The Burden of Female Talent: The Poet Li Qingzhao and Her History in China

On learning that traditional Chinese literati's receptions of Li Qingzhao distorted her actual accomplishments and reshaped her according to the shifting demands of hagiography and moral propriety, readers might well sigh: "Big deal-so what else is new?" But the unsurprising nature of Professor Egan's thesis should not mislead one into devaluing his book-it offers a meticulous and valuable archaeology into her life and works that, by stripping away layers of accreted grime and mythic overlay, brings us closer to this most remarkable Chinese literata. Compare the marvelous table on 96---97, which at a glance reveals why Egan judges only 30 of "Li's" lyrics reasonably reliable. * In the long section deflating fanciful "autobiographical" readings so popular among Chinese scholars, we would single out another sharp question, "Why did Zhao Mingcheng ... not send letters home to Li Qingzhao?" (114), a question that, pursued assiduously, unravels a great deal of Li Qingzhao fantasizing. * In this same section, Egan skewers the condescending gender double standard long practiced in Li Qingzhao scholarship (112; compare 29, 250): "Language, erudition, and the ability to manipulate literary devices to maximize effect-a lower level of expectation would hold for all of these when the composition was known to have been produced by a woman." * Still in this section (126) he lances amateur autobiographers: "scholars have stretched minimal evidence to maximum inferences." * Among the many gems adorning his long study of Li Qingzhao's other literary works, Egan urges readers of her famous "Afterword" (190) not to read it naively as "innocent nostalgia tinged with loneliness and grief." * In the three chapters detailing how later scholars manipulated, distorted, and suppressed Li Qingzhao's character and accomplishments, Egan demonstrates how dangerous a threat she posed to masculinist critics, how (213) she "alternately constituted an affront and an inspiration to ideals concerning women and literary talent." (1) Unfortunately, when reading "Drunk in Blossoms' Shade," Egan finds only fragility and fails to notice the subtle strength and "writerly strategies"-in particular, appropriating male poets' tropes-Li has wielded to energize her masterwork.10 (2) His reading of "Always Having Fun," while dutiful and perceptive, seems rather perfunctory. (3) Somehow, when interpreting "Recalling her Charms," Egan fails to discuss the saucy concluding pun on "sunny" and "love" (...),