Domesticating romantic love during the high qing classical revival: The poetic exchanges between Wang Zhaoyuan (1763-1851) and her husband Hao Yixing (1757-1829)

NAN NU

Volumn 15, Issue 2, 2013, Pages 219-264

  Xu, Sufeng ^a  

^a BUCKNELL UNIVERSITY   (United States)

Author keywords

Classical revival; Companionate marriage; Cult of qing; Evidential scholarship; Gender; Poetry

Indexed keywords

EID: 84890453081     PISSN: 13876805     EISSN: 15685268     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1163/15685268-0152P0002     Document Type: Review

References (205)

1. Jindai Zhongguo funüshi yanjiu 8 (2000): 41-87;
2. Liu Yongcong [Clara Wing-chung Ho], "Lianshi chutan", in her book De, cai, se, quan: Lun Zhongguo gudai nüxing (Taibei: Maitian chuban gufen youxian gongsi, 1998), 365-97;
3. Haiyan Lee, Revolution of the Heart: A Genealogy of Love in China: 1900-1950 (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2007);
4. and Janet Theiss, "Love in a Confucian Climate: The Perils of Intimacy in Eighteenth Century China," Nan Nü: Men, Women, and Gender in China 11.2 (2009): 197-233.
5. Hao Yixing and Wang Zhaoyuan, Shaishu tang shichao, juan xia, in Hao Yixing, Haoshi yishu, ed. by Hao Lianwei (b. 1825), 50 vols. (Tongzhou [Beijing]: Hao shi Donglu tingshu, 1879-1884), vol. 49. Most citations of Hao and Wang's writings are from this edition; hereafter, Haoshi yishu edition.
6. See Cao Zhi, Cao Zijian ji, 6.5a-b. The poem may be found in the electronic version of the Wenyuange edition of the Siku quanshu [Wenyuange Siku quanshu dianzi ban (Hong Kong: Hong Kong Dizhi wenhua chuban youxian gongsi, 1999);
7. Translation by Irving Yucheng Lo, in Kang-i Sun Chang and Haun Saussy, eds., Women Writers of Traditional China: An Anthology of Poetry and Criticism (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1999), 483.
8. This song lyric by Zhuo Renyue was quoted from Xu Zhuo wu ge a joint song lyric collection that contains the exchange of ci poetry by the late Ming poets and playwrights Xu Shijun (1602-81) and Zhuo Renyue. For the song lyric, see Zhao Zunyue, comp., Mingci huikan, 2 vols. (Shanghai: Shanghai guji chubanshe, 1992), 1754.
9. On Zhuo's literary life as a playwright, see Deng Changfeng, Ming Qing xiqujia kaolüe (Shanghai: Shanghai guji chubanshe, 1994), 227-51.
10. Susan Mann dates the High Qing from 1638-1839. See Susan Mann, Precious Records: Women in China's Long Eighteenth Century (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1997), 20.
11. see Kai-wing Chow, The Rise of Confucian Ritualism in Late Imperial China: Ethics, Classics, and Lineage Discourse (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1994)
12. Benjamin A. Elman, From Philosophy to Philology: Intellectual and Social Aspects of Change in Late Imperial China (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Council on East Asian Studies, 1984).
13. see So'an Chang, Shiba shiji lixue kaozheng de sixiang huoli-Lijiao lunzheng yu lizhi chong xing (Beijing: Beijing daxue chubanshe, 2005).
14. Liang Yizhen, Qingdai funü wenxueshi (Taibei: Taiwan Zhonghua shuju, 1979), 146.
15. See Mann, "The Education of Daughters in the Mid-Ch'ing Period," in Benjamin A. Elman and Alexander Woodside, eds., Education and Society in Late Imperial China, 1600-1900 (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1994), 19-49; especially 24 and 43 (note 27).
