The Inner Quarters and Beyond: Women Writers from Ming Through Qing

445 Pages·2010·5.585 MB·English

by  Grace Fong, Ellen Widmer

The Inner Quarters
and Beyond
Women and Gender
in China Studies
Edited by
Grace S. Fong
McGill University
Editorial Board
Louise Edwards
Robin D.S. Yates
Harriet T. Zurndorfer
VOLUME 4
The Inner Quarters
and Beyond
Women Writers from Ming through Qing
Edited by
Grace S. Fong and Ellen Widmer
LEIDEN • BOSTON
2010
Cover Illustration: Woman at desk with dog and cat, ink and color on silk, China,
eighteenth century, artist unknown.
Photograph courtesy of the Peabody Essex Museum, Salem, Massachusetts (E37274).
Photographer: Mark Sexton
This book is printed on acid-free paper.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
The inner quarters and beyond : women writers from Ming through Qing / edited by
Grace Fong and Ellen Widmer.
p. cm. — (Women and gender in China studies ; v. 4)
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 978-90-04-18521-0 (hardback : alk. paper)
1. Chinese literature—Women authors—History and criticism. 2. Women in
literature. 3. Women and literature—China—History. 4. Women—China—Intellectual
life. 5. Women authors, Chinese—Political and social views. I. Fong, Grace S., 1948–
II. Widmer, Ellen. III. Title. IV. Series.
PL2278.I66 2010
895.1’099287—dc22
2010013798
ISSN 1877-5772
ISBN 978 90 04 18521 0
Copyright 2010 by Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, The Netherlands.
Koninklijke Brill NV incorporates the imprints Brill, Hotei Publishing,
IDC Publishers, Martinus Nijhoff Publishers and VSP.
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, translated,
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Fees are subject to change.
printed in the netherlands
CONTENTS
List of Figures ..................................................................................... ix
Note on Translation of Chinese Titles ........................................... xi
Acknowledgments .............................................................................. xiii

Introduction
Grace S. Fong .................................................................................. 1
PART I
IN THE DOMESTIC REALM
Chapter One
Writing and Illness: A Feminine Condition in Women’s Poetry
of the Ming and Qing ................................................................... 19
Grace S. Fong

Chapter Two
Lamenting the Dead: Women’s Performance of Grief in Late
Imperial China ............................................................................... 49
Anne E. McLaren
PART II
LARGER HORIZONS: EDITING AND ITS IMPLICATIONS
Chapter Three
Retrieving the Past: Women Editors and Women’s Poetry,
1636–1941 ....................................................................................... 81
Ellen Widmer

Chapter Four
The Unseen Hand: Contextualizing Luo Qilan and
Her Anthologies ............................................................................ 107
Robyn Hamilton
vi contents
Chapter Five
From Private Life to Public Performances: The Constituted
Memory and (Re)writings of the Early-Qing Woman
Wu Zongai ...................................................................................... 141
Wei Hua
PART III
BEYOND PRESCRIBED ROLES
Chapter Six
Women Writers and Gender Boundaries during the
Ming-Qing Transition .................................................................. 179
Wai-yee Li

Chapter Seven
Chan Friends: Poetic Exchanges between Gentry Women and
Buddhist Nuns in Seventeenth-Century China ....................... 215
Beata Grant

Chapter Eight
War, Violence, and the Metaphor of Blood in Tanci Narratives
by Women Authors ...................................................................... 249
Siao-chen Hu
PART IV
THE PERSONAL IS POLITICAL: RESPONDING
TO THE OUTSIDE WORLD
Chapter Nine
The Lady and the State: Women’s Writings in Times of
Trouble during the Nineteenth Century ................................... 283
Susan Mann
Chapter Ten
Imagining History and the State: Fujian Guixiu (Genteel Ladies)
at Home and on the Road ........................................................... 315
Guotong Li
contents vii
Chapter Eleven
Xue Shaohui and Her Poetic Chronicle of Late
Qing Reforms ................................................................................. 339
Nanxiu Qian
CONCLUSION
Literary Authorship by Late Imperial Governing-Class Chinese
Women and the Emergence of a “Minor Literature” ............. 375
Maureen Robertson
The Inner Quarters and Beyond: Women Writers from Ming
through Qing and Its Deliberations on a “Minor
Literature” ....................................................................................... 387
Ellen Widmer

About the Contributors .................................................................... 391
Bibliography ........................................................................................ 395
Index .................................................................................................... 415

LIST OF FIGURES AND TABLES
Figures
Figure 1. Ding Yicheng, “[Luo Qilan] Viewing Mt. Ping in
Springtime” ..................................................................................... 125
Figure 2. Luo Qilan in “The Later Three Female Disciples” ...... 128
Tables
Table 1. The seventeen female poets anthologized in Luo
Qilan’s Tingqiuxuan guizhong tongren ji in order of first
appearance and their inclusion in Yuan Mei’s Suiyuan
nüdizi shijixuan ............................................................................. 140
Table 2. Contents of Xu liefu shichao (1875 edition) .................. 173
Table 3. Contents of Taoxi xue (1847, 1874 and 1875
editions) .......................................................................................... 175