Authors: Wilt L. Idema, Beata Grant
ISBN-13: 9780674013933, ISBN-10: 067401393X
Format: Paperback
Publisher: Harvard University Press
Date Published: May 2004
Edition: 1st Edition
Wilt Idema is Professor of Chinese Literature and Director of the Fairbank Center for East Asian Research at Harvard University.
Beata Grant is Chair of the Asian and Near Eastern Language and Literatures Department at Washington University, St. Louis.
One of the most exciting recent developments in the study of Chinese literature has been the rediscovery of an extremely rich and diverse tradition of women's writing of the imperial period (221 B.C.E.-1911 C.E.). Many of these writings are of considerable literary quality. Others provide us with moving insights into the lives and feelings of a surprisingly diverse group of women living in Confucian China, a society that perhaps more than any other is known for its patriarchal tradition.
Because of the burgeoning interest in the study of both premodern and modern women in China, several scholarly books, articles, and even anthologies of women's poetry have been published in the last two decades. This anthology differs from previous works by offering a glimpse of women's writings not only in poetry but in other genres as well, including essays and letters, drama, religious writing, and narrative fiction.
The authors have presented the selections within their respective biographical and historical contexts. This comprehensive approach helps to clarify traditional Chinese ideas on the nature and function of literature as well as on the role of the woman writer.
Chinese dynasties and other useful information | ||
Pt. 1 | Early models for later ages | 11 |
Ch. 1 | Women on and behind the throne | 17 |
Ch. 2 | Neglected palace ladies and other phantoms | 73 |
Ch. 3 | Ladies, nuns, and courtesans | 132 |
Pt. 2 | Between new possibilities and new limitations | 197 |
Ch. 4 | Li Qingzhao | 204 |
Ch. 5 | Talent and fate | 244 |
Ch. 6 | Empresses, nuns, and actresses | 292 |
Pt. 3 | The first high tide of women's literature | 347 |
Ch. 7 | Courtesans | 359 |
Ch. 8 | Matrons and maidens | 383 |
Ch. 9 | Women writes of the conquest period | 425 |
Ch. 10 | The banana garden poetry club | 471 |
Ch. 11 | Ideal | 499 |
Ch. 12 | Reality | 542 |
Pt. 4 | The second high tide of women's literature | 567 |
Ch. 13 | Poetry | 578 |
Ch. 14 | Drama | 677 |
Ch. 15 | Plucking rhymes | 717 |
Epilogue : nationalism and feminism : Qiu Jin | 765 | |
Ch. 16 | The beheaded feminist : Qiu Jin | 767 |