中英雙語話中國歷史名人 第61期:蒲松齡

Pu Songling (1640~1715), courtesy name LiuXian, or Jianchen, was a Chinese fiction writer whose Liaozhai zhiyi (1766; "Strange Stories from Liaozhai's Studio"; Eng. trans. Strange Stories from a Chinese Studio) resuscitated the classical genre of short stories.

蒲松齡(1640~1715 )，字留仙，又字劍臣，小說家，他的《聊齋志異》復興了短篇文言小說這一文學體裁。

Pu's impressive collection of 431 tales of the unusual and supernatural was largely completed by 1679, though he added stories to the manuscript as late as 1707.

蒲松齡的431篇志怪故事的收集工作基本上於1679年完成，但是直到1707年他還在添加小說稿。

The work departed from the prevailing literary fashion that was dominated by more realistic huaben stories written in the colloquial language.

這部作品與當時盛行的文風不同。當時，文壇上佔據主導地位的是現實主義的“話本”，話本用白話寫成。

Pu instead wrote his stories in the classical idiom, freely adopting forms and themes from the old chuanqi ("marvel tales") of the Tang and Song dynasties.

但是蒲松齡卻用文言文寫小說，並且自由地採用唐宋“傳奇”的形式和主題。

Although Pu lived and died as an obscure provincial schoolteacher, his work gained fame when it was first printed some 50 years after his death, inspiring many imitations and creating a new vogue for classical stories.

儘管蒲松齡一生都僅是個地位不高的教書先生，但是他去世50年後，其作品一經出版就帶來了聲望，從而使很多人模仿他的作品，進而使文言小說再度流行起來。

He is credited with having adapted several of his tales into "drum songs", a popular dramatic form of the time.

蒲松齡還把他的幾個故事改編成“鼓詞”(當時流行的一種戲劇形式)。

The colloquial novel Xingshi yinyuanzhuan (1644~1661); "A Marriage to Awaken, the World";Eng. trans. The Bonds of Matrimony), which realistically portrays an unhappy contemporary marriage, was attributed to him by some scholars.

有些學者認爲《醒世姻緣傳》(約1644~1661)的作者也是蒲松齡。《醒世姻緣傳》對當時不幸福的婚姻做了現實主義的描繪。