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| Boudoir Writings in the Qing Dynasty and a New Interpretation of Confucian Norms of Women’s Virtues |
| Wu Lin |
| School of the Humanities, Hangzhou City University, Hangzhou 310015, China |
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Abstract Women’s literature flourished in the Qing Dynasty. The interpretation of boudoir writings in the context of Confucian norms of Fude (women’s virtues) became the primary topic of women’s poetry and literature. The discussion between Zhang Xuecheng and Yuan Mei on women’s poetry in the middle of the Qing Dynasty has now been widely noticed in the academic world. However, the questions of how the concept of Fude was interpreted in the Qing Dynasty boudoir writings and whether or not the relevant interpretations formed a universal mode of writing remain to be clarified in the texts. The change of “Yi Wenshi Dai Zhiren” (literature and history instead of sewing and weaving) was widely discussed in the prefaces and postscripts of the boudoir poems. Discovering and interpreting Fude in the collections of the Qing Dynasty boudoir poems and related documents will undoubtedly help explore the deeper impact of the requirements of Fude of “De Yan Rong Gong” (virtue, speech, appearance and merit) on women’s sense of creativity. The Qing Dynasty held the goodness of both Yan and De as a criterion and included “Yan” in the Side (four virtues of women) in Fude so that “Yan” was regarded as an important part of the practice of women’s morality. It emphasized the function of poems and books in educating and cultivating women’s morality and the role of women’s poetry in cultivating Fude. Zhang Xuecheng focused on the contradiction between boudoir writings and the norms of women’s morality. His remarks did not have the significance of practical guidance but were more based on the theoretical requirements for the reconstruction of gynecology. The transformation of space and the expansion of boundaries brought about by the involvement of boudoir writings in the Qing Dynasty not only reshaped women’s own perception of their roles but also redefined the behavior of women in ethical norms. The concept of the “linxiafeng” (林下风, women’s poetic style) associated with talented women developed into a dominant style of women’s literature and evolved into the standard of “Yan” and an integral part of the characteristics of the boudoir. As a pillar of the order of the family and the state in the Confucian ethical world, the rules and boundaries within and outside the boudoir constrained the creativity and spirituality of literary narratives, and thus needed to be adjusted through connotations to meet the real needs of the scholarly family that emphasized “motherhood” and the survival pattern of “Yi Wenshi Dai Zhiren”. In the Qing Dynasty, virtuous women who adhered to the norms of women’s morality and advocated the elegance of a family emphasized the role of literature and history in the cultivation of women’s morality in an eclectic manner, and consciously expressed their duties of motherhood, such as the teaching of knowledge, the influence of family customs and the education of character, in poems and writings. The interpretation of women’s morality in terms of Confucian norms in the Qing Dynasty boudoir writings provided a social foundation and theoretical basis for “Yi Wenshi Dai Zhiren”. It also strengthened the spatial boundaries of creative work in a more profound way, reflecting the course of boudoir writing’s tortuous evolution under the shackles of Confucian women’s morality ethics.
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Received: 07 November 2022
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2023, Vol. 53 
