dc.description.abstract | This paper takes the female Ci criticism in Qing Dynasty as the research object. The female Ci criticism is the criticism of female Ci. Criticism of female Ci in the Qing Dynasty refers to the Qing Dynasty’s criticism of female Ci in the form of anthologies, Ci commentaries, Ci discourses, prefaces and postscripts, Ci-commenting poems and essays, analects, and letters.
This article summarizes the critical literature on female Ci in the Qing Dynasty, from which we can see that the literature on female Ci in the Qing Dynasty is rich in form and quantity, and the identities of critics and criticism objects are diversified, which contains rich Ci criticism and gender cultural connotations. At different stages of the Qing Dynasty, the forms and methods of criticism of women’s Ci were emphasized and changed. By discussing the historical context of the criticism of female Ci in the Qing Dynasty, it can be seen that the criticism of female Ci was a process from silence to gradual rise from the Song Dynasty to the end of the Ming Dynasty. The creation and criticism of women’s Ci in the early Qing Dynasty also rose with the revival of Ci style creation, and at the same time, women’s subject consciousness of Ci was also awakening and developing. The criticism of female Ci in the mid-Qing Dynasty also flourished with the development of Ci, which is reflected in the diversity and richness of the critical literature on female Ci and the diversification of the identity of the subject of criticism. In the late Qing Dynasty (including the beginning of the Republic of China), the criticism of women’s Ci became popular with the prosperity of Ci studies. This period was characterized by the multiple identities of the subject of criticism, the variety of criticism objects, and the abundance and change of criticism literature. Under the influence of social changes and new thoughts in the late Qing Dynasty and the early Republic of China, the criticism of women’s Ci also produced new changes corresponding to it. This new change has both positive and negative sides And cause controversy..
From the interaction between the creation and criticism of female Ci in the Qing Dynasty, it can be seen that the creation and criticism of female Ci are mutually reinforcing. Secondly, it can be seen that Qing people’s criticism has a tendency to overpraise female Ci in Qing Dynasty. Thirdly, the Qing people have the tendency to interpret female Ci erotically. The Qing people’s critical writing of women’s Ci shows a literariness, which contains acceptance on women’s Ci with gender connotations and cultural meanings. The Qing people’s critical writing of women’s Ci reflects their literary concept, which can be summarized into two aspects: value theory and creation theory.
In the context of patriarchal culture in the Qing Dynasty, whether they were male literati or talented women, the Qing people’s discussion of female poets’ “virtue, talent, femininity, and emotion” all viewed women from the presupposed perspective of “masculine gaze”, that is, to comment on women from the male literati’s view of women, which instills the male literati’s psychological pursuit of ideal women. In the Qing Dynasty, both male literati and talented women discussed and recognized that women’s “talents and fates harm each other”, which contains pity and emotional projection for talented women’s fate, which contains different gender consciousness.
People in the Qing Dynasty believed that the essence of women’s Ci showed a feminine style. Male literati a some women praised the aesthetic style of female Ci such as "elegant and refined" and "majestic" as the style of female CI study, but abandoned the soft main style of mainstream boudoir Ci. Its purpose is to promote the status of female Ci, but all of them are reviewed from a male-centered critical perspective. But there are also ladies such as Shen Cai who affirmed the powdery style of women’s Ci and poetry from the original gender characteristics of women, and showed a sense of female subjectivity. The praise of “bamboo grove sages’ demeanor” and “masculinity” in the Qing Dynasty’s female poet reviews embodied the meaning of "celebrity" and "husbandization" of female poets, that is, the aesthetic reception of “masculinization” of female poets, which had a gender-reversing critical connotation. In addition, the criticism of women’s Ci in the middle and late Qing Dynasty deliberately emphasized “gentleness and honesty”. Although it was an aesthetic acceptance of the true nature of women’s Ci, it also meant that the creation of women’s Ci was required to be in accordance with the traditional concept of poetry. This embodied male-centric standards of criticism.
By sorting out the criticism and acceptance of Li Qingzhao and Zhu Shuzhen in Qing Dynasty, it can be seen that the Ci theory of Qing Dynasty is the entanglement and acceptance of Li Qingzhao and Zhu Shuzhen, which is difficult to separate. Zhu Shuzhen has become a typical image of a talented woman on whom literati pinned ideals in the past dynasties, and Li Qingzhao a typical image of an ideal talented woman, a generation of heroines. It can be seen that the ideal image of a talented woman of the literati in the Qing Dynasty, especially the male literati, included three qualities, that is, talent, virtue, appearance or talent, morality and knowledge. In addition, people in the Qing Dynasty focused on overturning and affirming the chastity of Li Qingzhao and Zhu Shuzhen, which showed that the Qing Dynasty emphasized the morality of talented women and the moral character of Ci criticism.
The value of Qing Dynasty criticism of female Ci and its influence on later generations are reflected in: first, the criticism of female Ci has promoted the canonization of female Ci; Second, the criticism of female Ci is helpful to the construction of the history of female Ci and the development of research on female Ci;The third is that The criticism of women’s Ci has promoted the spread and acceptance of female Ci. | en_US |