5. The price of challenge: being besieged and accused
Did Li Qingzhao’s exquisite lyrics win her flowers and applause? In the Southern Song Dynasty where she lived, Li Qingzhao was repeatedly besieged, criticized and even abused by male scholar-bureaucrats because she challenged tradition and male power.
Let’s first look at the evaluation of Wang Zhuo’s “Biji Manzhi”. Wang Zhuo was a lyricist at the same time as Li Qingzhao but later. His "Biji Manzhi" is the first complete commentary on the lyrics of contemporary poets in the Song Dynasty. The book says:
Jushi Yi'an, the daughter of Uncle Wen of Tixing Li Gefei on Jingdong Road, and the wife of Zhao Mingcheng Defu of Jiankang Shou. He has been famous for poetry since he was young, and his talents are as brilliant as those of his predecessors, which are rare among scholar-bureaucrats. If you are a woman of this dynasty, you should be the first to recommend words. After Zhao died, he remarried to a certain family, filed a lawsuit and left her, wandering around in the later years without returning. He can compose short and long sentences to the fullest, with lightness and sharpness, and a variety of gestures. He can write licentious words in alleys and alleys, and he can write them without hesitation. Since ancient times, there has never been such a carefree woman in a gentry's family who can write.
Wang Zhuo first promoted and then suppressed, first praised and then demoted. It is said that Li Qingzhao was talented, even compared with male scholar-bureaucrats, he was rare. Among the women of this dynasty, he was the first in diction. This rating doesn't seem to be low. But then Wang Zhuo started talking about Li Qingzhao's private life. After Zhao Mingcheng passed away, Li Qingzhao briefly remarried Zhang Ruzhou. Because Zhang Ruzhou had serious "domestic violence" behavior, Li Qingzhao couldn't bear it, and soon chose to leave in great pain. For this Li Qingzhao paid the price of ruining his reputation. The process of Li Qingzhao's remarriage and the reasons for his divorce are not particularly clear. There is a view that Zhang Ruzhou may have coveted the precious cultural relics in Li Qingzhao's home and got close to Li Qingzhao. After the deceitful marriage was successful, he found that there was no treasure as expected. When he was disappointed, he became violent towards Li Qingzhao, often bullying and scolding him. Li Qingzhao couldn't bear the torture anymore, so he reported Zhang Ruzhou for "increasing the number of officials to serve as an official". Later, it was found out that Zhang Ruzhou was imprisoned and expelled. The law of the Song Dynasty stipulated that if a son sued his father or a wife sued her husband, if the crime was found guilty, the son or wife would go to jail. Therefore, Li Qingzhao was also thrown into prison. Because someone rescued him, he was released from prison nine days later. This is what Wang Zhuo said: "Marry a certain family again, then file a lawsuit and leave." People in the Song Dynasty did not think that divorce was an immoral act for women, but a wife suing her husband was an abnormal event that people at that time could not accept. Li Qingzhao was destroying his reputation by reporting on his own husband. Li Qingzhao was willing to take the risk of his reputation being ruined, and there must be a desperate secret behind it. The domestic violence Li Qingzhao suffered may have been extraordinary. In "Qi Chongli Qi, a Scholar in the Hanlin Academy", she said that Zhang Ruzhou was "determined to kill him, so he violated him wantonly. "Beat him every day", poor and weak Li Qingzhao could not withstand Zhang Ruzhou's violent torture, so she would rather lose her reputation and sue Zhang Ruzhou to get rid of the unbearable violence. Wang Zhuo said that she "wandered around in the evening with no return", which had a clear derogatory meaning, implying that she was not a woman, did not protect the evening, wandered around, and ultimately had no home. Wang Zhuo was even more dissatisfied with Li Qingzhao's poems, saying that her poems contained "lewd and obscene words in alleys and were written wantonly." Since ancient times, no woman from a scholar-bureaucrat's family who could write was as unrestrained and vulgar as her! Judging from the existing works, Li Qingzhao's lyrics are very exquisite and elegant. There are no explicit descriptions at all, and there is no "lewd language" at all. Liu Yong's poem blatantly wrote about flirting with ***, Ouyang Xiu's poem even more explicitly wrote about sexual intercourse between men and women, and Wang Zhuo didn't scold them for being "lewd". Li Qingzhao wrote about missing her husband in his poem, and was scolded like crazy, which reflected male discourse. Hegemony and severe discrimination against women.
