Standard and Gender-specific Anthologies in the Pre-modern Period: Attempts and ‘Failures’ of the Canonization of Ming–Qing Women Poets

The didactic view of poetry as ‘moral instruction and social comment’ was established in the preface to the oldest preserved anthology of shi, the Shijing (Classic of Poetry) (Liu Reference Liu1962: 65–69).Footnote ^c In the mainstream tradition, literature became the ‘vehicle’ of the ‘Confucian way’. Literature in the service of the empire legitimized state ideology and the hierarchical socio-political system upheld by scholar-officials, who gained office through the imperial civil service examination (abolished in 1905). Traditional education included studying the Confucian Classics and writing administrative documents and refined poetry in a stylistic standard removed from everyday speech, called literary language (wenyan). Anthologies of texts divided into genres, with prescribed standards of writing for each genre, served as models to study for the civil service examination. In addition to literary texts (by today’s standards), these anthologies contained genres of useful administrative prose documents. Wenxuan (Selections of Refined Literature), an influential standard anthology edited by Xiao Tong (501–531) and organized by genre, included 761 prose texts and poetry by 130 authors (Rydholm Reference Rydholm and Lindberg-Wada2006: 74). These anthologies catered to male scholar-officials’ needs; women’s poetry had ‘no utility, no career value, and little prestige’ (Chang and Saussy Reference Chang and Saussy1999: viii). Grace Fong notes the prevalence of ‘standard anthologies, that is, conventional, established, “canonical” collections in which, if included at all, women were relegated to the margins at the end along with monks, foreigners and ghosts’ (Fong Reference Fong2004: 130).

Through their selection of authors and texts worthy of emulation, anthologies played a major role in canon formation in pre-modern China. The selection of genres also set a standard for high literature; genres ‘unsuited’ to serving a didactic purpose and/or not written in wenyan were excluded from standard anthologies. Genres of popular origin, prose narratives using ‘vulgar’ (vernacular) language with roots in oral storytelling and used for entertainment, such as fiction, were excluded (Rydholm Reference Rydholm, Cullhed and Rydholm2014). Even poetic genres initially suffered from exclusion in standard anthologies, such as the poetic genre of ci, which emerged as song lyrics set to popular ‘banquet-melodies’ in the Tang and Five dynasties (Rydholm Reference Rydholm and Lindberg-Wada2006). Love songs sung by courtesans in the entertainment quarters served no didactic purpose, but scholar-officials frequenting these establishments wrote new song lyrics to popular tunes, transforming the genre into a recognized poetic form that gained immense popularity during the Song dynasty. Initially, poets wrote love songs for the courtesans to perform, featuring beautiful courtesans in intimate boudoir settings, getting dressed, putting on make-up, longing for their lover, etc. In these ci, ‘the female figure is translated into an erotic object constituted by male gaze and desire’ (Fong Reference Fong and Yu1994: 113). Deeply embedded in courtesan culture and love-songs, the genre was gender-marked as ‘feminine’. However, this ‘femininity’ embodied male poets’ ‘masculinized consciousness’, even in poems with a dramatized feminine speaking voice. Maureen Robertson explains:

In the conventional genre hierarchy, the ‘feminized’ ci initially had low status, as a genre used for entertainment, dealing with love and expressing private, ‘unmanly’ emotions (Fong Reference Fong and Yu1994: 109). When the high-ranking Song scholar-official poet Su Shi (1037–1101) began writing ci about public, ‘manly’ themes, such as political ambitions and historical and philosophical reflections, a new ‘masculine’ style emerged within the genre labelled ‘heroic abandon’, in contrast to the original ‘feminine’ style, labelled ‘delicate restraint’. The expansion of the ci genre into the domain of shi and its increased didactic potential, contributed to its incorporation into high literature. However, an essential difference remained: ci ‘expressed emotions’ (ci yuan qing) while shi ‘expressed ideals’ (shi yan zhi), and the ci of the Song never gained the same prominence as the shi of the Tang. However, for women, who were barred from the civil service examination and public office, the gender-marking of ci as ‘feminine’ to some extent ‘legitimized’ women poets. Ci opened up a new poetic space for women to write about their personal emotions and private lives in the inner chambers. Li Qingzhao’s acceptance into the general literary canon depended on her excellence in writing ci. The gender-marking of two styles within ci, a feminine and a masculine, became important for feminist ci poets in the late Qing, such as Qiu Jin.

