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Writing from within a Women's Community: Gu Taiqing (1799-1877) and Rer Poetry Qiaole Huang Department of East Asian Studies McGill University Montreal, Canada August 2004 A thesis submitted to the Faulty of Graduate Studies and Research in partial fulfillment of the requirements of the degree of Master of Arts Universal Copyright © 2004 Qiaole Huang Library and Bibliothèque et 1+1 Archives Canada Archives Canada Published Heritage Direction du Branch Patrimoine de l'édition 395 Wellington Street 395, rue Wellington Ottawa ON K1A ON4 Ottawa ON K1A ON4 Canada Canada Your file Votre référence ISBN: 0-494-06513-3 Our file Notre référence ISBN: 0-494-06513-3 NOTICE: AVIS: The author has granted a non L'auteur a accordé une licence non exclusive exclusive license allowing Library permettant à la Bibliothèque et Archives and Archives Canada to reproduce, Canada de reproduire, publier, archiver, publish, archive, preserve, conserve, sauvegarder, conserver, transmettre au public communicate to the public by par télécommunication ou par l'Internet, prêter, telecommunication or on the Internet, distribuer et vendre des thèses partout dans loan, distribute and sell th es es le monde, à des fins commerciales ou autres, worldwide, for commercial or non sur support microforme, papier, électronique commercial purposes, in microform, et/ou autres formats. paper, electronic and/or any other formats. The author retains copyright L'auteur conserve la propriété du droit d'auteur ownership and moral rights in et des droits moraux qui protège cette thèse. this thesis. Neither the thesis Ni la thèse ni des extraits substantiels de nor substantial extracts from it celle-ci ne doivent être imprimés ou autrement may be printed or otherwise reproduits sans son autorisation. reproduced without the author's permission. ln compliance with the Canadian Conformément à la loi canadienne Privacy Act some supporting sur la protection de la vie privée, forms may have been removed quelques formulaires secondaires from this thesis. ont été enlevés de cette thèse. While these forms may be included Bien que ces formulaires in the document page count, aient inclus dans la pagination, their removal does not represent il n'y aura aucun contenu manquant. any loss of content from the thesis. ••• Canada ABSTRACT This thesis examines the life and poetry of the woman poet Gu Taiqing (1799-1877) within the context of a community of gentry women in mid-nineteenth century Beijing. This group of women was a "community" in the sense that their contact, sociability, friendship and poetry writing were meaningfully intertwined in their lives. The thesis is divided into three interconnected chapters. Two separate biographical accounts of Gu Taiqing's life - one centered around the relationship with her husband, and the second around her relationship with her female friends - are reconstructed in the first chapter. This biographical chapter underlines the importance of situating Gu in the women's community to understand her life and poetry. The second is comprised of a reconstruction of this women's community, delineating its members and distinctive features. In the third chapter, a close-reading of Gu's poems in relation to the women's community focuses on the themes of xian (leisure), parting, and friendship. This chapter shows how each of these themes are represented by Gu and how her representations are closely related to the experiences of this women' s group. ACKNOWLEDGMENTS 1 would like to first thank my supervisor Prof. Grace S. Fong, who devoted much time and energy to the supervision of this thesis. Without her ongoing encouragement and academic guidance, the completion of this thesis would have been unthinkable. 1 also own heartfelt thanks to Prof. Robin Yates, who offered me valuable suggestions on how to organize my ideas into a workable thesis topic at the very beginning. My deep thanks go also to aU my family members and friends who showed their support for my thesis-writing in various ways. Special thanks are due to my husband, who constantly inspires me with hope and confidence. It is not 1 who made it; it is we who made it. RÉSUMÉ Cette thèse examine la vie et la poésie d'une femme poète, Gu Taiqing (1799-1877) dans le contexte d'une communauté de femmes nobles à Pékin au milieu du dix-neuvième siècle. Ce groupe de femmes est entendu comme « communauté» puisque les contacts, leurs relations sociales, leur amitié et leur écriture poétique les lient entre elles de manière significative. Ce travail se divise en trois chapitres. Le premièr chapitre se compose de deux récits biographiques de la vie de Gu Taiqing -le premier s'intéressant aux relations entre la poète et son époux, et le second concernant les rapports de celle-ci