Hu Zai, who was at the same time as Wang Zhuo but slightly later, said in his poetic work "Tiaoxi Yuyincong Hua":
In recent times, women People who are good at writing and writing, like Li Yian, have many good sentences. One of his poems goes like this: "Last night it rained and the wind blew, and I couldn't drink the wine after a deep sleep. I tried to ask the person behind the curtain, but the crabapples were still the same. Did you know that they should be green, fat, red and thin?" "Green fat, red thin", this phrase is very new. Another "Nine Days Ci" says: "The west wind blows behind the curtains, and people are as thin as yellow flowers." This sentence is also difficult for women to come across. Yi An became acquainted with Zhang Ruzhou again, and soon they turned against each other. In "Qishi", Qi Shuhou said: "The late scene of the mulberry tree is incompatible with the lowly talent of a charlatan." All the passers-by laughed at it.
Hu Zai also admitted that Li Qingzhao was "good at writing words" and "spoken very new", especially emphasizing her identity as a woman. The implication is that it is not easy for women to be able to write such words because they are not good at it. With an obvious sense of male superiority. Let’s just comment on the comments, and let’s take Li Qingzhao’s divorce as an example. What Li Qingzhao said, "The old age of Sangyu is used to match the poor talent of a philistine" was originally a sad and regretful statement, but Hu Zai used it to make fun of him and said, "Everyone who writes about it laughs at it." Not only is there no sympathy, but a kind of The psychology of schadenfreude.
Zhu Yu of the Southern Song Dynasty once said in "Pingzhou Ke Tan":
Among the literate women in this dynasty, Li Yian was the first. Yi An, whose name is Qingzhao, is the daughter of Li Gefei, a famous person in Yuanyou. The poetry is as classic as the ancient authors, and the words are particularly elegant and often unexpected. There is no comparison in recent history. He has written twelve volumes of collected works and one volume of "Collection of Shuyu". However, if you don't end the night, you will die in exile. What a pity that God favors his talents but begrudges his opportunities!
Zhu Yu said that Li Qingzhao's dictionaries are as elegant and rich as those of the ancients, and his lyrics are particularly beautiful and "often unexpected." Recently, few people can compete with her. This evaluation is still relatively high. But the conversation changed and he said it was derogatory to say that she didn't end up having fun.
"Wandering leads to death" means that Qingzhao wandered around in his later years without a fixed residence or a good destination. "It's a pity that nature favors talents but is generous with their opportunities"! It means that God gave her such a great talent, so why did he stingyly deny her a good life and make her life miserable in her later years? What a pity! "Xi Zai" on the surface expresses sympathy and pity, but deep down it means that a woman should not be so talented. If she is talented, her life will be bad. It seems to be an implicit sarcasm.
Chao Gongwu, a famous bibliophile in the Southern Song Dynasty, said in his bibliographic work "Junzhai Shuzhi":
The daughter of Ge Fei, the Li family of the dynasty, first married Zhao Chengzhi, a talented man. Algae name. His uncle's official husband was in the Huizong Dynasty. Li Shi once presented a poem and said: "The hands can be hot but the heart can be cold." However, there was no inspection and control, and Zhang Ruzhou was later appointed, which did not end in the evening. Living in the rivers and lakes, he died.
Women in the Song Dynasty did not have their own independent identity. Li Qingzhao was already famous, but Chao Gongwu still did not mention her name directly. He only said that she was Li Gefei's daughter and married Zhao Mingcheng. "Uncle" here refers to her father-in-law; "official husband" refers to Zhao Tingzhi, Zhao Mingcheng's father, who served as prime minister in the Huizong Dynasty. Zhao Tingzhi and Li Qingzhao's biological father, Li Gefei, belonged to two factions. Zhao Tingzhi belonged to the New Party and Li Gefei belonged to the Old Party. Zhao Tingzhi had persecuted members of the Old Party when he was prime minister, so Li Qingzhao wrote a poem to Zhao Tingzhi, satirizing him for being "hot and enthusiastic". It’s cold.” "But there is no inspection" means that Li Qingzhao has bad moral character, and later remarried and did not end up in the family. He did not comment on her literary achievements, but only negatively commented on her integrity. "Wandering in the rivers and lakes to die" means that she ended up wandering around in the rivers and lakes and died. There is no sympathy at all. His attitude was very contemptuous, unlike later generations who worshiped and looked up to Li Qingzhao.