The increase in the number of women poets in the Ming and Qing, for the reasons discussed above, is not visible in the standard anthologies of the time, but only in gender-specific anthologies and collections. Ming–Qing Women’s Writings (2005) includes 431 collections (of some 5000 collections on record for the Ming and Qing, most of which are lost). In her study of anthologies of women’s poetry, Kang-i Sun Chang gives examples of efforts by several male editors who, recognizing the importance of anthologies in canon formation, ‘tried to ‘canonize’ women’s writings by repeatedly associating their anthologies with the classical canon, the Shijing […], or with the other classical source of poetry, the Li Sao’ (Chang Reference Chang, Widmer and Chang1997 [1992]: 150). One example is Nüsao (Female Sao) (1618), where the editor Zhao Shiyong stated his intention to preserve women’s poetry to ‘be remembered forever by posterity’, like the ‘classics and edicts’ (Zhao quoted in Chang Reference Chang, Widmer and Chang1997 [1992]: 150). Yuan Mei (1716–1797), the first scholar-poet to accept female disciples, also claimed that several poems in the Shijing were written by women, and included all of his (28) disciples in his anthology of women’s poetry (Chang Reference Chang, Widmer and Chang1997 [1992]: 153, 163). Zhou Shouchang’s 1843 anthology Gonggui wenxuan (Selections of Refined Literature by Women), was modelled on Wenxuan (Selections of Refined Literature), organized by genre, which included poetry by both courtesans and gentry women, but no Qing dynasty women (Chang Reference Chang, Widmer and Chang1997 [1992]: 165). Some late Ming editors, such as Zhong Xin (1574–1624), praised women’s poetry as being ‘pure’ and ‘natural’ because women possessed an inner ‘purity’ untainted by civil service careers that render men’s poetry ‘artificial’ (Chang Reference Chang, Widmer and Chang1997 [1992]: 152). Several male editors in the Ming and Qing thought women were particularly suited to write in the ‘feminine’ ci genre, equating ‘biological femaleness and stylistic femininity’, thereby elevating the status of women ci poets (Chang Reference Chang, Widmer and Chang1997 [1992]: 161). Finally, some efforts to canonize women poets involved promoting specific poets. In the collection Song Lyrics of Numerous Fragrances (1690), Xu Can (ca. 1610–after 1677) is praised as ‘the greatest poet of the present dynasty’ writing in ‘the style of the Northern Song dynasty, devoid of ornate and frivolous qualities’ (Chang: Reference Chang, Widmer and Chang1997 [1992]: 162).