16. See Charlotte Furth, "The Patriarch's Legacy: Household Instructions and the Transmission of Orthodox Values," in Kwang-ching Liu, ed., Orthodoxy in Late Imperial China (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1990), 187-221; quotation on 203;
17. Dorothy Ko, Teachers of the Inner Chambers: Women and Culture in Seventeenth-Century China (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1995), 67.
18. see David R. Knechtges, Wen xuan, or Selections of Refined Literature (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1996), vol. 3, 349-54.
19. For an English translation of the story, see Richard B. Mather, trans., A New Account of Tales of the World (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2002), 522-23.
20. see the special theme issue of Nan Nü: Men, Women and Gender in China 15.1 (2013), "Remembering Female Relatives: Mourning and Gender in Late Imperial China."
21. See Sufeng Xu, "Lotus Flowers Rising from the Dark Mud: Late Ming Courtesans and Their Poetry" (Ph.D. diss., McGill University, 2007).
22. For a discussion of companionate marriage in the late Ming Jiangnan, see Ko, Teachers of the Inner Chambers, Chapter 5.
23. See Mann, Precious Records, 53, 122-25, 136, 142.
24. See Mann, Precious Records; and her articles: "'Fu xue' (Women's Learning) by Zhang Xuecheng (1738-1801): China's First History of Women's Culture," Late Imperial China 13.1(1992): 40-56;
25. "Classical Revival and Gender Question: China's First Querelle des Femmes," in Jinshi jiazu yu zhengzhi bijiao lishi lunwen ji Part 1 (Taipei: Institute of Modern History, Academia Sinica, 1992), 377-411.
26. See also Kang-i Sun Chang, "Ming and Qing Anthologies of Women's Poetry and Their Selection Strategies," in Ellen Widmer and Kang-i Sun Chang, eds., Writing Women in Late Imperial China (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1997), 147-70;
27. and her "Ming-Qing Women Poets and the Notions of Talent and Morality," in Theodore R. Huters, R. Bin Wong, and Pauline Yu, eds., Culture and State in Chinese History: Convention, Accommodations, and Critiques (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1997), 236-58, 412-19.
28. Also see Xiaorong Li, "Gender and Textual Politics during the Qing Dynasty: The Case of the Zhengshi ji," Harvard Journal of Asiatic Studies 69.1 (2009): 75-107.
29. See Yun Zhu, "Zhengshi ji liyan", in Hu Wenkai (1901-88), Lidai funü zhuzuo kao (Shanghai: Shanghai guji chubanshe, 1985), 633.
30. Mann, Precious Records, 53, 122-25, 136, and 142.
31. Sun Chang, "Ming-Qing Women Poets," 255-56.
32. See also Dorothy Ko, "The Written Word and the Bound Foot: A History of the Courtesan's Aura," in Widmer and Chang, eds., Writing Women in Late Imperial China, 74-100, especially 87-88.
33. Li, "Gender and Textual Politics."
34. Mann, Precious Records, 98.
35. Mann, Precious Records, 22.
36. See Mann, Precious Records, 22, 28.
37. See Mann, Precious Records, 22. Li Yu, the famous playwright known for his libertine lifestyle, lived in the Ming-Qing transition, a period that I regard as an extension of the late Ming in terms of the better known literati traits and social tendencies.
38. See Paul Ropp, "Review of Precious Records: Women in China's Long Eighteenth Century by Susan Mann," Harvard Journal of Asiatic Studies 58.2 (1998): 587-97; quotation on 591.
