How to understand the tragedy of Xu Wenchang's life condensed into a strange word?

Xu Wei (xú wèi) is a strange man, and Yuan Hongdao's Biography of Xu Wenchang can also be called a strange article. Xu Wenchang is a famous poet, dramatist, and a first-rate painter and calligrapher, who occupies a lofty position in the history of literature and art. However, his life suffered setbacks. Although he was not a nobody, he almost made a career, but in the end, as this biography says, the name was gradually forgotten. Yuan Hongdao discovered him, published a collection of essays for him, made a biography for him, and finally made this unknown figure appear in front of the world, and then made his name known to future generations. A short biography can restore a forgotten character's reputation, which is not a trivial matter in itself. Therefore, Biography of Xu Wenchang can be called Strange Tales from a Lonely Studio.

This article is well written, first of all, because Yuan Hongdao wrote himself and poured his feelings into his biography. Yuan Hongdao is a true confidant of Xu Wenchang. Readers can see that at the beginning of the biography, Yuan Hongdao and Tao Wangling wrote down the surprise and ecstasy of reading Xu Wenchang's poetry collection Bian Que: they jumped up, read in the shadow of the lamp, shouted loudly, woke up all the sleeping servants, and wished they could get to know Xu Wenchang.

On the surface, Yuan Hongdao highlighted Xu Wenchang's weirdness in this biography. At the end of his biography, he summed up a sentence: "I said that people are not strange." There are eight or nine places where the word "singularity" is used in biographies: "talent singularity", "benefit singularity", "singularity" and "poetry singularity". Highlighting his strangeness naturally captures the characteristics of this person's personality and behavior. But the main purpose of Yuan Hongdao's biography is not here. The main idea of this biography should be six words written by Xu Wenchang. The drawbacks of the imperial examination made Xu Wenchang a frustrated and cynical person. He tried again and again and remained a scholar all his life.