Given the number of gender-specific anthologies and the efforts of male editors to canonize women poets, why were these women poets not included in the general literary canon? In ‘Gender and the failure of canonization: anthologizing women’s poetry in the late Ming’, Grace Fong (Reference Fong2004) reports several ‘counter-canonical’ practices of selection, organization, etc., in gender-specific anthologies by male editors. In anthologies from the second half of the sixteenth century, the selection included not only historical women (e.g. Li Qingzhao), but also mythological, legendary and even fictional women, as well as women listed simply by surname, or called ‘the courtesan’ from such and such a place, etc. (Fong Reference Fong2004: 133). Few of the numerous contemporary women were selected, and the same 20 or so women poets appear in several anthologies (Fong Reference Fong2004: 134). Tian Yiheng, editor of Lady Scholars of Poetry (1557), stated in the preface: ‘As for our own dynasty, though women poets are many, it is impossible to gather all of their works that are made available, and I have thus recorded only those that I have come to know’ (Tian Yiheng (1557) translated by Zhang Longxi in Chang and Saussy Reference Chang and Saussy1999: 735, quoted in Fong Reference Fong2004: 135). In the late sixteenth century, as Fong shows, there was instead a tendency towards ‘all-inclusiveness’. The editor Zheng Wen’ang wrote in his preface of 1620: ‘whether they are palace women, gentry women, commoners, ghosts, immortals, Daoist nuns, female entertainers, maids, concubines, they are all equal’ (Zheng quoted in Fong Reference Fong2004: 143). This was quite radical because gender-specific anthologies often deviated from standard genre-based anthologies, being instead organized by social status and moral conduct. In Compilation of Works Left by Red Writing Brushes (1567), the editor Li Hu divided women poets into four categories: ‘those whose learning and conduct are both excellent’, ‘those whose writing is superior to their conduct’, ‘those who are learned but have wanton ways’, and ‘lowly concubines and literary courtesans’ (Li quoted in Fong Reference Fong2004: 136). Fong’s study suggests several reasons for the lack of canonization of women poets in late Ming gender-specific anthologies edited by men. Gender-specific anthologies compiled by women had also emerged, but their anthologizing practices were often counter-productive to canonization, according to Fong, who writes: ‘Most significantly, they often saw their anthologizing efforts as creating a mutually supporting, communal space for women’ (Fong Reference Fong2004: 147).Footnote ^d In the early Qing dynasty, after 25 years of compilation, Wang Duanshu (1621–ca. 1706) published the impressive Classic Poetry by Famous Women (1667), which included poetry by ca. 1000 Ming and Qing women, including herself (Chang Reference Chang, Widmer and Chang1997 [1992]: 157). However, as Kang-i Sun Chang points out, Wang also arranged the women according to social status, placing gentry-women in the ‘proper’ (zheng) section and courtesans in the ‘erotic’ (yan) section (Chang Reference Chang, Widmer and Chang1997 [1992]: 158).

For women in ancient China, the act of writing meant overstepping traditional moral standards for women, as expressed in influential sayings such as ‘a woman without talent is a woman of virtue’ (nüzi wucai bianshi de), and ‘words are not to pass from the inner chambers to the outside world’ (neiyan buchu). Even in the Qing dynasty, there were still women who chose to burn their literary works rather than publish them (Chang Reference Chang, Widmer and Chang1997 [1992]: 169). The numerous anthologies of women’s poetry in late imperial China show that these old sayings were gradually losing their power, but despite the efforts of several editors, some anthologizing practices were counterproductive to the canonization of women poets. In my view, gender-specific anthologies are not counter-canonical per se. They catered to the popularity of women’s writings (and sales in urban areas) and contributed to the legitimization, rise in status and inclusion of women’s poetry in the contemporary literary culture. They were sources of inspiration for women writers and helped break down moral barriers preventing women from writing. Gender-specific anthologies opened up a separate, literary space where women’s poetry could flourish. However, gender-specific anthologies offered neither a fast track to canonization for women poets, nor any obvious route back into the standard anthologies and literary histories of the twentieth century once these collections were forgotten and left to gather dust in libraries and private collections.