39. Ropp, "Review," 596-97.
40. See Hao Yixing, "Heming ji xu" (Haoshi yishu edition), 1b.
41. See Harriet Zurndorfer, "Wang Zhaoyuan," in Clara Wing-chung Ho (Liu Yongcong), ed., Biographical Dictionary of Chinese Women: The Qing Period, 1644-1911 (Hong Kong: Xianggang daxue chubanshe, 1998), 227-30;
42. "The 'Constant World' of Wang Chao-Yüan: Women, Education, and Orthodoxy in 18th Century China," in Jinshi jiazu yu zhengzhi bijiao lishi lunwen ji, 581-619;
43. "Wang Zhaoyuan (1763-1851) and the Erasure of 'Talented Women' by Liang Qichao," in Nanxiu Qian, Grace S. Fong, and Richard J. Smith, eds., Different Worlds of Discourse: Transformations of Gender and Genre in Late Qing and Early Republican China (Leiden: Brill, 2008), 29-56;
44. and her recent study, "The Lienü zhuan Tradition and Wang Zhaoyuan's (1763-1851) Production of the Lienü zhuan buzhu (1812)," in Joan Judge and Ying Hu, eds., Beyond Exemplar Tales: Women's Biography in Chinese History (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2011), 14-37.
45. See Wilt Idema and Beata Grant, The Red Brush: Writing Women of Imperial China (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Asia Center, 2004), 567.
46. See Zurndorfer, "Wang Zhaoyuan (1763-1851) and the Erasure of 'Talented Women'," 41;
47. Zurndorfer, "The Lienü zhuan Tradition," 26.
48. "Anren" is the title given to wives of former officials of the sixth grade. See Charles O. Hucker, A Dictionary of Official Titles in Imperial China (1985; Taiwan edition; Taibei: Nantian shuju youxian gongsi, 1988), 104.
49. Tian Hanyun, Qingdai Shandong mingru (Jinan: Shandong wenyi chubanshe, 2004).
50. See Hucker, A Dictionary of Official Titles in Imperial China, 218.
51. For an introduction about Gao Qizhuo and Cai Wan, see the entry of her father Cai Yurong (1633-1699), in Arthur W. Hummel, ed., Eminent Chinese of the Ch'ing Period (1644-1912), 2 vols. (Washington, D.C.: United States Government Printing Office, 1943), 735.
52. For Cai Wan, see also Yun Zhu, comp., Guochao guixiu zhengshi ji (1831), 5.1a. Copy in the Harvard Yenching Library.
53. As the wife of Ruan Yuan, a very prominent scholar-official in the High Qing, Kong Luhua was also given the title of "First-Ranked Lady" by the Qing court. For an English biography of Ruan Yuan, see Hummel, ed., Eminent Chinese of the Ch'ing Period, 399-402;
54. see Betty Peh-T'i Wei, Ruan Yuan, 1764-1849: The Life and Work of a Major Scholar-Official in Nineteenth Century China before the Opium War (Hong Kong: Hong Kong University Press, 2006).
55. For the entry of Kong Luhua, is also mentioned in Yun Zhu, comp., Guochao guixiu zhengshi ji, 7.1b.
56. See Hucker, A Dictionary of Official Titles in Imperial China, 273.
57. For an English biography of Cui Shu, see Hummel, ed., Eminent Chinese of the Ch'ing Period, 770-77; on Cheng Jinglan, 771.
58. see Hummel, ed., Eminent Chinese of the Ch'ing Period, 457-58; on Guo Runyu, 458.
59. For the entry of Guo, see also Yun Zhu, comp., Guochao guixiu zhengshi ji, 20.20a.
60. See Chen Juyuan, Jiao Xun Ruan Yuan pingzhuan (Nanjing: Nanjing daxue chubanshe), 467.
61. See her "Zhengshi ji liyan," in Hu Wenkai, Lidai funü, 633.
62. See Xu Weiyu, Hao Langao (Yixing) fufu nianpu, 15, 17.
63. Quotation from Mou Ting, "Jiemu Lin ruren jiazhuan," in Xu Weiyu, Hao Langao (Yixing) fufu nianpu, 9.
64. See Chang Chung-li, The Income of the Chinese Gentry (Seattle: University of Washington Press, 1962), chap.1, especially 7-15; also Table 26, on 197.
65. See also Robert M. Marsh, review of The Income of the Chinese Gentry by Chang Chung-li, Journal of Asian Studies 24.3 (1965), 500-01.
66. See Madeleine Zelin, The Magistrate's Tael: Rationalizing Fiscal Reform in Eighteenth-century Ch'ing China (Berkley: University of California, 1984).
