ABSTRACT
What did it feel like to be a writing woman in early modern China? Which elements in Chinese society shaped her dreams, her social and cultural aspirations, her desires, fears and nightmares? How did she perceive herself, fashion her image and represent herself to the world? What impression did she make? How did her observers and contemporaries – in particular the literati, late imperial China’s political elite and the gatekeepers of elite culture, but also other literate women including both gentlewomen and courtesans – perceive and accommodate this new phenomenon? How did they construe the trope of the woman writer in their imagination and how did they portray her in cultural discourse?
