On The Flower Imagery And Feminist Awareness In The Female "ci" Of The Song Dynasty

Woman in the Song Dynasty is a brilliant group in the Chinese history. Song Ci wriitten by women writers is valuable material in studying feminist awareness in the ancient times. In Song Ci, women writers express their genuine feeling and emotion, and utter their own voices. They write women's feeling of the society and life, women's awareness of their unique value and social status and the real living situation and style of women in a direct or ambiguous way. In studying the female Ci writers in Song Dynasty, most scholars used to focus on such individual ci writers like Li Qingzhao, Zhu Shuzhen. In addition, the analysis of their imagery concentrated on plum. In this paper, the author tries to study Song Ci written by women writers as a whole group, analyze the aesthetic value of the flower imagery, and further discuss the feminist awareness indicated in the flower imagery.Flower is an important imagery frequently and widely used by women writers in Song Dynasty. Flowers and women share a lot of similarities in nature, so it's closely related to women even since it originally appears in literature. Flower imagery first appears in The Book of Songs and Encountering Sorrow. It is adopted not only to indicate the beauty of human beings, but also the just personality. It exerts great influence on later literary works. Under the pen of female ci writers in Song Dynasty, flowers are important carriers of emotion and feeling. They have adopted a wide range of flower imageries, including the elegant plum blossom, theh plain chrysanthemum, the enchanting crabapple and the fragrant osmanthus. By describing the flowers which bud, bloom, or fade in various weather conditions, the women writers compare themselves to flowers, express their lovesickness and homesickness, and show their sorrow over the fading youth. In this way, they show their in-depth perception and delicate feeling of life. Such beautiful flower imagery results not from mechanical overlapping or combination of writers'inner feeling and the outward things. instead, it is the melting of idea and image, emotion and the phsycial thing. The writers, with their imagination and creation, use language to define and present mature and meaningful imagery. Flower becomes the primary imagery in female Song Ci because it's closely related to the social and cultural tradition, the aesthetic value of the society, the emotion and psychology of women, and the temperament and personality of individual writers. The imagery of flowers in various shapes and colors enriches the Song Ci written by women writters, and vividly presents an awakening female group. In Song Ci, the women writers explore and perceive their uniqueness as women, and realize that they are"human beings", especially"womem". This perception enables them to realize the value of themselves, to admit their request of love and to pursue love, moreover, to enjoy preliminary equality and freedom. Their exploration is quite precious and encouraging under the social and historical circumstances in Song Dynasty. In addition to symbolize the personality as the former writers have done in the traditional manner, the flower imagery helps women to rebuild the self image from the feminist perspective, to set good examples for women in the future generations, and to find echo in women's heart. The Song Ci written by women can help the female to be inspired, to gain self-confidence and to further liberate themselves.