One day, Pu Songling was chatting with several people at the entrance of the village, and one of them said: "I heard that there is a man named Zhu Erdan, who won the first place in the scientific examination this year, and soon got into a lawsuit, because his wife changed her head in a dream, which is actually the head of a young girl." Zhu Erdan was arrested by the government. ”
"What happened then?" Pu Songling held a pen in his hand and prepared to write it down.
The man then said, "The young girl belongs to Wu Yushi's family." I heard that a judge surnamed Lu helped a lot, and this judge was originally made of wooden sculptures in the palace. However, he is very magical, and he can call the dead Mishi daughter to the family to dream. She told her family that she had been killed by a street scoundrel named Yang Danian and had nothing to do with Zhu Erdan. ”
Using such bizarre content as material, Pu Songling continued to process and sort out, and wrote a short story "Lu Judge". This is a story in "Chatting with Zai Zhiyi".
So, is Pu Songling able to successfully complete the famous collection of novels "Liaozhai Zhiyi" just by chatting and then writing? I believe it will not be so simple. Let's talk about the story of Pu Songling and "Liaozhai Zhiyi".
As a classic literary masterpiece, "Liaozhai Zhiyi" has been widely praised for hundreds of years. Pu Songling was able to write this far-reaching novel, inseparable from the bumpy experience of his life.
Pu Songling, nicknamed Liuquan Resident. In 1640, the thirteenth year of Ming Chongzhen, he was born in Pujiazhuang in Zibo.
There is also an interesting theory about the birth of Pu Songling. According to his own account, one night, a man surnamed Pu in the village dreamed that a monk dressed in robes entered his and his wife's bedroom. He saw a plaster the size of a copper coin attached to the monk's chest, which immediately woke the man. At this moment, there was the cry of a baby, it turned out that the wife had given birth to a child, and there was a black mole the size of copper money on the newborn's chest. This baby boy is Pu Songling.
Although the Pu family is not a famous and prestigious family, there are many people in the family who study, and many people have obtained meritorious names through the examination. Although Pu Songling's father was erudite and talented, he delayed his studies due to the chaos of the Ming and Qing wars and the large number of children.
The four Pu Songling brothers were all taught to them by their fathers. Pu Songling is talented, diligent and inquisitive, quick in his thinking, and has the best reading score among the four brothers. Of course, he was also very popular with his father.
Not only that, Pu Songling just turned 19 years old when he took the boy exam and ranked first in the county, prefectural, and provincial examinations. After passing the Xiucai examination, he was also praised by Shi Yanzhang, a famous literary scholar in Shandong Province.
However, he did not expect that when he continued to take the imperial examination, he would fail continuously.
Later, his father died, and the brothers split up. Pu Songling was divided into a few acres of thin fields and three old houses on farms. The old house was very simple, with holes in the walls and was in tatters. The house is also surrounded by artemisia grass. He was so poor that he didn't even have the money to repair the house, so he had to find wooden planks to shield him from the wind and cold.
The hardships of life did not overwhelm Pu Songling. In order to take the examination, he continued to study poetry with his colleagues and did not have time to take care of his family. Later, as several children were born one after another, the family's financial situation became worse and worse.
In order to feed the whole family, at the age of 31, he went to Baoying County, Jiangsu Province, to find a clerical errand. At that time, sun hui, a fellow villager, served as the county commander and was very concerned about Pu Songling, and there were many affairs in the yamen, and Pu Songling was not affected much. Even so, Pu Songling still wanted to take the meritorious name and was not willing to live under the people for a long time. Therefore, he only worked as a clerk for one year before resigning and returning home.
Since then, in order to support his family, he has worked as a tutor in a large household in the county, or earned money by writing on behalf of his family.
From the twelfth to fourteenth years of the Kangxi Dynasty, that is, from 1673 to 1675, Pu Songling served as a tutor in another large local household surnamed Wang.
Among the brothers of the Wang family, there was a man named Wang Guanzheng, who was the most temperamental with Pu Songling, and like Pu Songling, Wang Guanzheng was also a continuous failure of the imperial examination. As a result, the two people have a common language, and the friendship gradually deepens.
Wang Guanzheng is an upright person and often helps the poor Pu Songling. Pu Songling's mother fell ill and died, because there was no money for burial, and it was Wang Guanzheng who helped her to make her mother buried.
