LI Qingzhao Lǐ Qīngzhào 李清照 1083–1149? Song Dynasty Woman Poet
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◀ LI Peng Comprehensive index starts in volume 5, page 2667. LI Qingzhao Lǐ Qīngzhào 李清照 1083–1149? Song dynasty woman poet Li Qingzhao is considered to be China’s fore- Manchuria. During this time of chaos the house in which most woman poet. She wrote during the Song Qingzhao and Mingcheng lived was burned, resulting in dynasty; only a hundred of her poems have the loss of most of the things the couple had collected survived. over the years, including their valuable books. They hast- ily gathered what belongings remained and fled with them to a new home in Nanjing, but this place of refuge could never equal the home they had lost. By 1129 Zhao onsidered to be the foremost of women poets in Mingcheng was dead. This came as a cruel blow to Qing- China, Li Qingzhao was born in the city of Jinan zhao; her husband had been the foundation of her life. in the province of Shandong. Her family belonged The poems from this period of her life are filled with bleak to the upper echelons of northern Song dynasty (960–1279) hopelessness, wherein the best she can do is safeguard society, and she likely had made a name for herself as a poet, the things remaining from her once- happy life in Jinan, calligrapher, and painter well before she was married at the namely, the poetry the couple had written to each other. age of seventeen to Zhao Mingcheng, the son of a royal One of the first acts of the Jurchen Jin dynasty (1125– minister in the court of the Song emperor. 1234) when it established its rule was to dismiss all the These were halcyon days for Qingzhao, and the few officials who had worked for the previous emperor. Be- poems of hers that survive from this period are filled with cause she belonged to the class of society that had served expressions of bliss and include descriptions of married the Song emperor, Qingzhao’s financial position grew life that suggest that her husband shared in those very somewhat precarious, and by 1132 she was living in rented things that were important to Qingzhao, such as literary rooms. Of the many poems she and her husband had writ- pursuits, artistic endeavors, art collecting, and politics of ten she now possessed only a meager collection; the rest the court. Chief among these pursuits was book collect- had been pilfered by various people she had dealt with as ing, and soon their library contained some of the choicest she wandered from one place to the next. But she diligently volumes of the Song period. The couple wrote delicate set about publishing what remained of her books in a series poems to each other, especially when Mingcheng had to of volumes entitled Jin shi lu (Record of Bronze and Steel), be away to attend to the demands of his position. in which she meticulously set down an accounting of the Their world changed abruptly, however, in 1127 with artifacts and artwork she and her late husband had col- the fall of Bianliang (Kaifeng) to the invading Jurchen, lected. In the final volume of the series Li Qingzhao wrote who had emerged from northern Manchuria and who a moving memoir of her married life. Some evidence indi- quickly consolidated their rule by abducting the north- cates that she remarried in later years, although briefly; but ern Song emperor, Qinzong, along with most of the royal this is a point of contention. The last record of her comes family; Qinzong was exiled to a remote part of northern from Zhejiang Province, after which she disappears from C 1317 © 2009 by Berkshire Publishing Group LLC 1318 Berkshire Encyclopedia of China 宝 库 山 中 华 全 书 The Poetry of Li Qingzhao The heavens join with the clouds. I try to put it into verse The great waves merge with the fog. But my words amaze me. The Milky Way appears The huge roc bird is flying Turning overhead. On a ninety thousand mile wind. A thousand sails dance. O wind, do not stop I am rapt away to the place of the Supreme, Until my little boat has been blown And here the words of Heaven, To the Immortal Islands Asking me where I am going. In the Eastern Sea. I answer, “It is a long road, alas, Source: Rexroth, K. & Ling Chung (Trans., Eds.). (1972). Far beyond the sunset.” Women poets of China. New York: New Directions Books. the historical record. She presumably was dead by 1149. Ebrey, P. B. (1993). The inner quarters: Marriage and the In her lifetime she published seven volumes of shi (tradi- lives of Chinese women in the Sung period. Berkeley and tional) poetry and about six volumes of ci (lyrics). Of these Los Angeles: University of California Press. only a hundred poems have survived. Hu P’in & Li Ch’ing. (1966). Li Ch’ing- chao. New York: Twayne Publishers. Nirmal DASS Rexroth, K., & Chung Ling. (Trans.). (1972). The orchid boat: Women poets of China. New York: McGraw- Further Reading H i l l . Chang Kang- i Sun & Saussy, H. (Eds.). (1999). Women Yu, Pauline. (Ed.). (1994). Voices of the Song lyric in China. writers of traditional China: An anthology of poetry and Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California criticism. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press. Press. China changes constantly, and the Encyclopedia of 閒談 China will change and grow, too. Berkshire’s authors chat and editors welcome questions, comments, and correc- tions: [email protected]. LI Shangyin ▶ © 2009 by Berkshire Publishing Group LLC.