| Li Xiangjun was one of the most renowned hetaeraes in the late Ming Dynasty who were known as Qinhuaibayan by posterity. Her residence was open as a memorial for public visit in1990s. As a brothel woman, the fame of Li Xiangjun lasts for hundreds of years, which is inextricably linked with the scholar’s writings. Hence, this study focuses on the image of Li Xiangjun in literature and analyzes its evolution during several historical periods, including the early Qing Dynasty, early Republic of China, the Sino-Japanese War time and the earliest few years after the founding of People’s Republic of China. Moreover, the variations of the environment of public opinions and scholars’choices of historical memory in different periods are also revealed.Nanjing’s Qinhuai river was an area synonymous with romance, reaching its heyday in the late Ming. Besides their beauty, the prostitutes were famed for their ability to sing, dance, recite poetry, and they were often romantically involved with talented young scholars and renowed literati. Li Xiangjun was not outstanding among the prostitutes, so there was less records of her, just Yu huai’s "Notes of banqiao", Hou fangyu’s "The biography of Li" and Chen Weisong’s "The collection of women". In these articles, Li Xiangjun was a prostitutes having the general appearance, good at kunqu, having political awareness, and she was not as famous as Liu rushi, Gu Hengbo.In the early Qing Dynasty, due to the dominance replacement, Kong Shangren’s work "The Peach Blossom Fan" perfectly fuses the love story with the rise and falls of a dynasty. The image of Li Xiangjun reshaped by Kong has won a great popularity and even totally replaced the prototype. In the late Qing Dynasty, elites and scholars were so frustrated by the suffocating internal and external social environments that they turned to the image of Li Xiangjun for emotion expression. With the works of those scholars, Li’s image has been greatly enriched and promoted to a higher level. At the end of Qing, with the prevalence of anti-revolutionary events, the reality change easily reminded the public of the memory of the alien invasion in the late Ming Dynasty. As a result," The Peach Blossom Fan ", as a work born in that period, was quite hot that time. Almost all the revolutionists hoped to spread the idea of revolution by the image of Li Xiangjun.During the War of Resistance Against Japanese Invasion, the story of "The Peach Blossom Fan" was continuously staged. The image of Li Xiangjun had won a greater popularity by the public. Ouyang Yuqiang, Zhou Yibai and other people had adapted the original story and the new end was that Hou Fangyu’s participation in the Qing Dynasty Imperial Examination greatly disappointed Li Xiangjun, which directly led to her death. The adaptation had won the recognition of audiences, and they all took part in the creation of the image. In the national crisis, the image and the status of Li Xiangjun reached to the peak, from a famous courtesan to a patriotic heroine.From the end of War of Resistance Against Japanese Invasion to the early years of People’s Republic of China, Class Contradiction became the major contradiction. Scholars used the image of Li Xiangjun to satirize the ugliness of the reaction and the darkness of the old society. During that time, the drama edition of Ouyang Yuqian was the most populous one, and the image of Li Xiangjun was highly praised. Though the work was criticized during the Cultural Revolution, it soon was vindicated.Li Xiangjun’s image is constantly reshaped by the intellectual elite. Under different historical context or reality, they endowed Li Xiangjun with different image, leaving what they want to spread and cropping what they think is not important. From generation to generation, Li is shaped into a patriotic heroine. Just because of the intellectual elite s, Meixianglou House still exists by Qinhuai River, open to the visitors. The original image of Li Xiangjun disappeared and her romantic relationship with Hou Fangyu is no longer important. Only a noble patriotic heroine image is left. The evolution of the image reflects the intellectual elites’ selection of historical memory, and also displays the great effect of reality on historical memory. |
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