Analyzing the protracted cultural debate in modern China over what and how women should write, this book focuses on two concepts of great importance in Chinese literary modernization the new, liberated woman and the new, autonomous writing. Throughout the Ming and Qing dynasties, women s moral virtue, or de, developed as a physical ordeal that meant sacrifices in the areas of freedom of movement (seclusion in either the father s or husband s house) and the body (chastity, fidelity, widow suicide). While physical concepts of virtue existed for men, they were not canonized nearly as extensively as they were for women and did not constitute a marker of masculinity. Posed against de was cai, or literary talent, a male-gendered practice that contained a variable content of profound lyricism, deep intellectuality, and analytical skill.
- ISBN10 0804731519
- ISBN13 9780804731515
- Publish Date 1 July 1998 (first published 1 June 1998)
- Publish Status Out of Stock
- Out of Print 11 December 2011
- Publish Country US
- Imprint Stanford University Press
- Format Paperback
- Pages 282
- Language English