Women’s Youxian Poetry in the Qing Dynasty

This paper discusses the Chinese youxian poetry of Qing (1644–1911) women writers. Youxian poetry (poetry of roaming as a transcendent, or poetry of roaming through the realm of the immortals) has remained an important component of Daoist literature. It represents a poetic genre that bridges the fields of Daoism and poetry. The studies on youxian poetry have focused on the Tang (618-907) or pre-Tang periods, mainly because of the fact that both Daoism and Daoist poetry flourished during these periods and the assumption that youxian poetry must have diminished with the general decline of monastic Daoism during the post-Tang periods. Despite the weakening of monastic Daoism during the Qing, youxian poetry did not decline. Writers, associated or not associated with the Daoist cultivation, remained passionate about this genre in various ways. The Ming-Qing period, especially the Qing dynasty, witnessed an explosion of women’s writing. Women’s adoption of the youxian poetic genre represents its status in literary history, its potential for self-expression, and its connection with the Daoist cultivation.

In particular, this paper will focus on the cases of two gentry women writers, Wang Duan (1793–1839) and Baibao Youlan (ca. 1800–1861). Wang Duan lived in the Jiangnan area, the cultural center for late imperial women writers while Baibao was a Manchu woman writer from northeastern China, far from the Jiangnan. Although these two writers appear vastly different, they shared multiple similarities. Both Wang Duan and Baibao Youlan married into powerful Qing gentry families and became young widows. Their life and writing were heavily influenced by their marital families in which their fathers-in-law played a critical role. With different associations with Daoism, they both wrote a considerate number of youxian poems.  By examining these writers’ youxian poems, we will discover critical literary and religious characteristics, which will shed light on our understanding of Qing women’s poetic creation and its connections with Daoism. 

Like most Han gentry women, Wang Duan did not travel much. After marrying into the Chen family, she mainly stayed within Chen’s house. Her husband was the eldest son of Chen Wenshu (1771–1843), leader of the well-known Bicheng literary community where he accepted many female poet disciples. Chen was one of the male literati, including the famous Yuan Mei (1716–1798), who strongly supported women writers. The eminent woman writer and critic Shen Shanbao (1808–1862) argues that the Bicheng women’s poems are not inferior to those from Yuan’s Suiyuan group. Compared to Yuan’s group, Chen’s Bicheng group was influenced by Daoism. Several group members, including Chen himself, were Quanzhen Daoist practitioners. Wang Duan has written at least thirty-four youxian poems to explore the Daoist tradition. Instead of focusing on poetic self-expression, she uses the youxian genre to either challenge the youxian ideas or to elaborate on the traditional Daoist hagiographies.  Wang’s conversion to Daoism was a gradual process, and her poems serve as a form of exploring the Daoist tradition. 

Baibao’s father-in-law Gui-liang (1785–1862) took his family, including Baibao, to his various official posts for nearly thirty years before they settled in Beijing. While literati men were expected to travel for career advancement or personal cultivation, gentry women were advised to stay inside the feminine space, the inner quarters, to preserve women’s purity and propriety. Although Manchu women had less restrictions of mobility compared to the Han women, most aristocratic Manchu women resided in the north, especially Beijing, without traveling far. Different from most Han or Manchu women, Baibao Youlan traveled “throughout the Empire.” Consequently, she wrote many original landscape poems. I argue that Baibao’s fifteen youxian poems are also inspired by her extensive travel experiences and the complex emotions these journeys provoked. She inserts these elements into the images of female immortals roaming back to the realm of immortals for various reunions. 

It is critical to decode the religious images in order to better understand late imperial Chinese literature. Such images are almost always hybrid, including, but not limited to, those images from the Daoist and Buddhist traditions. This was related to the syncretism of the three teachings (Confucianism, Buddhism, and Daoism) and the co-existence of numerous popular religions. The Qing women youxian writers had no apparent or certain associations with Daoism. Wang Duan was a lay Daoist practitioner who also practiced Buddhism, whereas Baibao Youlan did not have clear religious associations. In fact, most women who wrote youxian poems are not known to have confirmed Daoist affiliations. The fact that youxian poetry flourished despite the general decline of monastic Daoism and the frequent absence of formal Daoist association with late imperial literati demonstrates that many Daoist images had become immersed into Chinese poetry as an integral part of the literary tradition.