"The Creation of Writers" and "The Creation of Scholars"——An Analysis of a Literary Controversy

The literary debate between JI Yun and PU Songling transcends time and space. JI Yun raised questions about PU Songling's Liaozhaizhiyi(《聊斋志异》) from both stylistic and narrative perspectives. His summary of Liaozhaizhiyi was remarkably accurate, which is valuable; however, his judgments based on this are controversial. This seemingly minor issue actually involves many important questions. Although JI Yun was knowledgeable, he lacked flexibility. He used academic standards to criticize PU Songling's novel creation, and his questioning of PU Songling also led him to fall into a narrative logic trap. Later writers chose their own positions, thus forming two creative tendencies in Qing Dynasty novels, distinguishing between "author's creation" and "scholar's creation, " presenting a literary landscape where the two are juxtaposed.