Literary Historiography in China: Pre-modern Times and the Twentieth Century

In pre-modern China, theories of literary development were often presented in prefaces to anthologies. While Xiao Tong, editor of Selections of Refined Literature, saw literary development as a natural process leading to a multitude of literary forms, influential orthodox Confucian editors such as Zhi Yu (d. 311) regarded the Shijing as the origin from which all subsequent poetic forms emerged through a process of degeneration (Rydholm Reference Rydholm and Lindberg-Wada2006). Late Qing scholar Wang Guowei (1877–1927) claimed that all genres follow a cycle of rise, peak and decline before being replaced by the next genre (Wang Reference Wang and Guizhang1990: 4252). According to Wang, literary development was not a process of degeneration over time, but each genre had its golden age and ‘later works could not compare’ (Wang Reference Wang and Guizhang1990: 4252). Anthologies and literary histories of pre-modern literature in the twentieth century were often based on this cyclical view, in which the rise, peak and fall of literary genres conveniently coincided with the rise, peak and fall of historical dynasties. This is conventionally expressed as: ‘the fu (rhymed prose) of the Han’; ‘the shi of the Tang’; ‘the ci of the Song’; ‘the qu (drama) of the Yuan’; and ‘the xiaoshuo (fiction) of the Ming and Qing’. According to Kang-i Sun Chang, equating the golden era of excellence in poetry with the Tang and Song dynasties led to the neglect of not only female, but also male Ming–Qing poets in literary histories in the twentieth century in favour of Ming–Qing fiction (Chang Reference Chang1998: 68). This was certainly unfortunate for women poets of late imperial China, since the Ming and Qing dynasties actually were a ‘golden age’ of women’s classical poetry. The ci genre also suffered from traditional genre hierarchies since the canonical status of the ‘shi of the Tang’ (expressing ideals) has always surpassed that of ‘the ci of the Song’ (expressing emotions). Hence, with the very limited space allotted to each non-Western culture in twentieth-century Western anthologies of world literature, all the ci of the Song dynasty (including Li Qingzhao) were sometimes omitted in favour of just two hypercanonical male Tang poets, Li Bai and Du Fu. In the national context, for traditional critics, the ‘golden age’ and ‘gold standard’ of ci was located in the Song dynasty, and thus ci by women poets during the two waves of revival of the genre in the Ming and Qing dynasties ‘could not compare’. The cyclical view of literary development and the conventional genre hierarchies and standards both played a part in the neglect of Ming–Qing women ci poets.

The first ‘Western-style’ history of Chinese literature was published in 1904 (Wang Reference Wang2017: 6). In the development of a ‘modern’ Chinese literary historiography in the twentieth century, Ming–Qing women poets were simply left behind. Grace Fong explains:

Classical poetic genres were rejected in the reformist New Culture discourse of the early twentieth century, which called for a modern Chinese literature written in the vernacular, a ‘national language for a national literature’ (Hu Shi Reference Hu1970 [1918]: 291). The nationwide May Fourth Movement of 1919, with its calls for political and cultural rejuvenation, has been regarded as the starting point of Chinese literary modernity. The ‘May Fourth paradigm’, the discourse which has dominated Chinese literary historiography in the twentieth century (Wang Reference Wang2017: 2), entails that the development of modern Chinese literature demanded the rejection of traditional genres and literary language in favour of Western literary models and the use of contemporary vernaculars in literature. Wang explains:

Ming–Qing women’s poetry was a product of the old, traditional, feudalistic society rejected by the reformists. The traditional genres and the literary language in which they wrote could not be considered ‘modern’, regardless of content or style. In the national literary historiography, classical poetic forms such as ci did not fit into the matrix of the development of modern Chinese literature in the master narrative of a progressive, linear, teleological process of literary evolution since 1919. This master narrative, in turn, informed the narrative of the development of Chinese literature in the histories of Chinese literature published in the West in the twentieth century.

