After this change, Wu Jingzi has no intention of being an official, and he is deeply disgusted with hypocritical interpersonal relationships, and has no intention of making progress and fame. The governor of Anhui recommended that he should take the exam of erudition and flood words, but he pretended to be ill. He was not good at keeping a house, and when he was in poverty, he sold all his possessions. Until his death at the age of 53 in 1754, he lived a poor life.
Wu Jingzi created a large number of poems, essays and historical research works in his life, including twelve volumes of Wenmushanfang Poems, four of which are still in existence today. However, it was his satirical novel The Scholars that established his outstanding position in the history of China literature. It took him nearly 2 years to finish this novel until he was 49 years old. People established the "Wu Jingzi Memorial Hall" in his hometown; Wu Jingzi's former residence was also established in Taoyedu on the Qinhuai River.
During Wu Jingzi's life, his life and thoughts have changed greatly. In life, he fell from wealth to poverty; Ideologically, he expressed diametrically opposite views on fame and wealth. He grew up in a family of generations of Kejia, and spent most of his life in Nanjing and Yangzhou, where he was familiar with bureaucratic gentry, wealthy children, celebrities and hanger-on. In the life of these "upper-class people", he indignantly saw the bureaucratic favoritism, the arbitrary rural songs of the gentry, the mediocrity of the fertile children, the greed of the people in the industry, the artiness of celebrities and the fraud of hanger-on. Coupled with his personal life from rich to poor, it is easy to detect the face of the "upper class". In The Scholars, he thoroughly exposed the decay of the spiritual life of all kinds of intellectuals, which is really "like the casting of Dayu's Jiuding, mysterious and unorthodox" (Volume 4 of Bo Shan Zhi, a travel cloud). Moreover, because of the vivid artistic image, his works are particularly attractive and touching.
He lived through three generations of Emperor Kangxi, Emperor Yong Zhengdi and Emperor Qianlong in the Qing Dynasty. At that time, the capitalist relations of production sprouted and the society showed a certain degree of prosperity. However, this was just a blip of China feudal society that was about to collapse, and the apparent prosperity could not conceal the fact that the building was about to collapse. During the reign of Emperor Yong Zhengdi and Emperor Qianlong, the rulers of the Qing Dynasty gradually suppressed the armed uprising, and at the same time, they adopted Daxing Wenzi Prison and set up erudite macro-words as bait. Examining stereotyped writing and opening imperial examinations to imprison scholars, and advocating Neo-Confucianism to deal with intellectuals by ruling ideas. Among them, the imperial examination system is the most harmful and influential, which makes many intellectuals fall into the trap of pursuing wealth and become ignorant and shameless philistines. Wu Jingzi saw through the dark politics and decadent social atmosphere, so he opposed the stereotyped writing and the imperial examination system, unwilling to take the examination of erudite macro-words, and hated the scholars who were obsessed with making arts and were keen on seeking fame and wealth. He reflected these views in his Scholars. He exposed these ugly things profoundly and criticized them with irony, showing his democratic ideological color.
The Scholars was originally only 55 times. According to Cheng Jinfang's Poems of Love for People, it can be proved that Wu Jingzi had written off the manuscript when he was 49 years old (Spring Sail Collection received more than a dozen poems of Love for People, among which there was a note: "Quanjiao Wu Jingzi Zi Min Xuan." The last four sentences of the whole poem say: "The scholar is a scholar, depicting He Gongyan! I am sad for the people of Sri Lanka, and I actually passed it on. " ), but it was not until more than ten years after the author's death that Jin Zhaoyan carved it for him. This engraving has been lost today. At present, there are 56 engravings, the last of which is a forgery by later generations.
