Wu Cheng'en courtesy name

Chinese style name

A Chinese style name, sometimes also known as a courtesy name , is a given name to be used later in life. After 20 years of age, the zì is assigned in place of one's given name as a symbol of adulthood and respect...

 Ruzhong (汝忠), pen name "Sheyang Hermit," was a Chinese

Chinese people

The term Chinese people may refer to any of the following:*People with Han Chinese ethnicity ....

 novelist and poet of the Ming Dynasty

Ming Dynasty

The Ming Dynasty, also Empire of the Great Ming, was the ruling dynasty of China from 1368 to 1644, following the collapse of the Mongol-led Yuan Dynasty. The Ming, "one of the greatest eras of orderly government and social stability in human history", was the last dynasty in China ruled by ethnic...

, best known for being the attributed author of one of the Four Great Classical Novels

Four Great Classical Novels

The Four Great Classical Novels, or the Four Major Classical Novels of Chinese literature, are the four novels commonly regarded by scholars to be the greatest and most influential of pre-modern Chinese fiction. Dating from the Ming and Qing dynasties, they are well known to most Chinese readers...

 of Chinese literature

Chinese literature

Chinese literature extends thousands of years, from the earliest recorded dynastic court archives to the mature fictional novels that arose during the Ming Dynasty to entertain the masses of literate Chinese...

, Journey to the West

Journey to the West

Journey to the West is one of the Four Great Classical Novels of Chinese literature. It was written by Wu Cheng'en in the 16th century. In English-speaking countries, the tale is also often known simply as Monkey. This was one title used for a popular, abridged translation by Arthur Waley...

.

Biography

Wu was born in Lianshui, in Jiangsu province

Jiangsu

' is a province of the People's Republic of China, located along the east coast of the country. The name comes from jiang, short for the city of Jiangning , and su, for the city of Suzhou. The abbreviation for this province is "苏" , the second character of its name...

, and later moved to nearby Huaian. Wu's father, Wu Rui, had had a good primary education and "shown an aptitude for study," but ultimately spent his life as an artisan because of his family's financial difficulties. Nevertheless, Wu Rui continued to "devote himself to literary pursuits," and as a child Wu acquired the same enthusiasm for literature—including classical literature, popular stories, and anecdotes.

He took the imperial examination

Imperial examination

The Imperial examination was an examination system in Imperial China designed to select the best administrative officials for the state's bureaucracy. This system had a huge influence on both society and culture in Imperial China and was directly responsible for the creation of a class of...

s several times in attempt to become a mandarin

Mandarin (bureaucrat)

A mandarin was a bureaucrat in imperial China, and also in the monarchist days of Vietnam where the system of Imperial examinations and scholar-bureaucrats was adopted under Chinese influence.-History and use of the term:...

, or imperial official, but never passed, and did not gain entry into the imperial university in Nanjing

Nanjing

' is the capital of Jiangsu province in China and has a prominent place in Chinese history and culture, having been the capital of China on several occasions...

 until middle age; after that he did become an official and had postings in both Beijing

Beijing

Beijing , also known as Peking , is the capital of the People's Republic of China and one of the most populous cities in the world, with a population of 19,612,368 as of 2010. The city is the country's political, cultural, and educational center, and home to the headquarters for most of China's...

 and Changxing County

Changxing County

Changxing County is a county in the prefecture-level city of Huzhou, Zhejiang, China. Situated in the northern part of Zhejiang Province, it is close to the border of Zhejiang, Jiangsu, Anhui Province and serves as an important city in transportation.Changxing has since 2004 a Twin City ...

, but he did not enjoy his work, and eventually resigned, probably spending the rest of his life writing stories and poems in his hometown. During this time he became an accomplished writer, producing both poetry and prose, and became friends with several prominent contemporary writers. Wu remained poor throughout his life, however, and did not have any children; dissatisfied with the political climate of the time and with the corruption of the world, he spent much of his life as a hermit

Hermit

A hermit is a person who lives, to some degree, in seclusion from society.In Christianity, the term was originally applied to a Christian who lives the eremitic life out of a religious conviction, namely the Desert Theology of the Old Testament .In the...

.

Journey to the West

Wu is best known for writing the classic Journey to the West

Journey to the West

Journey to the West is one of the Four Great Classical Novels of Chinese literature. It was written by Wu Cheng'en in the 16th century. In English-speaking countries, the tale is also often known simply as Monkey. This was one title used for a popular, abridged translation by Arthur Waley...