67. For the poem, see Hao Yixing, Shaishu tang shichao, juan xia, reprinted in Xuxiu Siku quanshu, jibu (Shanghai: Shanghai guji chubanshe, 1995), vol. 1481, 660.
68. See Xu Weiyu, Hao Langao (Yixing) fufu nianpu, 28, 31.
69. The printing of Hao Yixing's Shanhai jing jian shu was financed by Ruan Yuan. See Xu Weiyu, Hao Langao (Yixing) fufu nianpu, 22.
70. For Liu Wenru, see Hu Wenkai, Lidai funü, 712.
71. See also her entry, in Lily Xiao Hong Lee, Yubing Chen, and Clara Wing-chung Ho, eds., Zhongguo funü zhuanji cidian, "Qingdai juan", 1644-1911 (Sydney: Xini daxue chubanshe, 2010), 109-10.
72. See Hao Yixing, "Dai Wanquan xie Sishi yinian lu qi", in Hao Yixing, Shaishu tang waiji, shang juan, shang juan, 29b-30a (Haoshi yishu edition).
73. See also Xu Weiyu, Hao Langao (Yixing) fufu nianpu, 30.
74. See Keith McMahon, Misers, Shrews, and Polygamists: Sexuality and Male-Female Relationship in Eighteenth-Century Chinese Fiction (Durham: Duke University Press, 1995).
75. Zurndorfer, "Wang Zhaoyuan," Biographical Dictionary of Chinese Women, 227.
76. For Chen Wenshu's English biography, see Hummel, ed., Eminent Chinese of the Ch'ing Period, 103-04.
77. For a brief introduction of Chen Peizhi, see the entry of his wife Wang Duan, in Hummel, ed., Eminent Chinese of the Ch'ing Period, 839-40; a description of his memoir is on page 840.
78. For more recent studies of Wang Duan, see Idema and Grant, The Red Brush, 620-29;
79. and Ellen Widmer, The Beauty and the Book: Women and Fiction in Nineteenth-Century China (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Asian Center, 2006), 105-36.
80. Quotation from Mou Ting, "Jiemu Lin ruren jiazhuan," in Xu Weiyu, Hao Langao (Yixing) fufu nianpu, 9.
81. Xu Weiyu, Hao Langao (Yixing) fufu nianpu, 8.
82. Ko, Teachers of the Inner Chambers, 181.
83. Hao Yixing, Heming ji, 4a-b.
84. Xu Weiyu, Hao Langao (Yixing) fufu nianpu, 31.
85. See Wang Zhaoyuan, "Ti Ruan taishimu shishi cangshu xiaozhao", in Yun Zhu, comp., Guochao guixiu zhengshi ji, 17.3a-b.
86. See Ruan Yuan, "Hao Hubu Shanhai jing jian shu xu", in Ruan Yuan, Yanjing shi ji (1993; reprint, Beijing: Zhonghua shuju, 2006), 694-95.
87. see Wang Zhaoyuan, Shaishu tang guizhong wencun (Haoshi yishu edition), 8a-b.
88. See Xu Weiyu, Hao Langao (Yixing) fufu nianpu, 23.
89. Zang Yong, "Lienü zhuan puzhu xu" (Haoshi yishu edition), 1a.
90. See "Ruan Yuan nianbiao" in Chen Juyuan, Jiao Xun Ruan Yuan pingzhuan, 579.
91. Zang Yong, "Lienü zhuan puzhu xu,"1b.
92. For Mou Ting, see Jiang Fan, Guochao Hanxue shicheng ji, ed. Zhong Zhe (Beijing: Zhonghua shuju. 1983), 106.
93. For English biographies of Zang Yong, Wang Niansun, and Wang Yinzhi, see Hummel, ed., Eminent Chinese of the Ch'ing Period, 736-37; 829-30; 841-42, respectively.
94. see Hu Wenkai, Lidai funü, 544.
