| Pu Songling, lived in the 17th century, was a short stories writer who is famous not only in China but overseas, his collection of short stories describing ghost and goblin from a Scholar’s Studio, which was written in classical Chinese, is just as famous as A Dream of Red Mansions. It is deserved to be cherished mostly as valuable literary heritage.The studies of Pu’s lifetime、friendships creations and ideas are named "The studies of Pu" by the researchers. They also are an important branch of the studies of Strange Tales From Liaozhai. However, the studies concerned this marvelous novelist of Qing Dynasty has not been satisfied nowadays. As concerned as the creations of the The Chronicle of Pu Songling by now, there have been the Chronicle of Pu mingjing from ZiChuan(1933), written by Tangfeng, The Chronicle of Pu Songling wirtten by Lu Dahuang(1936/1962/1980),The Chronicle of Mr. Pu Liuquan in Qing Dynasty written by Zhang Jingqiao(1980,TaiBei),The Chronicle of Pu Songling written by Liu Jieping (1985,TaiBei), Sheng Wei and Luo Jingzhi also has their own The Chronicle of Pu Songling. These six The Chronicle of Pu Songling covered 70 years in the length of print dates. However, there exists three main problems:Firstly, the content is too brief, such as the Chronicle which rewritten several times by Lu dahuang only has 40 thousand words. The Chronicle written by Luo jingzhi published in 2000 TaiBei only has about 150 thousand words too. Because of the brief of the content, these chronologies did not make the main deeds of Pu clear enough so they just can be thought as six brief chronologies of Pu.Secondly, it still remains numerous problems. Through the textual research by me, hundreds of mistakes in these chronologies are found, among them related on the important deeds and creations. As the mistakes are so many that it can be used by the ordinary readers and specialists without worry.Thirdly, since the 1980s, the studies of Pu and his novels has come into an overall and deep stage. In the studies of Pu’s lifetime,there are many scholars devoted on for many years, such as Yuan shishuo、Wang zhizhong、Yang hairu、the author of this article and so on. The other scattered research findings are also considerable. However, the six chronologies did not make full use of these new achievements because of their brief. Hence, in the present stage, it has become an inevitable requirement to compose a Chronicle of Pu Songling which detailed and accurate and can reflect the achievements about Pu’s lifetime of decades.Point at above problems, Converging and textual criticism of the Chronicle of Pu Songling tries to make contributions on several aspects as below:The one is through overall textual research and descriptions the deeds of Pu’s whole life, including the lifetime、the publication years、creations、friendships、ideas and emotions and so on, aimed at informative without omissions. The two is amending all kinds of mistakes and problems which appeared in the six chronologies. Make each word reasonable and make each evidence countable, trying my best to make this thesis be the absorbents of Pu’s lifetime. The three is absorbing the related research achievements in recent decades and embodying the basic features and the progress.The thesis consists of three parts:before the chronology、the Chronicle and after the chronology.The part of before the Chronicle covered The ancestors of Pu’s Family of ZiChuan、The lineage of Pu’s Family of ZiChuan and The brief biography of PuSongling.This thesis suggests the ancestors of Pu have been settled in ZiChuan of ShanDong Province since Yuan Dynasty. Pu luhun and Pu juren among them were both main managers in Banyang in Yuan Dynasty. In terms of the ethnic attribution, there are four statements covering Mongolian, Hui nationality, Nuchen nationality and Han nationality. It’s hard to make a certain conclusion until now. According to the historical materials mastered at present, the chapter of Pu’s ancestors tries to introduce the situation about Pu luhun、Pu juren. Concerning on the four statements of the ethnic attributions, there will state their resource and status, pointing at that the problem of Pu’s ancestors cannot be confused with the issue which Pu classified himself as Han nationality.According to Banyang Natives and Genealogy of Family Pu in Zichuan, the part of "genealogy of family Pu in Zichuan" tries to draw a clear picture of the lineage of family Pu in Zichuan from their earliest ancestor Pu Zhang to Pu Pan, who is Pu Songling’s father, and to amend the mistakes made in previous Chronicles with the latest research achievements.The biographical sketch of Pu Songling is a brief biography of the protagonist of the chronicle, which includes his given name, courtesy name, art name, family members and his works.The part of "chronicle" is the body of the thesis, and it is also the most important part of the thesis. This part narrates deeds of the protagonist of the chronicle by years, and will cover some other person or related events.The main content of this chronicle is the textual criticism of Pu Songling’s deeds. Exact date of his deeds is given if it is possible; to make clear the situation of his creation process, this thesis will focus on the time, the original story and the place of his creations, including Pu Songling’s poems, Ci, Folks, essays and Strange Tales from Liaozhai.Pu Songling worked as a teacher lifelong. According to research results in this thesis, he separated from his parents in 1664 and the next year he started a life of teaching until he returned back from Xipu county, Zhongxin township, in the west of