Imagery of female Daoists in Tang and Song poetry

• Main Author: Liu, Yang
• Language: English
• Published: University of British Columbia 2011
• Online Access: http://hdl.handle.net/2429/34383

This dissertation involves a literary study that aims to understand the lives of female Daoists who lived from the eighth to the twelfth centuries in China. Together with an examination of the various individual qualities manifested in their poetry, this study includes related historical background, biographical information and a discussion of the aspirations and cultural life of the female clergy. Unlike some of the previous scholarship that has examined Daoist deities and mythical figures described in hagiographical texts and literary creations, or on topics such as the Divine Mother of the West and miscellaneous goddesses and fairies, this work takes the perspective of examining female Daoists as historical persons who lived in real Daoist convents. As such, this work concentrates on the assorted images of female Daoists presented in their own poetic works, including those of Yu Xuanji, Li Ye, Yuan Chun, Cao Wenyi and Sun Bu-er. Furthermore, this thesis also examines poetic works about female Daoists written by male literati from both inside and outside the Daoist religion. I do this in order to illustrate how elite men, the group with whom female Daoists interacted most frequently, appreciated and portrayed these special women and their poetry. I believe that a study of their works on Daoist women will not only allow us a better understanding of the nature and characters of female Daoists, but will also contribute to our knowledge of intellectual life in Tang and Song society. An investigation of their varied representation at different historical junctures illustrates the multifarious images of Tang Daoist nuns and the strong commitment that the Song Daoist priestesses made to their religious enterprise, as well as the divergent perspectives and responses that the male intellectuals of the time had for this unique group of women. === Arts, Faculty of === Asian Studies, Department of === Graduate