Two Centuries of Manchu Women Poets: An Anthology trans.

by
Wilt L. Idema (review)

Grace S. Fong

Tulsa Studies in Women's Literature, Volume 37, Number 2, Fall 2018, pp.
447-449 (Review)

Published by The University of Tulsa

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1353/tsw.2018.0036

For additional information about this article

https://muse.jhu.edu/article/709817

[ Access provided at 25 Jan 2021 21:58 GMT from University of Cambridge ]

TWO CENTURIES OF MANCHU WOMEN POETS: AN
ANTHOLOGY, translated from Chinese by Wilt L. Idema. Seattle:
University of Washington Press, 2017. 328 pp. $50.00 cloth.

As an erudite scholar and prolific translator with a broad range of inter-

est in literature from China’s imperial past, Wilt L. Idema has produced a
variety of translations encompassing poetry, drama, and fiction selected
from both elite and popular repertories. In recent decades, Idema has been
among the vanguard in translating the long-neglected texts of Chinese
women from the late imperial period (sixteenth through nineteenth
centuries) and making them accessible to an English readership.1 With
Two Centuries of Manchu Women Poets: An Anthology, Idema presents fine
translations of the poetry of nineteen Manchu women in the Qing dynasty
(1644-1911) in fourteen chapters, contextualizing each poet and her work
by providing vital biographical background. In doing so, Idema offers
English readers a fascinating body of materials that invites comparative
thinking and discussion on issues of writing, identity, and life experience
in relation to gender and ethnicity.
Originally a semi-nomadic people from the northeast, the Manchus
conquered the Han Chinese Ming dynasty (1368-1644) and estab-
lished the Qing empire (1644-1912) with themselves as the governing
class. Idema has selected Manchu women poets (and one who was half
Mongolian) who mainly lived in the capital Beijing during the height of
the Qing empire in the eighteenth century and its decline in the nine-
teenth. The poets are presented in roughly chronological order, although
it would have been useful if their dates had been indicated systematically.
Each of these Manchu women had a collection of writings either published
or at least partially preserved in an anthology or manuscript form. In
comparison to the more than three thousand Chinese women of the Qing
dynasty who wrote manuscripts or published collections of poetry and
other writings, the fifty-some Manchu women poets estimated by Idema
to have produced similar works seem miniscule in comparison. However,
this anthology demonstrates their relevance in scholarship on women’s
literature and potential appeal to a general readership. Idema’s judicious
selection of poets and poems usually highlights some exceptional features
in either the woman’s life and/or her writing, often indicated in the chap-
ter titles, for example, “Chastity and Suicide: Xiguang,” “A Tomboy in a
Silly Dress: Mengyue,” “Releasing Butterflies: Wanyan Jinchi,” and “A
Proud Descendant of Chinggis Khan: Naxun Lanbao.”
In the introduction, Idema explains why literate Manchu women
learned only Chinese rather than Manchu and why their literary writ-
ings mainly consisted of poetry.2 He also provides a brief overview of

447
the Chinese poetic forms in which Manchu women wrote (pp. 13-14).
The subject matter and themes of Manchu women’s poetry fall within
the parameters of Chinese poetic practice, which raises the question of
what, if anything, distinguishes these women’s writings as being authored
by Manchus. Poem 4 from Mengyue’s autobiographical retrospective,
“Emotions on Remembering the Past,” provides one example of such a
distinction:
A saddle of brocade—at twelve I learned to ride a pony;
The arrow-tips like freezing stars, a little bow of horn.
When I went hunting in the fields, all people loved to watch;
In their opinion I looked like the Bright and Shining Prince.
(p. 133)
Mengyue describes her tomboyish character in childhood and adolescence
when she loved horseback riding, archery, and hunting, all Manchu mar-
tial practices in which Manchu women, who did not have bound feet like
Han Chinese women, could participate.
Idema’s introduction to each poet explores the woman’s family back-
ground and relations (including her husband’s family) and the implica-
tions of the Manchu dimensions of her life and identity for her social
relations and literary production. The number of widows in this anthology
is strikingly high—eleven out of nineteen poets—perhaps because by the
mid-eighteenth century, the Han Confucian emphasis on widow chastity
had been adopted as a norm for Manchu women.3 A Manchu woman’s life
became inextricably bound to her husband and his family, so for emotional
and other reasons, widows who had the means to write may have been
intensely motivated to express their thoughts and feelings. Widowhood
inevitably colors their poems of mourning and remembrance with auto-
biographical overtones. The extreme conduct of the widow Xiguang is
detailed in her suicide poem “My Ambition.” When her husband was
severely ill, she sliced off flesh from her arm to use as medicine to cure him
but without success (pp. 74-75).4
Manchu women’s social spheres were more restrictive than Han
Chinese women poets (who could expand their social circles by joining
poetry societies), as their interactions were mostly limited to women in
their own family or other Manchu women. Idema illustrates the limited
connections that Manchu women did have by grouping women who
belonged to the same family in the same chapter and by indicating women
poets who were friends with each other: Bingyue with Guizhen Daoren,
who was also friends with Naxun Lanbao, who in turn was a close friend
of Baibao Youlan. Many Manchu as well as Han Chinese women poets
were keenly aware of the restrictions of their gender and voiced their dis-
satisfaction and frustration in their writing. Poetic practice, then, was a

448 TSWL, 37.2, Fall 2018

common ground where Manchu and Chinese poets met and shared many
themes and topics. Idema also includes several authorial prefaces in which
the woman writer narrates, explains, or justifies her study and production
of poetry.
In general, I find a greater intensity and directness of expression in the
Manchu women’s poetry. Whether these qualities are effects of Idema’s
style or the force of the original poem can only be determined by careful
reading of the Chinese text (not included in the anthology). Idema’s selec-
tions, however, serve to highlight some remarkable aspects of their poetry,
such as intense passion in the expression of female friendship. The widow
Sibo developed a deep friendship over nine years with the Han Chinese
woman poet Dan Gongting, whom she hired as a tutor for her daughters.
When Dan was to return to her hometown in the south, Sibo had her
own and Dan’s poems printed together in one collection to symbolize
their friendship. She also wrote the essay “Funeral Prayers for the Living,
Written in Jest” in which she detailed their close friendship and argued
that friends should write funeral laments for the living so that they can
express their affections for each other (pp. 48-50). Idema suggests that two
other friends, Bingyue and Guizhen, may have been inspired by Sibo and
Dan to also write funeral prayers for each other while alive (p. 39).
With Idema’s pioneering anthology, readers will learn much about the
lives, experiences, sufferings, and aspirations of Manchu women. The field
of women’s literature is much enriched by his wide-ranging scholarship and
superb skill in translation.
Grace S. Fong
McGill University

NOTES

1
See Wilt L. Idema and Beata Grant, The Red Brush: Writing Women of Imperial
China (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Asia Center, 2004).
2
Elite Manchu men also learned Chinese and Chinese poetry, but they were
also expected to learn the Manchu language, which was maintained as an admin-
istrative language in the central government.
3
See Mark Elliott, The Manchu Way: The Eight Banners and Ethnic Identity in
Late Imperial China (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2001), 251-52.
4
This practice (gegu) was performed by Han Chinese women and men as an
act of filial piety.

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