The Scholars is an outstanding realistic satire novel in the history of Chinese literature. Mr. Lu Xun rated it as "a collection of broken brocade, which is combined into a post. Although it is not huge, it is different from time to time." Feng Yuanjun and Lu Kanru's "A Brief Compilation of the History of China Literature" hold that "there are big alcohol flaws". Although there is no backbone in the story of the book, there is a center running through it, that is, opposing the poison of the imperial examination system and feudal ethics and satirizing the extremely hypocritical and bad social habits caused by the passion for fame and wealth. Such ideological content was undoubtedly of great practical and educational significance at that time. Coupled with its accurate, vivid and refined vernacular language, vivid characterization, beautiful and delicate scenery description and excellent irony, it has also achieved great success in art. Of course, due to the limitations of the times, although the author criticized the dark reality in the book, he pinned his ideals on the scholar-officials who were "excellent in character and learning" and preached ancient rituals and music, but he could not see the real way to change the Confucian scholars and society, which should be criticized.
The Scholars has 56 chapters, which are connected by many vivid stories, all of which are based on real people. The central content of the book is to attack the rigid examination system and the serious social problems caused by it.
The Scholars is a model of satirical literature in ancient China. Wu Jingzi's successful portrayal of the feudal literati living in the last days of feudalism and the imperial examination system, as well as his vivid description of the imperial examination, ethics and corruption that ate people, made him one of the outstanding writers who criticized realism in the history of Chinese literature. The Scholars not only directly influenced modern condemnation novels, but also profoundly inspired modern satirical literature. Now, The Scholars has been translated into English, French, German, Russian, Japanese and other languages, and has become a world-class literary masterpiece. Some foreign scholars think that this is a satirical, pedantic and ostentatious work, but it can be called a model of the most poetic prose narrative style in the world. It can compete with the works of Boccaccio in Italy, Cervantes in Spain and Balzac in France.
Wu Jingzi (171-1754), a native of Quanjiao, Anhui Province in the Qing Dynasty, was born in a famous official family, received a good education as a child, and showed a special talent for literary creation. When he reached adulthood, he had the opportunity to gain a lot of knowledge, including the inside story of officialdom, because he worked as an official with his father everywhere. When Wu Jingzi was 22 years old, his father died, and there was a fierce struggle within the family over property and power.
After this change, Wu Jingzi has no intention of being an official, and he is deeply disgusted with hypocritical interpersonal relationships, and has no intention of making progress and fame. The governor of Anhui recommended that he should take the erudite examination, but he pretended to be ill. He was not good at keeping a house, and when he was poor, he sold all his possessions. He moved to Qinhuai, Nanjing at the age of 3 and lived a poor life until he died in Yangzhou at the age of 54 in 1754.
Wu Jingzi wrote a lot of poems, essays and historical research works in his life. However, it was his satirical novel The Scholars that established his outstanding position in the history of China literature. It took him nearly 2 years to finish this novel until he was 49 years old.
The Scholars has 56 chapters, which are connected by many vivid stories, all of which are based on real people. The central content of the book is to attack the rigid examination system and the serious social problems caused by it.
The Scholars is a model of satirical literature in ancient China. Wu Jingzi's successful portrayal of the feudal literati living in the last days of feudalism and the imperial examination system, as well as his vivid description of the imperial examination, ethics and corruption that ate people, made him one of the outstanding writers who criticized realism in the history of Chinese literature. The Scholars not only directly influenced modern condemnation novels, but also profoundly inspired modern satirical literature. Now, The Scholars has been translated into English, French, German, Russian, Japanese and other languages, and has become a world-class literary masterpiece. Some foreign scholars think that this is a satirical, pedantic and ostentatious work, but it can be called a model of the most poetic prose narrative style in the world. It can be compared with the works of Boccaccio in Italy, Cervantes in Spain and Balzac in France.
Wu Jingzi Memorial Hall is located in the north of Quanjiao County, near the address of the former Arctic Pavilion. A wide and beautiful Xinxiang River lies in front of it, and a bridge crosses the river to the front of the memorial hall.
Wu Jingzi Memorial Hall was built in October 1985 and completed at the end of 1986. There are three antique buildings on the front, two to three rooms on both sides, and unique corridors make them connected. The trees in the museum are beautiful and bamboo is green, and flowers bloom all the year round. The whole museum park has both the beauty of southern gardens and the glory of ancient architecture in the north. There are all kinds of Wu Jingzi research materials in the museum.