95. For Xu Yanjin, see Hu Wenkai, Lidai funü, 560.
96. See Xu Weiyu, Hao Langao (Yixing) fufu nianpu, 32-33.
97. Hu Wenkai, Lidai funü, 242-45.
98. Zurndorfer, "Wang Zhaoyuan (1763-1851) and the Erasure of 'Talented Women', " 37.
99. See Zhao Erxun (1844-1927), Qingshi gao (Beijing: Zhonghua shuju, 1977), 43: 13245.
100. See Zurndorfer, "Wang Zhaoyuan (1763-1851) and the Erasure of 'Talented Women,' " 38.
101. For a study of the cult of qing in Ming-Qing literature, see Martin W. Huang, "Sentiments of Desire: Thoughts on the Cult of Qing in Ming-Qing Literature," Chinese Literature: Essays, Articles, Reviews 20 (1998): 153-84.
102. Hao Yixing, "Heming ji xu," 1a.
103. For a complete English translation of this poem, see Arthur Waley, Book of Songs, ed. Joseph R. Allen (New York: Grove Press, 1996), 23-24.
104. For an English translation of this poem, see Waley, Book of Songs, 27.
105. Waley, Book of Songs 30-31.
106. For a complete English translation and detailed discussion of the "Wenfu," see Stephen Owen, Readings in Chinese Literary Thoughts (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1992), 73-181; quotations on 157.
107. Hao Yixing, "Heming ji xu," 1a. This is an allusion taken from the Book of Changes, the original lines read, "When two people agree in their hearts, the profit will cut through metal;
108. See Patricia Ebrey, The Inner Quarters: Marriage and the Lives of Chinese Women in the Sung Period (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1993), 86.
109. see Sufeng Xu, "The Rhetoric of Legitimation: Prefaces to Women's Poetry Collections from the Song to the Ming," Nan Nü: Men, Women, and Gender in China 8.2 (2006): 255-89.
110. See Martin W. Huang, "Sentiments of Desire," 171.
111. Ko, Teachers of the Inner Chambers, 81.
112. Translation by Cyril Birch, in "Introduction." The Peony Pavilion (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1980), ix.
113. Wai-yee Li, Enchantment and Disenchantment: Love and Illusion in Chinese Literature (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1993), 51.
114. Zhu Xi, Zhu Zi yulei (SKQS-dianziban), 12: 13a.
115. Zhu Xi, Zhu Zi yulei (SKQS-dianziban), 13: 4a.
116. See William Theodore de Bary, "Individualism and Humanitarianism in Late Ming Thought," in William Theodore de Bary, ed., Self and Society in Ming Thought (New York: Columbia University Press, 1970), 145-245, and see 200. I added Chinese characters.
117. See de Bary, "Individualism," 200.
118. See de Bary, "Individualism," 178-83.
119. Mann, Precious Records, 78.
120. and Yimen guangdu yi bai er shi liu juan by Zhou Lüjing, in Qinding Siku quanshu zongmu (SKQS-dianziban), 123.8b-9a; 128.24b; 130.8b; 131.25b-26b; and 134.12a-b, respectively.
121. Hao Yixing, "Heming ji xu," 1a-b.
122. See Kang-i Sun Chang, The Late Ming Poet Ch'en Tzu-lung: Crises of Love and Loyalism (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1991), 12.
123. Ebrey, The Inner Quarters, 82-98.
124. Waley, Book of Songs, 78.
125. Hao Yixing, "Heming ji xu," 1b.
126. Dai Zhen, "Yu mou shu", in Dai Zhen quanshu, ed. Zhang Dainian (Hefei: Huangshan shushe, 1995), vol. 6, 496.
127. Liu Baonan, nephew of Liu Taigong, was also a noted classical scholar. For English biographies of Jiao Xun, Wang Zhong, Ling Tingkan, Liu Taigong, and Liu Baonan, see Hummel, ed., Eminent Chinese of the Ch'ing Period, 144-45; 814-15; 514-15; 530-31; and 528-29, respectively.
