is, the natural arrangement between literary creation and scientific research.

Created on October 16, 2021.

(To be continued, please stay tuned to Part IV)