The Sword or the Needle: The Female Knight-Errant (xia) in Traditional Chinese Narrative (review)

The Sword or the Needle is a welcome addition to the growing body of scholarship that examines the enduring appeal to the Chinese literary imagination of notable female character-types. In its focus on a bold and assertive female image that figures prominently in the Chinese narrative tradition, the book is somewhat reminiscent of Yenna Wu's The Chinese Virago, which shows how tales about shrewish wives typically entail an inversion of the conventional marital hierarchy.¹ Roland Altenburger argues that, in the case of the female knight-errant, another reversal of gender norms takes place, in which the swords-woman "refuses to be contained in the inner sphere (nei) and insists on fulfilling an active outer role" (p. 33). The role of the female knighterrant (nüxia 女俠), he suggests, is doubly ambiguous: she promotes social order, but given the dubious legality of the xia and the questionable propriety of a woman's involvement in a typically masculine sphere, simultaneously presents a potential "disruption and threat to this very order" (p. 53). Like the shrew, she is often made to mend her ways and often reverts to a conventional female role, exchanging her sword for a sewing needle.

Whereas the theme of the jealous wife emerged early in the Chinese tradition and would largely run out of steam by the end of the eighteenth century, that of the female knight-errant made a relatively late start but has maintained its appeal into modern times. Altenburger follows this evolution almost every step of the way, in a wide range of literary forms, from the Tang classical tale, through the drama and vernacular short stories and novels of the Ming and Qing, to popular fiction of the Republican era. He presents this rich material in methodical fashion, positioning key examples in their individual literary contexts and making useful connections and distinctions between them, so that the reader gains a clear sense both of the continuity within this tradition and of its changes over time.

After an introductory chapter, Altenburger begins his historical survey of the nüxia theme with a detailed study of the Tang heroine Nie Yinniang 聶隱娘, whom he aptly characterizes as "the archetype of the female xia figure," whose image "had a significant potential for radically subverting the conventional system of gender roles" (pp. 74-75). Altenburger defines her story as that of an assassin responsible for social policing, in contrast to a second cluster of Tang tales that concerns itself with avengers bent on settling personal grudges, and a third nexus associated with banditry. In all of these Tang incarnations of the female knight-errant, Altenburger detects an element of subversion, a latent current that was "kept alive and constantly refreshed through intertextuality" (p. 102) but ultimately resisted in later adaptations. The provocative stance of the Nie Yinniang story, for example, distinguishes it from a play on the same theme by You Tong 尤侗 (1618-1704), which Altenburger describes as "a conscious, systematic, and therefore clearly tendentious attempt at revising the original story's subversive treatment of the theme of gender reversal" (pp. 75-76), which leads to a reinstatement of the patriarchal authorities of the father, husband, and lord (p. 80).

Subsequent chapters trace the progression of nüxia stories in later eras, paying close attention to their textual histories and varying shades of meaning. In Altenburger's presentation of the nüxia theme, the period from Song to Ming emerges as somewhat less significant than Tang or Qing in the substance and volume of its creative output, although it is certainly not lacking in interest. In Chapter 3, Altenburger argues that emotion features more prominently in Song-dynasty tales of swordswomen, such as those found in Sun Guangxian's 孫光憲 (900-968) collection Beimeng suoyan 北夢瑣言 and Hong Mai's 洪 邁 (1123-1202) Yijian zhi 夷堅志. Chapter 4 focuses on the late Ming, when anthologies of xia tales circulated widely, consolidating...