Organizer: Xiaorong Li, Swarthmore College
Chair: Ellen Widmer, Wellesley College
Discussants: Steven B. Miles, Washington University in St. Louis; David R. Knechtges,
University of Washington
Anthology-making was a significant strategy for laying
claim to dynasty-wide political and cultural integrity during the early Qing.
It continued to play a key role in the elite’s promotion of literary value and authority on
behalf of the empire through the high Qing. Anthologies of this kind share a
common agenda and approach, which is to celebrate the literary achievements
of “our dynasty” from a trans-regional perspective. While recognizing
some of these anthologies as authoritative models, many anthologists also responded
with a localist impulse; they compiled anthologies of authors from their own
regions, anthologies that include authors of both genders or exclusively women
authors. With its primary focus on anthologies of women’s writings from
several different localities, this panel aims to explore the dialectic between
local and national anthologizing, but with emphasis on the local. It begins
with Ellen Widmer’s paper, which examines the projects of preserving and
anthologizing Guangdong women’s writing in relation to the development
of local female talent in the days before Guochao guixiu zhengshi ji (Correct
Beginnings, 1831, 1836, abridged as Zhengshi ji). By focusing on several anthologies
made in Zhejiang and Anhui, Xiaorong Li’s paper observes changes in anthologizing
women’s poetry after Zhengshi ji. Finally, Guotong Li’s paper considers
literary anthologies of women’s poems and songs produced in Fujian and
Guangdong. By examining these anthologies of different locales by both men
and women compilers, and of both the Qing and the Republican periods, this panel
will address the mechanisms of local cultural production in relation to gender,
the Chinese literary tradition, and modernity.
Ellen Widmer, Wellesley College
This paper addresses two questions. The first is the wealth of talent among
women of Guangdong. Three counties were especially strong in this regard,
Xiangshan, Shunde, and Panyu, and the eighteenth century was an especially fruitful
time. Many outstanding women from this century and these counties left behind
written collections. These works have received little attention in contemporary
scholarship. The second question has to do with historiography. What or who
was initially responsible for preserving and anthologizing the work of Guangdong’s female
talents? Qian Qianyi’s national anthology Liechao shiji of 1649 includes
some Guangdong women, but Wen Runeng’s (1748-1811) Yuedong shihai (1810)
appears to be the first important anthology to focus solely on Guangdong. Its
attention to women may have been inspired by the wealth of female talents that
had flourished in the province by 1810. It became a prime resource for later
provincial anthologies, such as Ruan Yuan’s (1764-1849) Guangdong tongzhi
(published 1822, republished 1864), national anthologies, such as Yun Zhu’s
Guochao guixiu zhengshi ji of 1831 and 1836, as well as county anthologies.
After a quick review of the interrelationship of such texts, I will focus on
possible linkages between Guangdong’s eighteenth-century eruption of female
talent and Yuedong shihai.
Xiaorong Li, Swarthmore College
Zhengshi ji was compiled by the woman scholar and poet Yun Zhu (1771-1833).
It was intended to celebrate “the sagely influence” of the Qing
dynasty and to create an orthodoxy of Qing women’s poetry in the light
of dominant literary and gender discourses. Indeed, in surveying anthologies
of women’s poetry made afterwards, one can see that Zhengshi ji was recognized
as an authoritative model. However, while there are anthologies which exactly
carry on the legacy of Zhengshi ji, many anthologists projected a local perspective
in their anthologies rather than employing Yun Zhu’s dynastic point of
view. Marked with local identities by the county or provincial names in their
titles, these anthologies explicitly celebrate women’s literary achievements
of particular locales. By examining several anthologies compiled after Zhengshi
ji such as Songling nüzi shizheng (1919) and Anhui mingyuan shici zhenglüe
(1936), this paper aims to explore two interrelated issues: first, how the canonic
status of Zhengshi ji was retrospectively reflected through these succeeding
anthologies; second, the different strategies used in making these anthologies
and their significance as local cultural productions. In addition, most of these
anthologies of pre-modern Chinese women’s poetry (mainly of the Ming-Qing
period) were compiled in the Republican period, which allows us to address
the meaning of their project in relation to cultural legacy and modernity.
Guotong Li, California State University, Long Beach
This study takes up five literary anthologies of women’s songs from southern
Fujian and eastern Guangdong published over a century between 1849 and 1958.
The five collections are: Liang Zhangju’s Minchuan guixiu shihua of 1849;
Ding Yun’s Minchuan guixiu shihua xuji of 1914; Jin Tianmin’s Chaoge
of 1929; Xu Zhi’an’s Chaoshu erge of 1930; and Qiu Yulin’s
Chaoshan geyaoji of 1958. Chronologically, the five works differ from one another,
and they also differ in their emphasis. The earliest two collections of guixiu
shihua focus on genteel ladies’ writings. One focuses on the editor’s
contemporaries, within his kin networks in particular; the other includes guixiu
of past dynasties, with an attempt to go beyond kin networks. The three later
collections of folk songs focus on women and children’s songs, which were
recorded by “going to the people” and transcribing their songs in
dialect. Collectively, the five works allow us to think about the building of
local identity through a kind of packaging of women’s poems and songs.
The guixiu shihua draw on sources beyond the local. They place the local
in a broader empire-wide elite network. By contrast, the folk song collections
stress exclusively local stories and local sources. The later anthologies
have more of a preservationist agenda and convey the fear that modernity might
erase sung poetry of an earlier age.
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