A Woman Flouts Expectations in the Literary World: The Case of L i Q ingzhao

Abstract

Abstract Li Qingzhao (1084–c. 1155) is the most celebrated woman poet in Chinese literary history. Known best for her small but intense corpus of poems in the song lyric ( ci ) form, her way of writing about women and their emotional life points to new directions that had not been explored by the male writers of her day. Her songs about love and loneliness have traditionally been assumed to be outpourings of her affection for her husband, Zhao Mingcheng, who died in middle age. Li Qingzhao's subsequent brief remarriage proved to be deeply problematic for those who, in later centuries, clung to an idealized view of her first marriage. Controversy surrounding the historicity of her remarriage has consumed scholarship and interpretations of her works for the past 300 years. The advent of feminist approaches in recent decades has had the effect of defusing this controversy somewhat and redirecting attention to the literary excellences of her work. Those excellences have sufficed to keep her works read and admired by Chinese readers through the centuries. In later centuries, Li Qingzhao became an icon and an often‐cited precedent for women writers. She also deserves notice in global medieval history for having explored new directions in women's literary expression.