The Burden of Female Talent in Premodern China

The Burden of Female Talent in Premodern China: Early Reactions to Li QingzhaoRonald Egan (EALCS, UCSB)

Thursday November 13 / 12:00 PM
HSSB 2252

The most celebrated woman poet in Chinese history, Li Qingzhao was already famous during her lifetime (1084-1150s). But while early critics and commentators universally acknowledged her literary talent, there was also an unmistakable undercurrent of resentment against her, since such talent was largely considered undesirable in a woman. This talk examines the ways that Li Qingzhao was praised and criticized by early critics, as well as the way her personal conduct and misfortune in a second marriage was used against her by her detractors. Rather than simply to read her as “China’s greatest woman poet,” the goal here is to reconstruct the mostly hostile cultural context in which she lived and wrote to better gauge the nature of her achievement.

Ronald Egan works on pre-modern Chinese poetry and literary culture of the Tang and Song dynasties. He teaches courses on Classical Chinese, poetry, and Chinese cultural history.

Sponsored by the IHC’s East Asian Cultures RFG

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