Wu Cheng'en (1500- 1582) was a native of Shanyang county (now Huai 'an, Jiangsu).
Wu Cheng'en was born in a family where a small official was reduced to a small businessman. His father, Wu Rui, is optimistic and open-minded, pursuing the philosophy of happiness. He was made a loyal minister, hoping that he could study as an official, inherit the kindness of the emperor and be a loyal minister in history. When Wu Cheng'en was a child, he was eager to learn and read and recite quickly. He is good at painting, calligraphy, lyrics and Go, and he also likes to collect Fa Tie's famous paintings. As a teenager, he was famous in his hometown for his outstanding literary talent and was appreciated by people. He thought he was "as good as picking up a mustard tuber" in the imperial examination. The Records of Huai 'an Prefecture recorded that he was "quick and wise, rich in books, and wrote for poetry." In addition to being eager to learn, he also likes to search for anecdotes and read books such as immortals, ghosts, foxes and monkeys. For example, unofficial history's novels like Strange Tales from a Lonely Studio and Miscellanies of Youyang have developed a hobby of seeking novelty in this colorful mythical world, and this hobby is increasing with age. This had a great influence on his creation of The Journey to the West. After the age of 30, the anecdotes he searched have been "hidden in his chest" and he has a creative plan. At the age of 50, he wrote the first dozen of The Journey to the West's novels, but for some reason he was interrupted for many years. It was not until he resigned in his later years and returned to his hometown that The Journey to the West's creation was finally completed.
Wu Cheng'en, who entered his youth, is a wild and arrogant young man. Low social status, poverty and hardship made this great genius wild and uninhibited, which attracted a flood of laughter. Gone are the days when he was praised by others.
When Wu Cheng'en was about twenty years old, she married a girl from her hometown named Ye. After marriage, she had deep feelings. Although Wu Cheng'en was bohemian, she was virtuous and faithful to her wife.
In the ten years of Jiajing, Wu Cheng'en achieved excellent results in the annual examination and scientific research, obtained the qualification of Jinshi, and went to Nanjing to take the provincial examination with friends. However, his talent is not as good as his companion's. He, a famous genius in a village, fell into Sun Shan.
The following spring, his father passed away with regret. Wu Cheng'en accepted the lesson of his first failure and studied hard for the next three years, but he still failed in the exam in the autumn of Jiajing 13th year. Wu Cheng'en felt ashamed and resentful, and fell ill this winter. The defeat of two provincial examinations, coupled with the death of his father, was a heavy blow to Wu Cheng'en. In his view, it is not only unreasonable to fail the jury in the exam, but also a shame for parents and grandparents. However, he didn't think that he didn't have the ability to pass the exam, but he was just unlucky. He believes that "fame and fortune have their own lives, and it is stupid to have them?"
Wu Cheng'en lived a different life, upright and upright. The reason why he is so talented and tried and tested is probably related to his unwillingness to please Shangguan against his will. He hates corrupt officialdom, doesn't want to go against his heart, and holds a negative attitude towards the dark reality. He wrote in the poem "Jiro's Song of Seeking Mountains": "The disaster of human beings is not for apes and cranes, but for insects. Sitting in the song room with the five ghosts, I didn't see the four murderers in court. Ye Fu was very grateful, but he felt sorry for his kindness. Wear an evil knife on your chest. You can't hate it. Saving the moon and the bow of the sun, is there no hero in the world? Who can make a contribution of forest air for me and let it last for ten thousand years? " It is believed that the reason for the "civil disaster" and the ugliness of social reality is that the rulers are not good at employing people and let the bad guys like "Five Ghosts" and "Four Fierces" take power. He wanted to "make a fortune" and "be king" to turn Gan Kun around, but he was short of talents and ambitious, so he could only sigh generously when the wind came.
The hardships of life have brought Wu Cheng'en no less pressure than the failure of scientific research. After his father died, he needed to manage all the expenses at home, but he was unable to support his family, let alone the means to support it. The source of family life, in addition to getting back six dou of rice from the university every month, can only eat the legacy left by my father.