128. As quoted in Kai-wing Chow, the Rise of Confucian Ritualism, 198.
129. See Jiao Xun, "Xingshan jie yi"?, in Jiao Xun, Diaogu ji (Taibei: Dingwen shudian, 1977), 127.
130. See Ling Tingkan, "Hao wu shuo xia", in Ling Tingkan, Jiaoli tang wenji, ed. Wang Wenjin (Beijing: Zhonghua shuju, 2006), 142.
131. For a study of Ling Tingkan, see So'an Chang, Yi li dai li: Ling Tingkan yu Qing zhongye Ruxue sixiang zhi zhuanbian (Shijiazhuang: Hebei jiaoyu chubanshe, 2001).
132. See Wang Xisun, "Yu Chaoxian Jin Zhengxi shu (1)" in Wang Xisun, Wang Xisun zhuzuo ji, ed. Yang Jinlong, 3 vols. (reprint; Taibei: Zhongyanyuan wenzhesuo, 2003), 200.
133. See Wang Zhong, "Nüzi xujia er xu si cong si ji shouzhi yi", in Wang Qingxin and Ye Chunfang, eds., Wang Zhong ji (Taibei: Zhongyanyuan wenzhesuo choubeichu, 2000), 39.
134. See Wang Xisun, "Jiawu wuyue Baojin jiangyuan kecheng" in Wang Xisun, Wang Xisun zhuzuo ji, 424.
135. See Jiang Fan, Guochao Hanxue shicheng ji.
136. see Kangi Sun Chang, "Ming-Qing Women Poets and the Notions of Talent and Morality;" Susan Mann, "'Fu xue' (Women's Learning)." See also her English translation of Zhang Xuecheng's essay "Fu xue" in Chang and Saussy, eds., Women Writers of Traditional China, 783-99.
137. See Jiang Fan, Guochao Hanxue shicheng ji, 113.
138. This is quoted from Han Yu's "Song Meng Dongye xu". See Han Changli wenji jiaozhu ed. by Ma Tongbo (Beijing: Zhonghua shuju, 1975), 137.
139. Hao Yixing, "Heming ji xu," 1b.
140. Sima Qian (ca. 145-ca. 85 BCE), "Tian Jingzhong Wan shijia zhuan", in Shiji (Beijing: Zhonghua shuju, 1972), vol. 6, 1879-1904.
141. See Li Yu, Yizhong yuan, in Li Yu quanji, 20 vols. (Hangzhou: Zhejiang guji chubanshe, 1992), vol. 4, 315-418.
142. See Hu Wenkai, Lidai funü for specific entries. An earlier case was Xue Susu (ca. 1564-ca. 1637), who married the wellknown scholar Shen Defu (1578-1642) as a concubine, but this marriage did not last very long.
143. See the entry on "Ti Xue Susu huace", in Zhu Yizun (1629-1709), Pushuting ji (SKQS-dianziban), 54.14a-15a.
144. I use Dorothy Ko's translation of this phrase. See Ko, Teachers of the Inner Chamber, 184.
145. For a discussion of the connection between poetry writing and late Ming countercultural trends, see Xu, "Lotus Flowers," chap. 1.
146. See Mather, trans., A New Account of Tales of the World, 481.
147. Hao Yixing, Heming ji, 1b.
148. Xu Weiyu, Hao Langao (Yixing) fufu nianpu, 8-9.
149. See D.C. Lau, trans, Confucius: The Analects, II.4 (Penguin Books, 1979), 63.
150. Translation by Grace Fong. See Grace Fong, "Engendering the Lyric: Her Image and Voice in Song," in Pauline Yu, Voices of the Song Lyric in China (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1994), 107-144; quotations on 139-40.
151. See Liu Yiqing, Shishuo xinyu, 537-38.
152. For an English translation of the story, see Mather, trans., A New Account of Tales of the World, 480-81; quotations on 481.