In addition to teaching, he went to the entrance of the village, made tea, prepared tobacco leaves, and looked for opportunities to chat with passers-by.
Some of these pedestrians are merchants, some are porters carrying burdens, and there are also literati and inkers who come from south to north. The stories and new things they told, Pu Songling recorded and sorted out, and compiled a ghost fox story. This is the main source of the storyline of "Liaozhai Zhiyi".
At that time, studying the scriptures and participating in scientific expeditions were considered to be the serious affairs of readers, while Pu Songling's ghost fox novels were considered crooked and evil. Therefore, many people think that writing ghost novels is purely unprofessional, and it is considered to be a waste of effort, and even no work.
Not only was he ridiculed by others, but even Sun Hui, who was very respected by Pu Songling, also wrote a letter to persuade Pu Songling to concentrate on his studies and careers, and not to focus on ghost fox novels.
Pu Songling was bold and straightforward, and he wrote his hatred for the officialdom, sympathy for the people's suffering, and ridicule of the imperial examination system, etc., into the story. When he was 40 years old, he put together the chapters that had been made into a book, decided on the name "Liaozhai Zhiyi", and wrote "Liaozhai Zizhi", describing the pain of writing, hoping to be understood.
In the face of other people's incomprehension and even ridicule, Pu Songling did not care, he withstood the pressure of public opinion from all sides and insisted on doing what he liked.
After leaving the Wang family private school, Pu Songling went to Tang Menglai's house to do tutoring. Tang Menglai was a jinshi in 1649, who served in the Hanlin Academy, and later resigned and returned to his hometown, he was also a famous literary scholar, and he was very important to Pu Songling. Not only did he not object to Pu Songling writing Liaozhai, but he also praised the demons and foxes he wrote. Tang Mengzhao was the earliest reader of "Liaozhai Zhiyi", and what is more gratifying is that the preface to "Liaozhai Zhiyi" was also written by him.
The material for the storyline in Pu Songling's "Liaozhai Zhiyi" is not only derived from the pedestrians who come and go at the entrance of the village, but also from his friends at the same window every time he takes the imperial examination.
In those days, the success or failure of the imperial examination was related to the fate of a person or even a family. The darkness and unfairness of feudal society were reflected in the scientific examination, that is, the greed and selfishness of the examiner, which made the candidates deeply resentful. Therefore, these topics have naturally become the material for Pu Songling to write stories.
Not only that, but the owner of the private school he taught also helped him a lot in writing.
In 1679, the eighteenth year of the Kangxi Dynasty, Pu Songling went to the Bi family in another village to teach. This time he met a great benefactor. The owner Bi Ji is very enlightened, he not only appreciates Pu Songling's literary style, but also agrees with Pu Songling's story of writing ghost foxes.
He regarded Pu Songling as his best friend, not only let Pu Songling teach several children and grandchildren to read, but also provided a lot of materials for Pu Songling's creation, which made Pu Songling very moved. At leisure. Bi Jiyou and Pu Songling would sit together and talk about "Liaozhai".
In the Bi family, Pu Songling lived as comfortably as in his own home, first, he had a good owner to treat him, and second, there was a lot of books to read. During this period, he also took the imperial examination on schedule every year. Although there is a feeling of sending people under the fence, I can't teach my children to read in person, but there is no better place to go, plus I have a deep relationship with the owner. Therefore, he stayed in the Bi family for 30 years. He was 40 when he first arrived at the Bi family and did not return to his home until he was 70 years old.
Pu Songling was lucky, except for the Bi family, the few private schools he had experienced before basically did not discriminate against him.
Pu Songling is a real poor student, he usually reads, teaches, and writes books. In addition to writing the "Liaozhai Zhiyi", he also wrote new words by himself, wrote some articles on entertainment or endowment, and was pushed by the historians of lexicography as a master of resignation in the early Qing Dynasty. Later, he also wrote poems, especially more poems, and there were more than 1,000 poems.
A person's strength is small, not to mention that Pu Songling is a powerless and powerless student. At this critical moment, another nobleman of Pu Songling appeared, which helped him a lot.
This nobleman was a relative of the Bi family, that is, the famous poet Wang Shizhen at that time.
