Promotion, Patronage, and Poetic Socialization: The Tongqiu Society and its Role in Wang Duanshu's Shaoxing Years

Wang Duanshu (1621–after 1701) was one of the best-known women writers of her day.¹ Her fame then and now reflects her skill as a poet and her extensive editorial endeavors. She left Beijing for her hometown of Shaoxing when the Ming fell and moved from there to Hangzhou in the mid-1660s. During her twenty or so years in Shaoxing, she finished two massive undertakings: Yinhong ji (Red Chantings), a collection of her own writings, and Mingyuan shiwei (Classics of Poetry by Famous Women), an anthology of shi poetry by women poets of the Ming. Yinhong ji was completed by 1655 and published around that time or within the next few years, with the financial support of the Tongqiu she (Shared Autumn Society), a group of poets to which her husband Ding Shengzhao belonged. Mingyuan shiwei was begun in the winter of 1639 and completed in the fall of 1664. It was published in 1667 under the imprint of Qingyin tang (Hall of Clear Sound), apparently her own studio name, after another round of fundraising by Ding.²

The prominent role played by Wang Duanshu's husband in bringing these projects to completion is well known to scholarship. Not only did Ding Shengzhao acknowledge his wife's transcendent talent, he also acted as her agent, in both cases raising funds, and, with Mingyuan shiwei, collecting poems as well. What this study seeks to bring out are three other, less well-known aspects of Wang's literary life in Shaoxing. The first is the promotion of her work by male anthologists, among them Zhu Lang. A member of the Tongqiu Society, Zhu was also the editor of Tongqiu ji (Shared Autumn Collection), a collection of women's poetry, for which Wang wrote the preface. This multi-author anthology came out before either of Wang's two major collections. Through investigating the remnants of this work as preserved in Wang's two collections, we find signs that Zhu and other Tongqiu members promoted Wang, but also that Wang, in turn, sought to boost the image of Shaoxing women poets and worked to promote the poetry of the wives, concubines, sisters, and daughters of Tongqiu Society members, among other women.

The second aspect is patronage, most notably that of Wang by Hu Zixia, a woman of the Shaoxing community. Among female recipients of Wang's extant poems, she was the one who received the greatest number. Hu was the second wife of Wu Guofu, a leading Tongqiu Society member, and a friend of Wang's father, Wang Siren (1575–1646). Wu himself supported Wang in no uncertain terms, as we will see from his preface, one of five, to Yinhong ji. But, as we will also see, Wang and Hu had a friendship of their own, which was not subsumed under Wu's relationship with Wang. The two women's relationship provided further support for Wang's interest in promoting women's poetry.

The third aspect is poetic socialization, as revealed by six poetical gatherings that come up for comment in Wang Duanshu's two publications. From them we learn that she participated in poetry meetings of women, just as she participated in poetry meetings of men, in the latter case mostly as a ghostwriter for her husband. It is likely that both men's and women's meetings had some connection to the Tongqiu Society.

The three aspects we will delineate—promotion, patronage, and poetic socialization—were not more important than Ding Shengzhao's help in bringing Wang Duanshu's work into print, but they add context to what is known of her situation and must be counted as part of the climate that allowed her to flourish in Shaoxing. Scholars have rightly commented on the unusual gender dynamics of Wang's marriage, even suggesting a certain inversion of gender roles.³ What is instructive about all three of the aspects to be introduced is that they are rather cross-gender in nature: fathers, brothers, and brothers-in-law who wanted to see their...