Woman writing about women : Li Shuyi (1817-?) and her gendered project

This thesis examines the life and poetry collection of the woman poet Li Shuyi (1817--?) within the context of women's literary culture in late imperial China. In particular, the textuality of Li Shuyi's poetry collection Shuyinglou mingshu baiyong (One Hundred Poems from Shuying Tower on Famous Women) forms the centre of critical analysis, which aims to articulate her gendered intervention into representations of women's image in poetry. The thesis is organized into three interconnected sections: the reconstruction of Li Shuyi's life in order to provide a context to articulate her relationship to writing, a reading of Li Shuyi's self-preface to discuss her motivation to write, and critical analysis of poems according to the three thematic categories of "beauty, talent, and qing ." The thesis demonstrates how a woman author's self-perception leads to her becoming a conscious writing subject, and how this self-realization then motivates her to produce a gendered writing project