From Pu Song-ling's Experiences As Lower Literati To Analyze The Lower Literati In Strange Tales Of Liao Zhai

Abstract: Pu Song-ling said that Strange Tales of Liao Zhai was a book, which could air his depressed and discontented feelings. Then expression was his main aim of writing this book. And Pu's personal image was very important to understand the novel. Pu Song-ling was typical spiritless literati at the last stage in Chinese feudal society. As lower literati, he was busy all life long for his official rank and the lease of life. Because of the fail in the imperial competitive examination, he could not change his lonely and unluckily lower literati status. The poor life forced him taking tutor at rich man's family. The lower status made him taste all fickleness of the world. But, the poor live and the lower status portrayed him an open and aboveboard noble character and the forthright and sincere personality. Lower literati were the main part of man image in Strange Tales of Liao Zhai. They were the productions, which were cemented by Pu's feelings, experiences and sympathy to lower literati. There were no needs to gather any materials when Pu Song-ling created those images; his rich experiences and deep feelings were enough. Pu Song-ling transferred his own subjective emotion to those objective figures, through describing their unhappy experiences and emotion to get the pain feeling off his chest .So the novels which described the spirit and life of lower literati have rich subjective coloring, and were the projection of Pu Song-ling's life and emotion experiences. On subjective, those images were the expression of Pu's feelings, but on objective, they presented a true picture, which drew the life of lower literati. In those tales, there was full of sentimentalism about times and society.