In recent decades, scholars in China and the West have questioned the May Fourth paradigm. This master narrative has lost its explanatory power because it fails to account for numerous signs of ‘early modernity’ identified in recent scholarship on Ming–Qing literature, and fails to acknowledge the development of ‘the distinctive modernity that characterizes Chinese literature alone’ (Wang Reference Wang2017: 3), etc. In Fin-de-Siècle Splendor: Repressed Modernities of Late Qing Fiction, 1849–1911, David Wang (Reference Wang1997) showed signs of reform and innovation in several genres of fiction, long before the May Fourth Movement, and traces ‘literary modernity’ back to the 1850s (Wang Reference Wang1997: 1). For example, Wang shows how chivalric fiction by both male and female writers contributed to feminist modernization by transforming the traditional, chivalrous woman warrior into a modern female revolutionary, fighting against foreign devils and for women’s equality (Wang Reference Wang1997: 165–174). Wang does not deny the influence of Western literature, but claims that signs of ‘early modernity’ in Late Qing fiction have been ‘repressed’ by ‘a monolithic discourse in which only Western theory and Western modernities could be spoken’ (Wang Reference Wang1997: 1). In Dynastic Crises and Cultural Innovation (2005), editors David Wang and Shang Wei ‘re-connect’ late Ming and late Qing literature kept separate by the May Fourth paradigm. The contributions of many scholars cover signs of ‘early modernity’ in several genres, such as women’s challenging of traditional gender roles in poetry and ‘poetic witnessing’ (Chang Reference Chang, Wang and Shang2005: 504–522). Signs of ‘modern Chinese feminine consciousness’ are also identified in seventeenth century tanci, narrative ballads written by women (Hu Reference Hu, Wang and Shang2005: 200–231). These studies find gendered subjectivity and the challenging of gender roles by women writers before the May Fourth Movement in several traditional genres. Of course, we might also ask whether the Western term ‘modernity’ is even suitable for classifying forms of Chinese literature. Instead of ‘modernity’, Wang and Wei use the terms ‘continuity and change’ from Liu Xie’s (465–520) Wenxin diaolong (The Literary Mind and the Carving of Dragons), to frame the contributions in the volume (Wang and Shang Reference Wang and Shang2005: 6). In my view, the terms ‘continuity’ and ‘change’ more aptly describe the dynamics at work in the development of Chinese literature in the pre-modern and even to a large extent modern periods (‘change’ can include inspiration from other literary cultures, past and present).

The May Fourth paradigm has lost its dominance in Chinese literary historiography. In histories of Chinese literature (and transcultural literary histories such as Literature: A World History) published in the twenty-first century, signs of ‘early modernity’ or ‘innovation’ are generally traced back to the late Qing, or sometimes the late Ming periods. This allows for a different storyline, one that includes Ming–Qing women’s classical poetry. The monumental Cambridge History of Chinese Literature, edited by Kang-i Sun Chang and Stephen Owen (Reference Chang and Owen2010), includes several ‘neglected’ women poets of the Ming and Qing dynasties. Their participation in literary culture and their impact on literary development are accounted for, showing that Ming–Qing women poets played an important role in the development of Chinese literature.

Another way of replacing the May Fourth paradigm is to dispense with a coherent narrative altogether, as in David Wang’s A New Literary History of Modern China (2017). This literary history includes 161 short essays by 143 authors on a vast number of topics, for instance the portrayal of women in a novel, an author’s travels abroad, Mao Zedong’s ‘Talks at the Yan’an Forum on Literature and Art’, underground poems in the 1970s, all treated as separate, ‘literary events’ and listed chronologically.Footnote ^e There is no single coherent narrative that follows the course of a progressive, linear teleological evolution of modern Chinese literature based on the assumption of ‘belated modernity’. The work reveals the complexities and contingencies in the development of Chinese literary culture in an increasingly globalized world.Footnote ^f Wang’s literary history includes essays on late Qing ‘modern’ women writers, such as Lü Bicheng (Fong Reference Fong and Wang2017: 325–331) and Qiu Jin (Hu Reference Hu and Wang2017: 214–219). However, there are no essays on late Ming women poets (such as Liu Shi), or on the connections between late Ming and late Qing women’s ci poetry, as this literary history begins in the late eighteenth century. The women ci poets discussed below, Liu Shi and Qiu Jin, contributed to the development of ci in different ways. Both were neglected in standard anthologies in pre-modern China and in twentieth-century Chinese literary historiography, like so many others in late imperial China, but individual circumstances must also be taken into account.

