The Interaction Between Li Qingzhao’s Life and Her Works

The interaction between Li Qingzhao’s life and her works

Li Qingzhao, alias Yi An the Lay Buddist, was the greatest woman ci poet in China and a major link in the poetic tradition—the successor to Su Shi and a precursor of Xin Qiji. She was the first person to point out that ci is different from shi (in her “On the Song Lyric”(Cilun)) as ci is closely connected to music and art. In the early stage of her life, Li Qingzhao’s poems revealed her lively untamed spirit and love of nature; however, her later ci-poems contained more sorrows and are more admired for their pathos. Why did the styles of Li Qingzhao’s ci-poems change so much? Why are some of the poems full of happiness and love while others filled with depression and criticism towards the world? In this essay, I will analyze how the changes of Li Qingzhao’s life and the environment and the styles of her ci-poems influence each other following her life.

Early stage: before moving to Qing Zhou (1084-1107)

Li Qingzhao’s works during this period were mostly positive and delightful. The daughter of a distinguished man of letters and a woman with noble birth, Li Qingzhao was brought up in a favorable environment, which enabled her to acquire a deep knowledge of literature and classics in her teens. Influenced by her open-minded parents and harmonic family environment, Li Qingzhao was outgoing and knowledgeable as a teenage girl. She was also very talented and happy that she began to write delightful ci-poems on her excursions to the suburbs and nearby beauty spots. Works like “Don’t you know? Oh, don’t you know? The green should be plump and the read lean” and “In Reply to Zhang Lei” first established her reputation as a poet. Her works such as “Pushing and thrashing, Pushing and thrashing as best we could, We scared into flight A shoreful of dozing egrets and gulls” (“A Dream Song”) revealed her girlish naiveté and love for the nature. She did not have any worries and concerns at that time and enjoyed the...