李渔放弃科举考试成因说辨

Textual Research or Reasoning?——On Why Li Yu Gave up the Imperial Examination

将明末清初著名小说戏剧家李渔放弃科举考试,此影响其一生人生走向的重大抉择,归因于战乱、强仕之年、他的民族情绪及其功名富贵的天命观,是学界广为流行的说法,但都缺乏足够的事实依据,不是严格的考证。至于说李渔告别科场,是因为他为文好标新立异,不符合八股文的规范,或者说有李渔自身禀性、才情方面的因素,看似抓住了问题的要害,而究其实际,则更是一种没有确凿事实依据的逻辑推理。李渔放弃科举考试的真正原因,如同古代文学研究中的其他难题,尚待深入探究。

It was war chaos, the age of forty years, the national sentiments and view of destiny that compelled Li Yu, the famous novelist and playwright in late Ming and early Qing dynasty, to make the most important choice in his life to give up the Imperial Examination, which has been widely held in the academic circles but lacks enough evidence and is not the strict textual research. Furthermore, it seems to catch the point but is actually a logical reasoning without any factual basis to justify Li＇ s farewell to the Examination as his novelty in writing against the standards of Eight-Legged Essays or his personalities and talent. The real reasons, just like other puzzles in the Chinese classical literature researches, need further investigation.