153. Xu Weiyu, Hao Langao (Yixing) fufu nianpu, 32.
154. Wang Zhaoyuan, Heming ji, 1b-2a.
155. see Wang Pijiang (1887-1966), comp., Tangren xiaoshuo (Shanghai: Shanghai guji chubanshe, 1978), 223-4.
156. See D.C. Lau, trans, Confucius: The Analects, III.20, 70.
157. See, for example, "Fengyue xuan Youxuanzi Langshi xu", in Chen Qinghao and Wang Qiugui, eds., Si wuxie huibao ( Taibei: Taiwan da Ying baike guwen youxian gongsi, 1994-97), vol. 4, 37.
158. See Haiyan Lee, Revolution of the Heart, 25-92.
159. Hao Yixing, Heming ji, 7a.
160. On Xie Daoyun's life and her poetry, see Lily Xiao Hong Lee, "Xie Daoyun: The Style of a Woman Mingshi," The Virtue of Yin: Studies on Chinese Women (Broadway, Australia: Wild Peony, 1994), 25-46.
161. See also Idema and Grant, The Red Brush, 136-44;
162. Mann, Precious Records, 76-83; 117-20.
163. For the story, see Liu Yiqing, Shishuo xinyu, 474-75.
164. For an English translation of the story, see Mather, trans., A New Account of Tales of the World, 419.
165. For studies of Chinese poetic conventions and women's rewriting of the conventions, see Maureen Robertson, "Voicing the Feminine: Constructions of the Gendered Subject in Lyric Poetry by Women of Medieval and Late Imperial China," Late Imperial China 13.1 (1992): 63-110; Fong, "Engendering the Lyric."
166. Ko, Teachers of the Inner Chambers, 184.
167. Hao Yixing, Heming ji, 7a.
168. See Liu Yiqing, Shishuo xinyu, 80.
169. For an English translation of the story, see Mather, trans., A New Account of Tales of the World, 67.
170. For the story, see Liang Hong's biography in Fan Ye, comp., Hou Hanshu (SKQSdianziban), 113.10a-13b.
171. See Wang Zhaoyuan, Heming ji, 4b-5a.
172. See Wang Zhaoyuan, Heming ji, 5a-b.
173. "Longguang, meaning literally the light of the dragon, refers to the favor of the emperor. It derives from "Liao xiao" in the Shijing (Maoshi #173). For a translation of this poem, see Waley, Book of Songs, 146-47.
174. See Zhu Xi, Yuan ben Zhouyi benyi (SKQSdianziban), 1.19a
175. See her entry in Hu Wenkai, Lidai funü, 245-46;
176. see also Idema and Grant, The Red Brush, 680.
177. Wang Zhaoyuan, Heming ji, 9b.
178. Wang Zhaoyuan, Heming ji, 9b.
179. See Grace Fong, Herself an Author (Honolulu: University of Hawai'i Press, 2008), 30.
180. See Ji Yougong, Tang shi jishi (SKQS-dianziban), 79: 4b-5a.
181. See Huang Tingjian, "Luzhi Lücai zai mo ji", in Wang Keyu, comp., Shanhu wang (original preface dated 1643) (SKQS-dianziban), 5.11b-12a.
182. For Shi Yan, see Hu Wenkai, Lidai funü, 41-42.
183. See Wang Ruqian, "Xihu jiyou", Xihu yunshi, in Shi Diandong, ed., Sishi you shang lu (wai shi zhong) (Shanghai: Shanghai guji chubanshe, 1999), 115.
184. See Hao Yixing, "Xiari du Mao Ji [Dong Bai] yin shu Mao Bijiang [Mao Xiang (1611-93)] 'Yingmei'an yiyu' hou", in Hao Yixing, Shaishu tang shichao, Juan xia, 11a-b (Haoshi yishu edition);
185. See Wang Zhong, Wang Zhong ji, 469.
186. See Chen Wenshu, "Chongxiu Hedongjun [Liu Rushi (1618-64)] muji";
187. Sun Yuanxiang, "Chongxiu Hedongjun muji shuhou", and Zha Kui, "Hedongjun mujie, in Gu Huizhi, comp., Liu Rushi shi wen ji (Beijing: Zhonghua quanguo tushuguan wenxian suowei fuzhi zhongxin, 1996), 244-48.
