ABSTRACT
Recent feminist-inspired research in the China field has recovered and rediscovered a vibrant literary culture among gentry women in the Ming and Qing periods. 1 As literacy and writing increased among women, their literary productions began to include, in addition to their own poetry, works with critical reflections and evaluative comments on writings by others. Such comments are usually found in the shihua (discussions on poetry) genre and in critical anthologies. In a recent bibliography of shihua from the Qing period, Jiang Yin lists more than 600 extant titles, the result of his decade-long exhaustive research conducted in numerous libraries in China and Asia. 2 Scattered among these titles are a handful of works by women. Subsequently, Jiang published a sequel with over two hundred shihua titles from the Qing that are no longer extant. Among these, the proportion of works by women, though still small, is more noticeable. 3 These efforts at critical writing by women suggest that their perceptions of themselves as participants in literary culture were enlarged from the creative role of poet to encompass the more authoritative position of critic.