Wang Shizhen ,ancestral home of Shandong, zizhen, ruan ting or Yuyangshan people, sometimes called Wang Haiyang. He was a famous literary scholar in the early Qing Dynasty and was quite successful in the study of poetry theory. He was a jinshi in 1658 and an official in 1704. Whether he is engaged in politics or poetry, Wang Shizhen is a person of high moral standing.
Wang Shizhen and the Bi family are relatives of the two generations of marriage, and some of Bi's wives are Wang Shizhen's aunts and aunts, and they are indispensable to each other. Pu Songling and Bi Ji have a deep friendship, and also consider that Pu Songling is a literati he respects. Therefore, when Wang Shizhen came to The Bi family as a guest, Bi Jiyou asked Pu Songling to accompany him.
Having heard of Wang Shizhen's name for a long time, Pu Songling was overjoyed to have such a good opportunity to meet. He talked about poetry papers with Wang Shizhen, and he was even very speculative.
After Pu Songling handed over to Wang Shizhen a part of the manuscript of "Liaozhai Zhiyi", Wang Shizhen praised Pu Songling greatly. Being able to get the recognition of celebrities has made Pu Songling feel a lot more solid in his heart, and he feels that his hard work over the years has not been in vain.
Pu Songling and Wang Shizhen, although they did not meet several times, the two quickly became literary friends. Once they have a new work, they send each other and give each other comments or suggestions.
"Chatting with Zai Zhiyi", there is also a common name "Ghost Fox Legend". There are 390 short stories in total. It means to record strange stories in the study, and the name of his study is "Liaozhai". Most of these stories are felt. Some stories expose the darkness of the bureaucracy, some attack the decay of the scientific expedition system, and some oppose feudal etiquette. Every story has a profound ideological connotation.
There are many descriptions of love in the novel, all of which use ghost foxes as beautiful women, fall in love with students, and then be bound by feudal etiquette. Through these, the author's desire for free ideal love is expressed.
After Wang Shizhen finished reading "Liaozhai Zhiyi", he made a comment on "Liaozhai Zhiyi", which is the following widely circulated verse: Gu Yu listens to the gu vain words, and the bean shed melon rack rains like silk. It is expected that he should be tired of being a human language and love to listen to the autumn grave ghosts singing.
Because Pu Songling wrote all about ghost fox monsters, all of which were illusory and non-existent, it was called the gu who listened to the vain words.
The bean shed melon rack rains like silk, referring to the place involved in the story of Liaozhai. Imagine what a pleasant and wonderful scene it is to sit around under the bean shed and listen to the story of chatting and relieving the boredom on a rainy day when people don't have to do farm work. This sentence indicates that the chat written by Pu Songling is particularly grounded.
It is expected to be disgusted with human language, which is the content of the commentary. Pu Songling wrote about ghost fox monsters instead of people, guessing that he was tired of writing people. Because sometimes people in reality are not as cute as ghost foxes, not as cute as ghost foxes.
Love to listen to the autumn grave ghost singing poetry, refers to the chat is dedicated to telling the story of the ghost fox monster. Illustrates the main features of this work.
"Liaozhai Zhiyi" was created by Pu Songling with most of his life. In his later years, he stopped writing new content for Liaozhai continued. Instead, he turned his head and wrote some folk tunes and popular science books for the people, which was entertaining and educational. Until his death in 1715, he spent a colorful old age.
Since most of the content of "Liaozhai Zhiyi" comes from the folk, it can also be widely circulated in the folk. Because everyone's hobbies are different, some people copy down their favorite stories and keep them.
"The ghost fox has a personality, laughing and scolding into an article", this is Mr. Lao She's evaluation of Pu Songling. Pu Songling himself did not think that the articles he wrote with laughter and anger became classic literary works.
For hundreds of years, "Liaozhai Zhiyi" was not only widely praised in the folk, but also gradually made into movies, TV series and operas. Its charm has also attracted many foreign readers, and it has long gone out into the world, and now there are more than 20 translations circulating all over the world.
In the life of poverty and loss, Pu Songling identified one thing, persevered, struggled to move forward, and finally realized his dream.
It seems that the value of each person is determined by himself. Whether you are in a difficult situation or not, once you have an ideal, as long as you persistently pursue it, you will be able to succeed.
Author | angel