Xiaoqing's Literary Legacy and the Place of the Woman Writer in Late Imperial China

XIAOQING'S LITERARY LEGACY AND THE PLACE OF THE WOMAN WRITER IN LATE IMPERIAL CHINA* Ellen Widmer To iconoclastic, "enlightenment" thinkers of the early twentieth century, it was natural to view the old family system as inveterately opposed to female self-expression and to hail the women writers of the May Fourth era as unprecedented pioneers. While there is considerable justice in both of these formulations, recent research on traditional Chinese women has begun to moderate them. For, beginning as early as the Song Dynasty, it was not uncommon to find women from gentry families who could read and write. No later than the late sixteenth century it became feasible, even fashionable, for wealthy families in South China to hire tutors to educate their daughters. The teachers in these cases might come from within the family, but they could also be men or women from outside. By around 1600 or just a little later, a few individual women had acquired reputations as outstanding poets. These women often confined their display of talent to the home poetry circle or to correspondence with women poets from other families; but their works might also be published in limited editions read by a wider readership, which included men as well as women. And by the middle of the seventeenth century, it was no longer unusual to find women defining themselves as writers, at least for part of their lives. In addition, most of these same women were skilled painters and calligraphers. Like their writings, their art work was also sometimes available for purchase and was another way through which reputation was acquired. These trends are difficult to chronicle with precision, but they signal an important transformation, from women whose writing or painting was an essentially private endeavor to women who were known as writers or painters in a broader arena, if not quite among a "reading public," at least *I am grateful to the many friends and colleagues who have read and offered comments on this manuscript, among them Kang-i Sun Chang, Kou Dezhang, Charlotte Fürth, Patrick Hanan, Valerie Hansen, William Johnston, Lydia Liu, Shang Wei, and Judith Zeitlin. I also appreciate the help of Dr. Wen-kai Kung of the East Asia Collection at Yale University Library, who has gone out of his way to acquire microfilms of rare materials from China. Late Imperial China Vol. 13, No. 1 (June 1992): 111-155© by the Society for Qing Studies 111 112Ellen Widmer well beyond their immediate homes.1 This transformation, in turn, should be seen against the background of a general popularization of publishing, which took place at around the same time.2 The emergence of the category "woman writer," which was well in place by the late sixteenth century, had ramifications on publishing until the end of the imperial era. By the mid- to late sixteenth century it was not unusual to find texts on a variety of subjects designed for women, but these were always written and edited by male authors. By the turn of the seventeenth century, a few collections of poems and other writings by groups of women had been printed, though the editors and commentators were always men. By the middle of the seventeenth century, women had begun to edit and publish works by their fellow women writers, and a few of them had achieved prominence as critics. And, before the imperial order ended, a few women critics would publish commentary on the writings of men.3 Whether these works were published by family presses or by book shops, they inevitably circulated with the family blessing. In this they challenge old views about the extent to which women were cloistered by traditional families and the thoroughness with which the cliche "lack of talent is a virtue in a woman" was used to silence talented women during the Ming and Qing.4 Who was Xiaoqing? The private, literary name alone appears designed to hide the identity of its owner, said to have been the beautiful young concubine of a Hangzhou gentleman, Mr. Feng. This Yangzhou woman died young sometime early in the seventeenth century, partly from persecution by a jealous first wife, partly from an excess of...