Two ‘Innovative’ Women Ci Poets in Times of National Crisis

The two poets discussed here, Liu Shi (1618–1664) and Qiu Jin (1875–1907), lived very different lives, as is reflected in the content and style of their ci poetry. However, they both lived during periods of dynastic crisis, the late Ming (1550–1644) and late Qing (1851–1911) periods, which saw great cultural innovation (Wang and Shang Reference Wang and Shang2005: 1). The genre of ci poetry experienced two ‘revivals’ after the Song dynasty, in the Ming and the Qing, when women made crucial contributions to the revival and rejuvenation of the genre. Late Ming culture celebrated romantic love in fiction and drama, and there were many anthologies of courtesan poetry, demonstrating the high literary status of courtesans (Chang Reference Chang, Widmer and Chang1997 [1992]: 154). In The Late-Ming Poet Ch’en Tzu-lung: Crises of Love and Loyalism, Kang-i Sun Chang (Reference Chang1991) showed that the love poetry exchanged between the literary courtesan Liu Shi and her lover, Chen Zilong (1608–1647), was at the core of the ‘Yunjian-school for the revival of ci’, initiated by Chen. According to Chang, the ci exchanged between the two lovers were inspired by lyrical drama and embodied ‘secret communication’ – imagery and symbols with personal meaning that created shared lyrical worlds (Chang Reference Chang1991: 41–68). Chang shows that their love poetry, the lyrical worlds and symbolism they shared, influenced Chen’s Ming-loyalist ci, in which Liu Shi also became ‘a symbol of the Ming’ (Chang Reference Chang1991:18). In Chang’s view, ci expresses love and emotion, and since patriotism is also a kind of love, ‘if we want to present loyalism allegorically […] the most effective and most readily comprehensible image for us to use in a tz’u form would […] be that of romantic love’ (Chang Reference Chang1991: 101).

In Liu Shi’s ci, the female persona is no silent object of the male gaze. In her ci in 20 verses, set to the tune of ‘Dream of the South’,Footnote ^g a subjective, first-person female voice recounts the passionate love affair between her and her lover, and her sorrow after their separation. Liu Shi eventually married the scholar-official Qian Qianyi. She edited the section on women poets in the anthology he compiled, placing gentry-women and courtesans in the same category, while favouring courtesan-style poetry on romantic love (Chang Reference Chang, Widmer and Chang1997 [1992]: 154). Liu Shi’s contributions to the revival and rejuvenation of ci were largely unexplored before Chang’s study. Literary works by Ming-loyalist poets involved in anti-Manchu resistance, such as Chen Zilong and Qian Qianyi, were subject to political censorship by the Qing regime. Qian Qianyi’s anthology (with Liu’s section on women’s poetry), was banned in the eighteenth century (Chang Reference Chang, Widmer and Chang1997 [1992]: 156). Loyal to the Ming Emperor, Chen Zilong chose martyrdom in 1647. His works were banned until 1776, when the Emperor Qianlong ‘rehabilitated’ Chen and named him a ‘poet-hero’ (Chang Reference Chang1991: 120). However, the ‘rediscovery’ of Chen Zilong’s ci did not lead to a rediscovery of Liu Shi’s ci and her impact on the development of the genre. With the rise of neo-Confucianism in the Qing dynasty and a more ‘moralistic’ attitude towards romantic love, courtesan poets lost their status in literary culture and were ‘virtually excluded from the world of refined letters’ (Chang Reference Chang1991: 119–120). According to Chang, Qing scholars ‘deliberately suppressed’ information about Chen Zilong’s romantic relationship with Liu Shi, ‘to safeguard Ch’en’s reputation as a Confucian hero’ (Chang Reference Chang1991: 120).