avec ses amies. Ce premièr chapitre biographique souligne l'importance de situer Gu au sein de la communauté féminine pour comprendre sa vie et sa poésie. Le second comprend une reconstruction de cette communauté féminine, en faisant à la fois une esquisse de ses membres, et en montrant aussi la particularité des traits de leur personnalité. Une lecture approfondie des poèmes de Gu en rapport avec cette communauté féminine va ensuite se concentrer sur les thèmes de xian (loisir), de la rupture, et de l'amitié. Ce dernièr chapitre montre comment chacun des ces thèmes sont représentés par Gu et comment ses représentations sont intimement liées aux expériences de ce groupe de femmes. Table of Contents Introduction .......................................................................................................................... 2 Chapter 1. Gu Taiqing' s Life: Two Biographical Perspectives ...................................... 17 1. Biography on the Axis of Gu Taiqing's Relationship with Rer Rusband ......... 18 II. Alternative Biography on the Axis of Gu Taiqing's Relationship with Rer Female Friends ...................................................................................................... 25 Chapter 2. A Community Composed: Membership and Features of Gu Taiqing's Women's Community ........................................................................................................ 42 1. A Reconstruction of Gu Taiqing's Women's Community ................................ 43 II. Features of Gu's Women's Community ........................................................... 48 • Independence and Self-Sufficiency .................................................................... .49 • Fluidity ofthis Women's Community ................................................................. 55 • The Central Role and Diverse Functions of Writing ........................................... 59 Chapter 3. Negotiating Themes: Gu Taiqing's Writings from within a Women's Community ....................................................................................................................... 76 Xian ....................................................................................................................... 80 Parting ................................................................................................................... 90 Friendship ........................................................................................................... 100 Conclusion ....................................................................................................................... 109 Appendix .......................................................................................................................... 112 Bibliography .................................................................................................................... 118 1 Writing from within a Women's Community: Gu Taiqing (1799-1877) and Her Poetry Introduction The subject of my thesis is Gu Taiqing ittJlIJ (1799-1877), a noted woman writer of the late Qing dynasty (roughly 1800-1911).1 Gu's given name was Chun 11, but she was widely known by her style name Taiqing. She also had two courtesy names, Zichun .:r11 and Meixian ;ffl,f1ÙJ, and a second style name, Yuncha waishi ~H~5tr5l:} She was born into a Manchu family, the Xilin (or Xilinjueluo ïfflif*Jl;.lD clan of the Trimmed Blue Banner .j[~, and after her marriage, as a concubine, at twenty-six sui ~ to Yihui lj)\~~, a prince of the Manchu imperial clan, Gu resided only in Beijing.3 As is weIl documented, the late Qing was a period of substantial social change and upheaval- coastal areas were faced with the increasing presence of foreign commercial and military threats, and China was affected by the deterioration of an increasingly corrupt bureaucracy and the disruption of several severe internaI rebellions.4 However, because Gu Taiqing was a woman poet of the "inner chambers," these changes went 1 The late Qing period includes the reigns of five Qing emperors: Jiaqing (1796-1821), Daoguang (1821- 1851), Xianfeng (1851-1862), Tongzhi (1862-1875) and Guangxu (1875-1908). These reign names often occur in the titles of Gu' s poems as an indication of the time of composition. 2 There has been no evidence showing that Gu used different style names and courtesy names during different time periods of her life, but "Yuncha waishi" seems to be a style name that she used in her late ~ears. See Zhang Zhang's preface to Yihui Gu Taiqing shici heji (hereafter referred to as Heji), 1. 1 follow the Chinese way of counting age. A child is one sui when s/he is born. Yihui was a great- grands on of Emperor Gaozong ~* (reign Qianlong). He inherited in 1815 the rank of a prince of the third degree. Yihui