The Female Voice From Jiao Qing And Dao Guang Dynasty

Wang Duan(1793-1838) is a gifted female poetess during Qing Chien lung,Jia Qing＆Dao Guang Dynasty.She accomplished "Zi Ran Hao Xue Zhai Poems",and "Poem Collection of Thirty Scholars of Ming Dynasty".She once also wrote a fiction called "Miscellaneous History of Yuan＆Ming Dynasty",but she burned the book after joining Taoism in her late years.Wang Duan was well recognized in literary talent, women ethics and Taoism achievement.Born in a good family with literary background,she had a family tree full of famous scholars.Endowed with extreme talent,deeply influenced by boudoir education,Wang Duan started her poetry life since a very early age.When she married into Chen family,she engaged in poetry interactive activities together with her husband Chen Peizhi.Chen Wenshu,her father-in-law,a follower of Yuan Mei,supported and promoted women's poetics.He even had a group of boudoir students called "Bi Cheng Xian Guan Poetess",who had a lot of poetry connection with Wang Duan.Having gone through up and downs in her life,middle-aged Wang Duan suffered from a long term sickness.She finally dedicated herself into Tao and Zen.Wang Duan takes her familiarity of history and poetry as a great advantage while writing poems.She has an experienced writing style and always expressed unique point of views.Her poems of paintings and walls are delicate,sensational and fresh. Poems of history,epics are brimed with codes and stories.Wang Duan is best at writing seven letter poem,while declaring "seven letter poem can live in history" by herself.Her main artistic poetry characteristics are fresh,genuine and inner moderate. Meanwhile,she tried very hard to avoid the decadent style of boudoir writers, targeting to surpass female writing territory,trying to involve her anxiety and depression for the large country into her subtle poems.While reading poems of Gao Qingqiu,she found out Ming emperor's brutal actions towards scholars,willing to rectify poetry malformation.So she accomplished "Poem Collection of Thirty Scholars of Ming Dynasty".This collection highlights fresh,genuine and stylized poems,using poems to preserve poets,exploring poets to reflect existing.Compared with collections accomplished by male scholars,although her expression is a little different,her overall judgment standard is similar.Wang Duan's voice is more like an emphasis,or a supplement.While observing Wang Duan's works,we can find that she consciously avoids writing anything with a gender coding.Washing away her female mark,the poetess complies with the boudoir decency and echoes the voice of mainstream poetry world,modestly and carefully.In the old education system of China,family was the carrier of culture,and it also constituted the network structure of cultural transmission.Taking Wang Duan as an example,southern literary family has been playing a critical role in female poetry's development since Chien Lung,Jia Qing and Dao Guang Dynasty.Family not only brought nutrition for her literary life,but also provided foundation and tools to spread her literary fame.The big literary families,including parents,children,son-in-law and daughter-in-law,all took reading and writing as proud and pleasant.Poetess exchanged their works with poets,getting encouragement and guidance.Meanwhile, they communicated with other female writers,building associations.Wang Duan has exchange poems with poets,including Zhang Yunao,Chen Wenshu and Shu wei.She also has communications with her aunt,sisters and Bi Cheng Xian Guan poetess.Her literary activities demonstrated the exchange and communication between main stream poets and boudoir poetess,and also reflected the prosperity of female literature in that dynasty.Poetess participated in writing activities to compete with male writers, while willing to be kept names in history.However,they were still constrained by traditional principles and female ethics.Their subtle situation led to a particular phenomenon,which is that the gender code was weakened in poetess' works.By inheriting mainstream culture,poetesses tended to become assimilation of scholars and literati.Wang Duan's history theme poems adopted serious war and world topics to weaken gender voice,and to dilute sentimental letters.She expressed her worship for orthodox works and mainstream poets.Taking orthodox poetry as a foundation, adopting genuine and moderate style as a principle,Wang Duan let out a special female voice.From one perspective,she wished her works to surpass boudoir territory and to influence people other than poetess.From another perspective,she adhered to boudoir ethics,avoiding stepping into any restricted or sensitive areas.And the action of burning fiction could also show her reflection of traditional female ethics and gender responsibilities.