Qiu Jin grew up in a scholar-official family and received a traditional education, but she also trained in martial arts and read chivalric stories of women warriors (Chang and Saussy, Reference Chang and Saussy1999: 632). In the late Qing period, China was semi-colonized by Western imperialists after the Opium Wars and had lost the first Sino-Japanese War. Intellectuals and students called for reform, modernization and revolt against the weak Qing regime to ‘save China’. Qiu Jin was part of the progressive elite, debating modern education, gender equality, etc. She became a feminist, unbound her feet, and began to cross-dress. Qiu Jin left her husband and went to Japan to study in 1904–1905, where she joined revolutionary groups and engaged in sword training. She edited a journal and published a feminist manifesto against arranged marriages, foot-binding, etc. Back in China, she taught at a women’s school, aiming to ‘enlighten’ women and promote revolution. Her involvement in a failed assassination plot against a high Manchu official led to her arrest and execution in 1907. Qiu Jin’s memorial service sparked protests against the Qing regime. Her revolutionary struggle and martyrdom were featured in elegies, biographies, plays, and fiction (such as Jinguanzi’s Frost in June, 1911), and she became ‘the icon of a new kind of womanhood’, admired by young feminists (Hu Reference Hu and Wang2017: 218).

Qiu Jin’s literary works, on the other hand, have been largely neglected in literary histories in twentieth century China (and consequently also in the West). Qiu Jin wrote poetry in classical forms, including tanci and ci. Deng Hongmei has shown how Qiu Jin’s ci relate the story of her life, as she became increasingly patriotic and feminist (Deng Reference Deng2002: 578–600). ‘Three inch lotus feet’ was a charged erotic symbol in conventional ci, but Qiu openly called for the abolishment of foot binding in her ci.Footnote ^h Deng claims that Qiu was infusing the ci genre with new content, combining patriotism with a total rejection of traditional women’s roles, praising virtuous women warriors and expressing her ambition to become one in reality, fighting, and even sacrificing herself for her country (Deng Reference Deng2002: 578–600). In expressing her revolutionary and feminist agenda, Qiu Jin adopted the masculine style of ‘heroic abandon’ in her ci. Grace Fong has discussed the emergence of a ‘heroic feminine’ in ci, a kind of ‘literary cross-dressing’ done by adopting the masculine style (Fong Reference Fong and Yu1994: 143). Fong explains:

Qiu Jin’s thematic expansion and stylistic ‘cross-dressing’ did not, however, appeal to traditional connoisseurs of ci. For these critics, Qiu Jin’s ci ‘deviated’ from the so-called ‘true spirit of the genre’ (fei ci bense) (Deng Reference Deng2002: 596). (And compared with the gold standard of Song dynasty ci, Qiu’s efforts were evidence of the genre’s degeneration.) In Qiu’s defence, Deng Hongmei argues that her poetic language reflected her classical training, and that a sense of sorrow and loneliness softened and added a delicate flavour to the anger and frustration she expressed, thus combining feminine and masculine styles and enhancing the aesthetic appeal of her ci (Deng Reference Deng2002: 596–598). According to Deng, Qiu was unique in the history of ci; both in content and in style, she created a ‘new world’ in ci, with the image of a ‘new woman’, reflecting the time of national crisis, but also her own personality and genuine emotions (Deng Reference Deng2002: 600). However, because Qiu Jin’s new ‘heroic-feminist’ woman dwelled in a unique poetic world within a classical poetic form, her ci could not be included in the discourse of ‘modernity’ in national literary histories in the twentieth century. Too radical for canonization in pre-modern poetry, but not progressive enough for inclusion in ‘modern’ Chinese literature, Qiu Jin’s ci were largely neglected until the late twentieth century. In my view, Qiu Jin’s ci show that the classical, poetic form of ci, the literary language, and even the traditional gender-marked styles of the genre, were not incompatible with ‘modern’ ideas of a new woman, fighting for freedom and equal rights, and that the genre of ci never stopped evolving and adapting to the times and expressive needs of individual poets in the twentieth century. Qiu Jin’s ci further disproves the May Fourth paradigm in national literary historiography.