Wu Cheng'en, who had tasted the ups and downs of social life, began to think more clearly and deeply about the problems of social life, and used his own poems to fight against unreasonable society.
Wu Cheng'en once wrote a strange novel Yu Zhi Ding. In the preface of this book, he said that although his novels and fairy tales are written about immortals and ghosts, they are actually centered on "human beings", in order to pin his political ideals on evil forces and make readers "afraid", either doing nothing or making fun of strange things. He wrote about The Journey to the West for the same purpose. The Journey to the West wrote in forty-five times that when the Monkey King arranged clouds, thunder and rain for the god of nature, he specially ordered Lei Tianjun to say, "Old Deng carefully looked after that corrupt official, disobedient and unfilial son and killed several more people for public display!" What the Monkey King hates most is "corrupt officials", which is completely consistent with Wu Cheng'en's special hatred of corrupt officials in many poems. In the mythical world of Journey to the West, there are human shadows everywhere: the sacred heavenly palace is resplendent on the surface, but the supreme jade emperor is ignorant and very fatuous, and the heaven is like a dynasty on earth; The underworld is strict, officials protect each other, take bribes and bend the law, and innocent people have grievances, just like the yamen on the ground; Demons and ghosts kill and eat people, love money and lust, dominate one side with spells, and do evil, which is simply the embodiment of human bully bureaucrats. The Journey to the West also wrote about some secular countries, where the rulers were mostly "poor in civil and military skills, and the monarchs didn't follow the rules", which is also a portrayal of the crimes of the Ming court. Wu Cheng'en's Monkey King is full of hatred and magical power, which pushes all monsters who call themselves fierce and crazy under its golden hoop, loses their former prestige, or dies or gives in easily, which embodies Wu Cheng'en's strong desire to sweep away social ugliness and ugly forces, and is also the essence of democracy in Journey to the West.
Wu Cheng'en, who was poor all his life, made every effort to complete the famous The Journey to the West at home and abroad, and passed away in the ten years of Wanli.
The appearance of The Journey to the West opened up a new category of ghost novels. The clever combination of well-meaning satire and bitter satire with serious criticism in the book directly affects the development of satirical novels. The Journey to the West is the peak of romanticism in ancient novels and a masterpiece of romanticism in the history of world literature. Encyclopedia americana thinks it is "a mythical novel with rich contents and brilliant ideas", while The French Encyclopedia says: "The description of the whole story is full of humor and wit, which gives readers strong interest." Since19th century, it has been translated into more than ten languages, including Japanese, English, French, German and Russian.
Was The Journey to the West written by Wu Cheng'en? This is a historical unsolved case for hundreds of years. In the 1920s, Hu Shi and Lu Xun demonstrated from the scholars of Qing Dynasty that The Journey to the West was written by Wu Cheng'en, a middle-aged tribute student of Jiajing in Huai 'an. But judging from the various versions of Journey to the West that can be seen at present, none of them was written by Wu Cheng'en. Recently, Beijing Library Publishing House published a book "Talking about Wu Cheng'en-Revealing the Author's Problem of The Journey to the West", suggesting that the author of The Journey to the West was not Wu Cheng'en, but Li Chunfang, the "Prime Minister of Qing Dynasty" of Ming Jiajing.
The idea of textual research is to start with the word "Jiao" in Huayang Teachers College at the beginning of A Journey to the West in Shidetang, compare the changes and development of the stories of adding, deleting and modifying the Biography of Explaining Hubei by Yang Zhi, The Journey to the West and Zhu, demonstrate the writing process of the novel, straighten out the publishing order of these three versions, and combine the thoughts of Buddhism, Taoism and Confucianism embodied in them.
