Gu Taiqing
Gu Taiqing (Chinese: 顾太清; Pinyin: Gù Tàiqīng; 1799 – c. 1877) was one of the top-ranked women poets of the Qing Dynasty. She is especially known for her 'ci' poetry and for her sequel to the novel Honglou meng.
Her family was originally from Liaoning. There is some debate as to whether or not she was was of Manchu descent. According to one school of thought she was born into a bannerman family named Gu and took on Manchu identity after her marriage to Yihui, a Manchu prince. Other scholars claim that the confusion about her identity is an attempt to obscure her family's descent from E-er-tai, a Manchu grand secretary disgraced (and forced to commit suicide) during one of Qianlong's literary inquisitions.[1]
Her marriage to Yihui seems to have been a happy one. She had five choldren--three sons and two daughters. Yihui also had children with his first wife, who died early. Her life was thrown into turmoil when her husband died in 1838. His son by his first wife forced her and her children out of their Beijing home. During this period of poverty she may have sustained her family by selling jewelry and artwork<Widmer, The Beauty and the Book, p.188.</ref>
Like several other women writers and poets, she had Shi Yunyu as a supporter. She was also a friend of Liang Desheng, a female writer of tan-ci.
Gu Yaiqing was the author of a sequel to Honglou meng (Dream of the Red Chamber), entitled Honglou meng ying (Dream Shadows of the Red Chamber).[2]
Gu Taiqing wrote about the modern social reality. Her collection of poems is Poems Written in Tianyou Pavilion.
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- ^ Ellen Widmer, The Beauty and the Book: Women and Fiction on Nineteenth-Century China. Cambridge, Mass: Harvard University Asia Center, 2006, pp.187-88.
- ^ Ellen Widmer, The Beauty and the Book: Women and Fiction on Nineteenth-Century China. Cambridge, Mass: Harvard University Asia Center, 2006, chapter 6.