188. Their poems can be found in the McGill-Harvard-Yenching Ming-Qing Women's Writings Database. http://digital.library.mcgill.ca/mingqing/english/index.htm
189. Translation by Victor Mair, in Mair, ed., The Columbia Anthology of Traditional Chinese Literature (New York: Columbia University Press, 1994), 121-23; quotations on 123.
190. See also Harriet T. Zurndorfer, "Women in the Epistemological Strategy of Chinese Encyclopedias: Preliminary Observations from Some Sung, Ming, and Ch'ing Works," in Harriet T. Zurndorfer, ed., Chinese Women in the Imperial Past: New Perspectives (Leiden: E.J. Brill, 1999), 354-95;
191. see Zurndorfer, "Women in Chinese Encyclopedias," in Clara Wing-chung Ho, Overt and Covert Treasures: Essays on the Sources for Chinese Women's History (Hong Kong: Chinese University Press, 2012), 279-305, and see 295-96.
192. For a discussion of Shen Cai's poetic eroticism, see Fong, Herself an Author, 69-83.
193. For an example of Xi Peilan's poetic expression of her sexual intimacy for her husband Sun Yuanxiang, see her poem entitled "Summer Night, for My Husband," in Idema and Grant, The Red Brush, 608-9.
194. For a discussion of love stories of the mid-Tang from historical and socio-cultural perspectives, see Sufeng Xu, "Cong aiqing chuanqi kan zhong Tang yihou shimin yishi de mengfa", Yangzhou daxue xuebao 87.2 (1992): 30-34, 40.
195. See Mann, "The Education of Daughters," 43.
196. See Ruan Yuan, "Ti Qujian ting tu", in Yanjing shi ji, 885-86. Participants in the club included Ruan Yuan's wife, Kong Luhua, and his three concubines (Liu Wenru, Xie Xue [1782-1836], and Tang Qingyun [1788-1832]);
197. see also Dai Jian, "Qujiang ting yaji gouji", Jiangsu guangbo dianshi daxue xuebao 6 (2007): 34-37, 42.
198. On Qing edicts to ban the pleasure quarters, especially in the Yongzheng reign, see Matthew H. Sommer, Sex, Law, and Society in Late Imperial China (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2000), chap. 7.
199. See also Terada Takanobu, "Guanyu Yongzheng di de chu huo jianmin ling"," in Liu Junwen, ed., Riben xuezhe yanjiu Zhongguoshi lunzhu xuanyi (Beijing: Zhonghua shuju, 1993), vol. 6, 487-507.
200. See also Mann, Precious Records, 126-28. The Qing legal regulations on officials sleeping with prostitutes were actually elaborated from the Ming codes. For a discussion of official prostitution in the Ming, see Xu, "Lotus Flowers," chap. 1; on punishments for officials sleeping with female entertainers, see 21-23.
201. For a more recent discussion of this issue, see Harriet Zurndorfer, "Prostitutes and Courtesans in the Confucian Moral Universe of Late Ming China (1550-1644)," International Review of Social History 56 (2011), Special Issue, 197-216.
202. See for example, Paul Ropp, "The Seeds of Change: Reflections on the Condition of Women in Early and Mid Ch'ing," Signs 2 (1976), 5-23, and especially 11-23;
203. William T. Rowe, Saving the World: Chen Hongmou and Elite Consciousness in Eighteenth-Century China (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2001), 103.
204. See Ruan Yuan, "Nüxu Zhang Xi nü An hezang mujie", in Yanjing shi ji, 533-34; quotation on 534.
205. See Wang Xisun, "Wang shi mu xingji", in "Gu'er pian", juan 1, in Wang Xisun zhuzuo ji, 613. For Wang Zhong's article on widow chastity, see note 102.