, one of the Four Great Classical Novels

Four Great Classical Novels

The Four Great Classical Novels, or the Four Major Classical Novels of Chinese literature, are the four novels commonly regarded by scholars to be the greatest and most influential of pre-modern Chinese fiction. Dating from the Ming and Qing dynasties, they are well known to most Chinese readers...

 of Chinese literature. Wu is widely thought to be the author who published the work in anonymity due to the social pressures at the time. At the time when Wu lived, there was a trend in Chinese literary circles to imitate the classical literature of the Qin

Qin Dynasty

The Qin Dynasty was the first imperial dynasty of China, lasting from 221 to 207 BC. The Qin state derived its name from its heartland of Qin, in modern-day Shaanxi. The strength of the Qin state was greatly increased by the legalist reforms of Shang Yang in the 4th century BC, during the Warring...

, Han

Han Dynasty

The Han Dynasty was the second imperial dynasty of China, preceded by the Qin Dynasty and succeeded by the Three Kingdoms . It was founded by the rebel leader Liu Bang, known posthumously as Emperor Gaozu of Han. It was briefly interrupted by the Xin Dynasty of the former regent Wang Mang...

, and Tang

Tang Dynasty

The Tang Dynasty was an imperial dynasty of China preceded by the Sui Dynasty and followed by the Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms Period. It was founded by the Li family, who seized power during the decline and collapse of the Sui Empire...

 dynasties, written in Classical Chinese

Classical Chinese

Classical Chinese or Literary Chinese is a traditional style of written Chinese based on the grammar and vocabulary of ancient Chinese, making it different from any modern spoken form of Chinese...

; late in life, however, Wu went against this trend by apparently writing the novel, Journey to the West

Journey to the West

Journey to the West is one of the Four Great Classical Novels of Chinese literature. It was written by Wu Cheng'en in the 16th century. In English-speaking countries, the tale is also often known simply as Monkey. This was one title used for a popular, abridged translation by Arthur Waley...

in the vernacular tongue. Because of the ill repute of "vulgar" literature at the time, it is believed Wu published the novel anonymously. For over three centuries most of China remained unaware of its authorship, although the people of his hometown attributed the novel to him early on.

Still, the novel's authorship is not certain, as the novel was published anonymously, and Wu did not reference the work in any other of his writings. However, several scholars' textual analysis and research of Qing Dynasty

Qing Dynasty

The Qing Dynasty was the last dynasty of China, ruling from 1644 to 1912 with a brief, abortive restoration in 1917. It was preceded by the Ming Dynasty and followed by the Republic of China....

 records suggests that he may have been the author, and a 1625 gazetteer

Gazetteer

A gazetteer is a geographical dictionary or directory, an important reference for information about places and place names , used in conjunction with a map or a full atlas. It typically contains information concerning the geographical makeup of a country, region, or continent as well as the social...

 from Wu's hometown claims him as the author. Still, there remains doubts to the author of the novel. Translator W.F.J. Jenner, for example, points out that although Wu had knowledge of Chinese bureaucracy and politics, the novel itself doesn't include any political details that "a fairly well-read commoner could not have known." Furthermore, it is unknown how much of the novel Wu or whoever the true author was actually created, and how much he simply compiled and edited, since much of the legend behind Journey to the West already existed in folk tales. Nevertheless, the Journey to the West is the most authoritative version of these stories, as no competing story has appeared since they were compiled in this novel, and Wu has become inextricably linked with the book and is seen as the generally accepted author, even if some doubts remain.

Other works

In addition to Journey to the West, Wu wrote numerous poems and stories (including the novel Yuding Animals, which includes a preface by Wu), although most have been lost. Some of his work survives because, after his death, a family member gathered as many manuscripts as he could find and compiled them into four volumes, entitled Remaining Manuscripts of Mr. Sheyang. Some of his poetry was included in contemporary anthologies such as A Digest of Ming Poetry and A Record of Ming Poetry.

Both his poetry and his prose have been described as "stubborn" and critical of society's corruption, and in one of his few surviving poems Wu describes himself as having a "defiant spirit. Wu's poetry focused on the expression of emotions, and for this reason his work has been compared to that of Li Bai

Li Bai

Li Bai , also known in the West by various other transliterations, especially Li Po, was a major Chinese poet of the Tang dynasty poetry period. He has been regarded as one of the greatest poets in China's Tang period, which is often called China's "golden age" of poetry. Around a thousand existing...

, although even the poems that he published with his name attached still were not quite modeled on the classical styles (although they were not as "vulgar" as Journey to the West). In addition to using his writing to critique society, Wu also took pride in the worldly nature of his work, as opposed to the more fantastic writings of some contemporaries; in the preface to Yuding Animals he wrote, "My book does not just deal with the supernatural; it deals with the foibles of men too."