Pu Songling

Pu Songling (蒲松齡), also known as P'sung Ling (Zibo, Shandong, June 5, 1640 - February 25, 1715) is a Chinese writer of the Qing dynasty, author of the famous collection Fantastic Tales from the Study of the Charlatan (Liáo zhāi zhì yì) (< i>聊齋志異), written in classical language in the tradition of the chuanqi (傳奇) of the Tang dynasty.

Biography

He was born into a family of poor merchants and, not having achieved much success in the official exams, he dedicated his entire life to teaching as a private tutor. Pu Songling wrote many works, including the collection of legends of ghosts, supernatural beings, and adventures in Chinese mythology, Liao Zhai Zhi Yi (The Strange Tales of Liaozhai, 1741).), which is his most representative work. Legend says that he had a tea shop and allowed anyone who could tell him an amazing story to leave without paying.

The work contains 431 stories, in which the combination of realism and fantasy and the vitality of its characters stand out. The short ones cover 200 or 300 characters, and the long ones, thousands. This work criticizes the bonds of feudalism, the harsh fate of women, the decadent system of imperial examinations and the fossilization of feudal ethics, while showing its sympathies for the sufferings of the people and extolling true love and contempt for conventions., advocating the liberation of personality. The stories about the love between the human and the divine, especially between scholars and supernatural female beings, have been the most popular and show their desire to break with feudal ethics. Among the best are The Cricket, Wang Sian, Liancheng, The Spirit of the Chrysanthemum, The Mrs. Chou and The Wolf's Dream.

The cricket refers to the time when senior bureaucrats liked to fight crickets and forced their subordinates to find good crickets for them. He tells how a low official was beaten for having failed in that task. Finally he gets a champion cricket, but his son, very curious, opens his cage, but it escapes and when he manages to capture it, he has left it so injured that he dies. Frightened by what he has done, he goes to see her mother, she harshly reproaches him, and the boy commits suicide by jumping into a well; When the father arrives, they discover him and are saddened beyond description. But his soul is reincarnated as a champion cricket and allows himself to be caught by his father, who, in this way, manages to climb the ranks. This tale, already emotional in itself, incidentally offers a very graphic painting of the miseries of the common people and of minor officials delivered to the mercy of their capricious bosses.

The vixens in “Liao Zhai Zhi Yi” always emerge as pretty and kind girls. The most brilliant among all is the one called Xiao Cui in the story with the same name, which stands out for the intricateness of its plot. Pu Songling created a pure, honest, smart and kind girl. The author only reveals at the end of the story that Xiao Cui is a fox who comes in human form to return a favor to Wang's family because her mother took refuge there in the past.

Also in the story “Fox Marries His Daughter”, Pu Songling wrote a scene of tender feelings about the fox family. These are kind, polite and treat the humanity that enters their lives as guests.

Apart from pretty bitches, there are also ugly but kind bitches in “Liao Zhai Zhi Yi”. What is said in the story “The Ugly Fox” is that an ugly fox supports the entire family of a poor lawyer while he is poor. When he finally has his own comfortable house and nice clothes, this lawyer invites a magician to throw the bitch out onto the street. Enraged by the lawyer's ingratitude, she recovers everything she had given him and punishes him. The author condemns the perverse behaviors of humanity through this story.

Pu Songling describes many female figures under the name of the “vixen,” composing, in a certain way, a work of evasion, since reading it made readers forget the difficulties of life in feudal China. There are also stories about creatures with characteristics that are both zombie and vampire, the so-called jiāng shī; The oldest references to these monsters date back to the 12th century; They absorb chi or vital energy from people through their hands.

Liao Zhai Zhi Yi is an immortal work in Chinese cultural history and for more than 200 years it has been translated into more than 20 languages around the world and many of its stories were adapted as movies or soap operas popular in the Far East.

Pu Songling also wrote another well-known work, The Drinking Corpse, in which he reflects Chinese beliefs about having two souls: the upper and the lower.