Research On Literary Women Of Qiantang In Qing Dynasty

In Qing Dynasty, women poets in Qiantang region turned up on a large scale, and this owed to three aspects. Firstly, the prosperous economy in Qiantang at that time created the material conditions for the women poets to write; Secondly, the breathtaking scenery in Qiantang not only built up the women poets' elegant character, but also provided them with the source materials to write; Thirdly, the literary accumulations in Qiantang and the male literati's encouragement towards women composition also made way for women to develop themselves.The development of the poems by women poets in Qiantang could be divided into three periods. In early stage, women poets arosed, among which, the Jiaoyuan women poets were symbol, and settled the foundation for poems by women poets to prosper. In medium term, poems by women poets flourished, among which the Suiyuan youngsters were symbol, and brought with it the peak of the poems by women in Qiantang ; In later period, women poets in Qiantang turned sporadic, with only a minority of the women poets like Zhen Lansun, Ling Zhiyuan and Guan Ying writing actively. Women poetry finally declined.The literary life of women in Qiantang showed three outstanding features. First of all, poets emerged in the same family. More often than not, women in different generations in the family were able to compose poems, and they learnt from each other by exchanging their work. Meanwhile, the women poets communicated with others through writing poems. For instance, women poets might write a poem, and show it to some good friends. Among these friends there were persons male or female in her family, and they were supposed to write poems on a same topic in return. Lastly, poems written by women poets were specially colleted. At that time, the awareness of authorship aroused in women poets. They began to collect poems by themselves,male literati colleted for them too. In this way, their literary achievement were passed on.There are certain directions in the contents of the poems by women poets in Qiantang. The main ideas are the sadness of departure and the sorrow aroused by the changes of the season. Therefore a quantity of poems describing objects and inscribing drawings came into being at the same time. Still, in general, the poems by women poets in Qiantang belonged to the traditional range, and the styles were mostly fair, mile and indirect.