A woman poet during Song Dynasty: Li Qingzhao

Li Qingzhao

Rome [ENA] Among the great woman poets of the history of literature, besides Sappho and Emily Dickinson, it is worth mentioning Li Qingzhao, literary name (hao) Yi’an Jushi, also called Li Yi’an, (born 1084, Jinan, Shandong province, China—died after 1155, Jinhua, Zhejiang province). She is China’s greatest woman poet, and her work, though it survives only in fragments, continues to be as highly considered as it was during her

her lifespan. Nowadays in China verses by Li Qingzhao are quite famous and sung, as it used in the past and not for all kind of poetry. Li Qingzhao is known with other poets as Du Fu (杜甫 Gongyi, 712 – Hunan, 770) and Bai Juyi (also Bo Juyi or Po Chü-i; Chinese: 白居易; 772–846). She lived in the epoch of Song Dynasty (960–1279 A.D.) when women had lost the freedom they had reached in the period of the Tang dynasty (618 to 907 A.D.). They neither got the opportunity of holding offices in the government administration nor to get in higher education.

Li Qingzhao had the privilege of obtaining the above mentioned denied opportunities because she was born into a literary family, the beloved daughter of an aristocratic scholar and produced well-regarded poetry while still a teenager. Furthermore, she was the loved bride of an important State official, a Minister’s son, Zhao Mingcheng married in 1101. With her husband, an enthusiast collector, she made up an enormous catalogue of masterpieces. Unfortunately their marriage was cut short in 1129 by his death during their escape from the Juchen dynasty’s takeover of Kaifeng, the capital of the Song dynasty. Continuing alone, she arrived at Hangzhou by 1132. Two years later she fled to Jinhua, where she died, probably after 1155.

Li Qingzhao produced seven volumes of essays and six volumes of poetry, but most of her work is lost except for some poetry fragments and today it’s possible to read only quotations and two pages of lacerating laments she wrote after the untimely death of he wandering and poorr husband. Twenty years she dramatically survived her husband wanderind and poor getting married at least twice. It is possible to read references and hints of this part of her life which was bitter and delicate, violent and languishing. Notwithstanding Li’s intense sensitivity to and respect of natural phenomena, she is not a nature poet, because her attention remains mostly in her courtyard and garden.

She wanted through poetry to stop the flowing of life. Her poems are a sort of fight against time, an absolute certainty to delete oblivion. She wanted to regain the past to save her present time. She wanted to grip again a moment of time. Li’s dreams are conscious daydreams. She wrote primarily tz’u (or cí) poetry, a song form. Her talent governed the metrical rules of the form and was such that she created one of the earliest known scholarly studies of tz’u. Her poetry is well-known for its remarkable diction and for her emphasis on relating her personal experiences, giving her work more passionate force than that of her peers. Her poetic works reveal the dramas of her existence, with the earlier works marked by a relaxed

vitality and the pieces that she wrote after her husband’s death and her exile reflecting a sombre, grief-stricken tone. Li has been translated into English by Kenneth Rexroth, italian romantic poet Giacomo Leopardi’s translator. WU LING SPRING Fragrant petal-scented dust:/When flowers vanish/and wind ceases late in the day,/ I am too tired to brush my hair./Household objects are unchanged,/ but with my beloved’s absence,/ all quotidian matters cease./ Silent tears are prelude/ to the flow of speech./ I’ve heard about the beauty/ of paired rivers in springtime/ and plan on sailing/ my light boat there. I’m concerned, though,/ this little grasshopper boat/ cannot float the burden of grief. (translated from Chinese by Karen An-Hwei Lee)