Wu Cheng'en wrote a poem "To the Foothills of Sok Li", and the stone in the foothills is Li Chunfang's name. Li, a native of Xinghua, Jiangsu Province, was the number one scholar in Jiajing period. He was promoted to Zaifu because of his excellent writing of Qing Ci. When I was a child, I studied in Huayang Cave, Jiangsu, so I was nicknamed "Master Huayang Cave". He was appointed as the Yongle ceremony of the general school. There is a poem by The Journey to the West in the ninety-fifth chapter: "Colorful fragrance, a barren mountain suddenly smells fragrant;" The rainbow flows through the Qinghai River for thousands of years, and electricity travels around Changchun to the west to travel to the Tang Dynasty. Flowers and trees are elegant, and wild flowers are moist and fragrant. Ancient elders left behind relics, and now I am glad that Mingjun lost the Jubao Hall. Mr. Shen found that the fourth, fifth, sixth and seventh sentences of this poem implied "the old friend stayed behind", and the frontispiece "Huayang Dong Tian Teachers College" meant "making up a journey to the west".
Hu Shi and Lu Xun claimed that Wu Cheng'en was the author of The Journey to the West on the basis of The Records of Huai 'an Prefecture, which will be published tomorrow. The record records that Wu Cheng'en is The Journey to the West, but it doesn't explain why such a book was published. Xianfeng reprinted Huai 'an County Records in Qing Dynasty, and deleted this article.
At the end of 1983, Mr. Zhang pointed out in the article "Is Journey to the West Written by Wu Cheng'en" that during the more than 300 years from the advent of The Journey to the West to the 1920s, all kinds of publications were either edited by Zhu, or only edited by Huayang without the author's name, or written by Qiu Chuji, and none of them recognized Wu Cheng'en's copyright. Hu Shi also said in the preface of The Journey to the West in 192 1 that this work was "written by an unknown novelist after the middle of Ming Dynasty". Later, Mr. Lu Xun argued that Wu Cheng'en said that Hu Shi got the materials copied by Lu Xun, and Textual Research on Journey to the West also held this opinion. But a closer look at their textual research is based on two indirect materials and only one direct material.
Indirect materials 1: Wu Yumou (1698- 1773) Yang Shan Shi Lu Volume 4:
The Old Records of the Apocalypse (referring to the Records of the Apocalypse in Huai 'an), and Mr. Lie (referring to Wu Cheng'en) is the person in charge of the Garden of Modern Literature. It is said that "the nature is sensitive and wise, and there are many writings, and there are poems and essays, and several kinds of miscellaneous notes are famous for a while." I didn't know why I was waiting for a book, but I read Huai Xian Wen Mu written by Mr. The Journey to the West. Textual research on The Journey to the West's old name "Certificate" shows that it conforms to the purpose at that time, and Yuan Yu Taoist Garden is orderly, and that this book was written by a real person in Qiu Changchun at the beginning of other countries. And the county ambition refers to the hand of a gentleman. When the apocalypse comes, Mr. Wang is not far away, and his words will be true. Written at the beginning of Changchun, Italy, Mr. Zhi is a popular romance, such as The Three Kingdoms, written by Chen Shou, and the romance is called Luo Guanzhong. There are many dialects in my hometown in the book, and there is no doubt that there are people who go abroad. Or cloud: There is After Journey to the West, written by Mr. Sheyang.
The Journey to the West has been published for nearly 200 years, and the only basis for judging is the publication of official records in Huai 'an tomorrow. His right to speak is actually similar to ours.
Indirect material 2: Ruan Kuisheng (1727- 1789) Tea Guest Talk Volume 21:
According to old books, Sheyang is said to be sensitive, wise, poetic and playful, and has written several miscellaneous notes. I'm sorry I didn't notice the title of Miscellaneous Notes, but the book Huaixian Wenmu contains Sheyang's Popular Romance of Journey to the West. It is the beginning of the popularity of this book next season, and people in the alley are happy to talk about it, but this is unheard of. ..... Ming county ambition, writing Sheyang, Sheyang ambition is not far away. How can he make a name for himself with the novels of secular yuan people? Or Changchun has this record at the beginning, and Sheyang is therefore romantic, extremely illusory and changeable; For example, the left ones include National Records and Romance of the Three Kingdoms. Look at dialect slang again. They are all spoken in the street with rural accent in Huaishang. Women and children in the street understand it, and some don't read it at all, so it is undoubtedly from the hands of people in Huaishang.