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Full Description
Yu Xuanji (c. 843-868) is one of the most interesting poets in premodern Chinese literature, and her approximately fifty extant poems include some of the most arresting writing from the Tang dynasty--a period known as the golden age of Chinese poetry. Born a commoner, by fifteen Yu had become the concubine of a man from an illustrious family, until he abandoned her and she became a Daoist priestess, where she took on an active role as a poet as well as a religious practitioner. She was only a priestess for two years before she was executed at the age of twenty-six on dubious accusations of murder.
Yu's story is fascinating, but her poetry is even more so. Despite her relatively slim output and the patriarchal culture in which she lived, she became known for writing that combines late Tang lushness with a rare frankness about what it meant to be a woman in the ninth century. Yu was an incisive and expressive poet, and her work treats a wide range of topics, such as love, spirituality, abandonment, female friendship, sex, and sexuality. Preceded by a critical introduction explaining the possibility of a tradition of women's poetry in medieval China, as well as Yu's relationship with the dominant tradition of male poets, this collection of innovative translations combines scholarly accuracy with a poet's demand for creative solutions in handling the crossover between languages and literary styles.
Contents
Acknowledgements
Introduction
Poems
1. Written on the Willows on the River
2. To the Neighbor Girl
3. To Guoxiang
4. To the Master Alchemist
5. To Secretary Liu
6. At the Temple of Washing Silk
7. Selling Wilted Peonies
8. In Exchange for the Mat from Scholar Li
9. A Love Letter for Li Yi
10. A Boudoir Complaint
11. Spring Feelings, Sent to Li Yi
12. Polo Poem
13. Feelings at the End of Spring, Sent to a Friend
14. Winter Night, Sent to Wen Tingyun
15. In Exchange for Li Ying's poem "Coming Back from Fishing One Summer Day"
16. Rhyming with My New Neighbor to the West, On Sharing Some Wine
17. Rhyming with a Friend
18. Rhymes Mourning a New Graduate: Two Poems
19. Traveling to the Daoist Temple of Reverent Authenticity, I See the Names of New Candidates Posted on the South Tower
20. Sad Thoughts: Two Poems
21. River Ditty
22. Hearing that Censor Li was Back from Fishing I Sent This as a Gift
23. At Providing Fortune Monastery, Created by Recluse Ren
24. At the Pavilion Hidden in Fog
25. Detained by Rain on Double Ninth Festival
26. Early Autumn
27. Sent to Someone as an Expression of How I Feel
28. A Date with a Friend who Couldn't Make It, Being Detained by Rain
29. Visiting Alchemist Zhao, Who Was Not There
30. Expressing Thoughts
31. Sent to Wen Tingyun
32. Stopping by Ezhou
33. Summer Days, Mountain Living
34. The Scene in Late Spring
35. An Elegy on Behalf of Someone
36. Rhyming with Someone
37. Across the Han River-for Li Yi
38. A Parable
39. Sad Longings at Jiangling, for Li Yi
40. For Li Yi
41. Seeing You Off: Two Poems
42. A Welcome for Sir Li Jinren
43. Zuo Mingchang Sends a Messenger en route to the Capital from Zezhou
44. Following Someone Else's Rhyme Words
45. Guang, Wei, and Pou, Sisters Orphaned Young Who Are Growing into Beauties, Wrote a Work of Such Peerless Quintessence that Even the Snow Couplet by the Xie Family Could Add Nothing to It, So I Wrote This Following its Rhymes After It Was Shown to Me by a Visitor from the Capital
46. To Break Willow Branches
47. Fragments
Appendices
1. "Linked Lines" by the Sisters Guang, Wei, and Pou (their surname lost)
2. Huangfu Mei (fl. 873-910), "Yu Xuanji is executed for flogging Lüqiao to death"
3. Sun Guangxian (d. 968), from The Trivialities of North Dream
4. Zhai Yongming (b. 1955), "The Rhapsody of Yu Xuanji"
Works Cited
