Poetry, Space, and Daoist Identity in the Ming Biographies

This paper explores the Ming woman poet Ye Xiaoluan’s (1616–1632) posthumous identity as a Daoist female immortal in three Ming biographies. Apart from certain historical facts about Xiaoluan’s human life, these biographies highlight her family members’ spiritual encounters with Xiaoluan during her various “returns” as a female immortal. The sections on Xiaoluan’s afterlife suggest the possibility of studying these biographies as hagiographies, which will shed light on how a late imperial cultural figure was remembered and immortalized. The paper analyzes how the notions of poetry and space play a significant role in the writers’ construction of Xiaoluan’s Daoist identity. To convince the readers of her Daoist identity, how did the three authors imagine and depict the sacred spaces? How did poetry participate in legitimizing these writers’ claim of Xiaoluan’s new identity as a Daoist immortal?