Chen Zhensun's "Explanation of Zhizhai Shulu" is also a famous work on bibliography. It says that "One volume of Shuyu Collection was written by Li Shiqingzhao, a lay scholar in Yi'an. It was written by Uncle Wen, a famous scholar in Yuanyou. The daughter married Zhao Mingcheng Defu of Dongwu, and she was quite unruly in her old age." More directly, he criticized Li Qingzhao for "losing integrity" and made no mention of the quality of her lyrics. It can be seen that in the late Southern Song Dynasty, people's evaluation of Li Qingzhao became worse and worse.
I was reading "History of the Ming Dynasty" and accidentally read an article. It said that there was a martyr girl in the Ming Dynasty who was very talented when she was a child and wrote good poems. Her brother said to him that her sister was simply the reincarnation of Li Qingzhao and Zhu Shuzhen. ah. The brother's original intention was to praise her for her talent, but his sister became furious after hearing this and said: Why do you compare me to Li Qingzhao of the Song Dynasty? Who is Li Qingzhao? She later remarried and was a dishonest woman! Zhu Shuzhen was even more unruly and engaged in extramarital affairs. Don't think that we worship and look up to Li Qingzhao now, the ancients also worshiped him the same way. Due to different times, people's moral concepts, values, concepts of women and concepts of marriage are different, so the views and evaluations of the same people and events will be very different. Before the Ming Dynasty, Li Qingzhao was dragged down by the divorce incident, and her personality was deeply despised and criticized, which also affected the evaluation and acceptance of her works. Her works were completely lost by the Ming Dynasty, which may be related to people's moral evaluation of her. A woman who loses her integrity and whose moral character is spurned will also have her works rejected and ignored by people. The great treacherous minister Cai Jing was a master of calligraphy and poetry, but later generations despised him and despised his works, so that his poems were rarely circulated. The existence of ancient writers' works has both accidental and inevitable factors.
It was not until the middle and late Ming Dynasty that Li Qingzhao's status in the history of Ci was recognized. Yang Shen, a great talent in the Ming Dynasty, highly commented on Li Qingzhao, saying:
Among Song people, Li Yian is also known as the best lyricist. In terms of clothes and hats, the envoy should compete with Qin Qi and Huang Jiu for supremacy, not just in the boudoir. The title of his poem "Shu Yu Ji" has not been found. The word "slow voice" is the most euphemistic.
Yang Shen said that among the poets of the Song Dynasty, Li Yian was very outstanding and could be called the leader. Not only did he dominate among female poets, but even among male poets, he was comparable to Qin Guan and Huang Tingjian. Wang Shizhen, a great scholar in the late Ming Dynasty, compared Li Qingzhao with great poets such as Li Jing, Li Yu and his son, Yan Shu, Yan Jidao and his son, Liu Yong, Zhang Xian, Zhou Bangyan, Qin Guan, etc., and praised him as the "authentic" poet:
Poems are words, but not words; words are poems, but not poetry. Speaking of his career, the Li family, Yan family and his son, Qi Qing, Ziye, Meicheng, Shaoyou, and Yi'an are all here, and the poems are authentic.
After the Ming Dynasty, Li Qingzhao’s status gradually improved. Especially in the 20th century, with the improvement of women’s social status, Li Qingzhao’s status in literary history has been highly recognized. Today, people generally believe that she is the most famous poet in the history of poetry. Outstanding female lyricist.
There are two levels of intention and thinking in talking about this topic. The first is to explain that when studying ancient writers, we need to return to the historical scene and try to understand the creative ecology of ancient writers, which is to "know people and judge the world." Back to the time when Li Qingzhao lived, we learned that as a woman, writing was not easy and required courage. Why did only a few female poets and poets such as Li Qingzhao and Zhu Shuzhen receive attention from later generations in the Song Dynasty? There must have been many women who were capable of poetry and lyrics at that time. Because of the influence of the concept of women under the patriarchal dictatorship, writing and disseminating works was considered a shameful and dishonorable thing, so a large number of works were not handed down, and the works were not spread. The author It has become oblivion. The second is to illustrate that a writer's reputation and influence are constantly changing. Li Qingzhao's high status and popularity in the literary history of our time does not mean that she was also looked up to and worshiped in history.
The historical status of a writer and the influence of his works change with the times. We must look at literary history with a changing perspective.
(Author’s affiliation: School of Liberal Arts, Wuhan University)