Zibo, when he was seventy-one years old in 1710. Unlike to some scholars’ suggestion, for instance Lu Xun, Pu Songling didn’t teach students at home, instead, he always had to live in others’home. Most of his works, such as Strange Tales from Liaozhai and Liao Zhai Folks, were written in such somber, lonely and chilly nights. So this thesis will focus on Pu Songling’s experience when he taught in some gentries’ home, such as family Wang in Zhongxin county, family Wang in Fengquan county, family Shen in Zhongxin county, family Bi in Xipu county and so on, to show the creative environment of some of his excellent works such as Strange Tales from Liaozhai and Liao Zhai Folks.Pu Songling lived in countrysides of Shandong province all his life long. His father used to be an candidate for imperial examination, but he didn’t obtain any glory or fame, then he gave up the examination and became a businessman. He earned a huge fortune, so Pu Songling never worried about food and cloths when he was young. However, after he separated from his parents, he couldn’t support his family and his family became deadly poor. In fact, all his life long he never emerged from poverty. When he separated from his parents, he got twenty acres of fields, and when he stopped his teaching life, his fields even increased to fifty acres. As more and more children were born, his slender income can’t raise the family, and the products of fields became very important to him. So Pu Songling started to concern the farming season and farm work, as if he was a real farmer. For these reasons, he wrote a lot of rural poems. From some of his books, such as Nong Sang Jing, Ri Yong Su Zi and so on, we can learn how familiar he knew about farming. Some scholars said that Pu Songling was a "peasant poet", in my opinion, he was a scarce agricultural specialist among the intellectuals, his rural poems which depicted farm works were quite different from those pastoral poetries written by other ancient poets, it is just as valuable as Wu Jiaji’s rural poems which depicted salt production. So in this thesis, I pay much attention on Pu Songling’s rural poems and his books on agriculture.In the year of 1658, Pu Songling won the first place in all the examinations held by County, Fu and Dao and became a County Student Member. He was known by the senior Shi Runzhang who was a celebrated poet and the Education Executive of Shandong Province. "He enjoyed a widespread literary reputation among the students.’ However, from then on, he always suffered from the pain of failures in Provincial Examinations of Shandong Province which was held once every three years. He took the examination led by the Education Executive Huang Shulin in Qingzhou and successfully became a Recommended Student until 1711 when he was seventy-two years old. As a literates from the lower class, Pu Songling’s friends were also lived in the lower classes of society. His circle of friends and life could not compare with that of the high official such as Wang Shizhen, Gao Heng and Tang Menglai. But it should be pointed out that Pu Songling and his friends’life circle shows the specific circumstances of the rural life and vivid pictures of the lower class literati’s social states of existence, which are different from the scholar-bureaucrats’life circle that commonly known by us, just like different kinds of fish live in different layer of water. Therefore, this thesis devote to including and preserving the activities and records of the characters Pu Songling associated with based on the local historical material, such as choreographies and family genealogies, so that we can discover and reveal his situation of social intercourse, his scope of social activities and the living level as well as the living state of intellectuals centered on Pu Songling with low social positions.In the author’s view, if we want to know more about Pu Songling, we need to try to be the "friend" of him and master "modern allusions", the social state he existed. According to this train of thoughts, this thesis quotes and tells about more literatures related to some major historical events which exercised influences on Pu’s subsistence, life and thoughts. For instance, Qing army plundered Shandong Province after they entered Shanhai Pass in 1642 and 1643; the social upheaval of dynasty change from Ming to Qing; Pu Songling’s friend, Wang Jiu’s father, the Assistant Minister of Revenue and Works who offered amnesty and enlistment to rebels in Shandong and Henan Province Wang Aoyong was killed in 1644; Yu Qi Uprising and Xie Qian Uprising in Shandong Province during Shunzhi period; Revolt of the Three Feudatories during Kangxi period; Kangxi’s Western Expedition towards Galdan; the great famine in Shandong Province in 1703 and 1704. The author believed that these "modern allusions" in Ming and Qing Dynasty are not only necessary for general readers to understand the relevant historical knowledge, but also the historical "context" that deserve to be pay close attention to for present-day researchers.After the chronicle is relatively simple. This part ends on 1725. Pu Songling’s sons provided brief biographical sketch of Pu and requested Pu’s friend Zhang Yuan, Zhang Yongji’s son, the fellow countryman, a younger scholar to write Gravestone of Mr. Pu from Liuquan. The tombstone was set up on Tomb-sweeping Day this year.It may be added that the references of the thesis only lists bibliographies of books and articles that quoted in accordance with the usual writing styles of chronicle. The references not be quoted are not mentioned. |
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