Hiding in Caverns Formed From Old Roots - The Collected Poems of Yu Xuanji

Yu Xuanji (c. 843-868) is one of the most interesting poets in premodern Chinese literature, and her approximately fifty extant poems include some of the most arresting writing from the Tang dynasty--a period known as the golden age of Chinese poetry. Born a commoner, by fifteen Yu had become the concubine of a man from an illustrious family, until he abandoned her and she became a Daoist priestess, where she took on an active role as a poet as well as a religious practitioner. She was only a priestess for two years before she was executed at the age of twenty-six on dubious accusations of murder.

Yu's story is fascinating, but her poetry is even more so. Despite her relatively slim output and the patriarchal culture in which she lived, she became known for writing that combines late Tang lushness with a rare frankness about what it meant to be a woman in the ninth century. Yu was an incisive and expressive poet, and her work treats a wide range of topics, such as love, spirituality, abandonment, female friendship, sex, and sexuality. Preceded by a critical introduction explaining the possibility of a tradition of women's poetry in medieval China, as well as Yu's relationship with the dominant tradition of male poets, this collection of innovative translations combines scholarly accuracy with a poet's demand for creative solutions in handling the crossover between languages and literary styles.

List of contents

• Acknowledgements


• Introduction


• Poems


• 1. Written on the Willows on the River


• 2. To the Neighbor Girl


• 3. To Guoxiang


• 4. To the Master Alchemist


• 5. To Secretary Liu


• 6. At the Temple of Washing Silk


• 7. Selling Wilted Peonies


• 8. In Exchange for the Mat from Scholar Li


• 9. A Love Letter for Li Yi


• 10. A Boudoir Complaint


• 11. Spring Feelings, Sent to Li Yi


• 12. Polo Poem


• 13. Feelings at the End of Spring, Sent to a Friend


• 14. Winter Night, Sent to Wen Tingyun


• 15. In Exchange for Li Ying's poem "Coming Back from Fishing One Summer Day"


• 16. Rhyming with My New Neighbor to the West, On Sharing Some Wine


• 17. Rhyming with a Friend


• 18. Rhymes Mourning a New Graduate: Two Poems


• 19. Traveling to the Daoist Temple of Reverent Authenticity, I See the Names of New Candidates Posted on the South Tower


• 20. Sad Thoughts: Two Poems


• 21. River Ditty


• 22. Hearing that Censor Li was Back from Fishing I Sent This as a Gift


• 23. At Providing Fortune Monastery, Created by Recluse Ren


• 24. At the Pavilion Hidden in Fog


• 25. Detained by Rain on Double Ninth Festival


• 26. Early Autumn


• 27. Sent to Someone as an Expression of How I Feel


• 28. A Date with a Friend who Couldn't Make It, Being Detained by Rain


• 29. Visiting Alchemist Zhao, Who Was Not There


• 30. Expressing Thoughts


• 31. Sent to Wen Tingyun


• 32. Stopping by Ezhou


• 33. Summer Days, Mountain Living


• 34. The Scene in Late Spring


• 35. An Elegy on Behalf of Someone


• 36. Rhyming with Someone


• 37. Across the Han River-for Li Yi


• 38. A Parable


• 39. Sad Longings at Jiangling, for Li Yi


• 40. For Li Yi


• 41. Seeing You Off: Two Poems


• 42. A Welcome for Sir Li Jinren


• 43. Zuo Mingchang Sends a Messenger en route to the Capital from Zezhou


• 44. Following Someone Else's Rhyme Words


• 45. Guang, Wei, and Pou, Sisters Orphaned Young Who Are Growing into Beauties, Wrote a Work of Such Peerless Quintessence that Even the Snow Couplet by the Xie Family Could Add Nothing to It, So I Wrote This Following its Rhymes After It Was Shown to Me by a Visitor from the Capital


• 46. To Break Willow Branches


• 47. Fragments


• Appendices


• 1. "Linked Lines" by the Sisters Guang, Wei, and Pou (their surname lost)


• 2. Huangfu Mei (fl. 873-910), "Yu Xuanji is executed for flogging Lüqiao to death"


• 3. Sun Guangxian (d. 968), from The Trivialities of North Dream


• 4. Zhai Yongming (b. 1955), "The Rhapsody of Yu Xuanji"


• Works Cited

About the author

Yu Xuanji (c. 843-868) was a concubine, a Daoist priestess, and a poet who was executed at the age of twenty-six on dubious accusations of murder. Though only approximately fifty of her poems have survived, she is now the most famous woman poet of the Tang dynasty.

Lucas Klein is Associate Professor of Chinese at Arizona State University and Associate Editor of the Hsu-Tang Library of Classical Chinese Literature. His publications include The Organization of Distance and, as coeditor, Chinese Poetry and Translation and The Bloomsbury Handbook of Modern Chinese Literature in Translation. He is also the translator of poetry by Mang Ke, Li Shangyin, Duo Duo, and Xi Chuan.

Summary

Yu Xuanji (c. 843-868) is one of the most interesting poets in premodern Chinese literature, and her approximately fifty extant poems include some of the most arresting writing from the Tang dynasty--a period known as the golden age of Chinese poetry. Born a commoner, by fifteen Yu had become the concubine of a man from an illustrious family, until he abandoned her and she became a Daoist priestess, where she took on an active role as a poet as well as a religious practitioner. She was only a priestess for two years before she was executed at the age of twenty-six on dubious accusations of murder.

Yu's story is fascinating, but her poetry is even more so. Despite her relatively slim output and the patriarchal culture in which she lived, she became known for writing that combines late Tang lushness with a rare frankness about what it meant to be a woman in the ninth century. Yu was an incisive and expressive poet, and her work treats a wide range of topics, such as love, spirituality, abandonment, female friendship, sex, and sexuality. Preceded by a critical introduction explaining the possibility of a tradition of women's poetry in medieval China, as well as Yu's relationship with the dominant tradition of male poets, this collection of innovative translations combines scholarly accuracy with a poet's demand for creative solutions in handling the crossover between languages and literary styles.

Product details

• Authors: Yu Xuanji
• Assisted by: Lucas Klein (Translation), Klein Lucas (Translation)
• Publisher: Oxford University Press
• Languages: English
• Product format: Hardback
• Released: 19.01.2025
• EAN: 9780197778173
• ISBN: 978-0-19-777817-3
• No. of pages: 160
• Series: The Hsu-Tang Library of Classical Chinese Literature
• Subjects: Fiction > Narrative literature; Humanities, art, music > Linguistics and literary studies > General and comparative literary studies; HISTORY / Asia / China, LITERARY COLLECTIONS / Women Authors, LITERARY COLLECTIONS / Asian / Chinese, Literary studies: classical, early & medieval, Literature: history & criticism, Literary studies: ancient, classical and medieval