Emerging from the role of sexual objects within poetry, late imperial women were agents of literary change in their expansion and complication of the boudoir theme. While some take ownership and de-eroticizing its imagery for their own purposes, adding voices of children and older women, and filling the inner chambers with purposeful activity such as conversation, teaching, religious ritual, music, sewing, childcare, and chess-playing, some simply want to escape from their confinement and protest gender restrictions imposed on women. "Women's Poetry of Late Imperial China" traces this evolution across centuries, providing and analyzing examples of poetic themes, motifs, and imagery associated with the inner chambers, and demonstrating the complication and nuancing of the gui theme by increasingly aware and sophisticated women writers.
"Li Xiaorong's study is ambitious, comprehensive, and wide-ranging, presenting a multi-dimensional but ultimately coherent view of the seemingly simple notion of 'gui.'" -Beata Grant, author of "Eminent Nuns: Women Chan Masters of Seventeenth-Century China"
"A highly ambitious and thoughtful approach to a complex and intriguing subject. Li discusses convincingly how Ming-Qing women's literary discourse both relates, and challenges, the existing power (mainly male) structures in Chinese literature. A very important book." -Kang-I Sun Chang, co-editor of "Women Writers of Traditional China" and "The Cambridge History of Chinese Literature"
Xiaorong Li is associate professor of Chinese literature at the University of California, Santa Barbara
Or split into 4x interest-free payments of 25% on orders over R50
Learn more
Emerging from the role of sexual objects within poetry, late imperial women were agents of literary change in their expansion and complication of the boudoir theme. While some take ownership and de-eroticizing its imagery for their own purposes, adding voices of children and older women, and filling the inner chambers with purposeful activity such as conversation, teaching, religious ritual, music, sewing, childcare, and chess-playing, some simply want to escape from their confinement and protest gender restrictions imposed on women. "Women's Poetry of Late Imperial China" traces this evolution across centuries, providing and analyzing examples of poetic themes, motifs, and imagery associated with the inner chambers, and demonstrating the complication and nuancing of the gui theme by increasingly aware and sophisticated women writers.
"Li Xiaorong's study is ambitious, comprehensive, and wide-ranging, presenting a multi-dimensional but ultimately coherent view of the seemingly simple notion of 'gui.'" -Beata Grant, author of "Eminent Nuns: Women Chan Masters of Seventeenth-Century China"
"A highly ambitious and thoughtful approach to a complex and intriguing subject. Li discusses convincingly how Ming-Qing women's literary discourse both relates, and challenges, the existing power (mainly male) structures in Chinese literature. A very important book." -Kang-I Sun Chang, co-editor of "Women Writers of Traditional China" and "The Cambridge History of Chinese Literature"
Xiaorong Li is associate professor of Chinese literature at the University of California, Santa Barbara
Imprint | University of Washington Press |
Country of origin | United States |
Release date | May 2013 |
Availability | Expected to ship within 12 - 17 working days |
First published | September 2012 |
Authors | Xiao-Rong Li |
Dimensions | 229 x 152 x 17mm (L x W x T) |
Format | Paperback - Trade / Trade |
Pages | 264 |
Edition | New |
ISBN-13 | 978-0-295-99229-7 |
Barcode | 9780295992297 |
Categories | |
LSN | 0-295-99229-8 |