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Yu Xuanji was a pretty remarkable, if short-lived, poet active during the reign of the Tang dynasty. In this article I’ll try to briefly summarize her life, career and body of work - with a particular emphasis on the proposal that one of her poems might indicate that in addition to her evident enthusiasm for romances with male literati, she might have been attracted to women as well.
I’ll also look at an unusual Japanese short story from 1915 which portrays Yu Xuanji as attracted to both men and women - and will try to explain why this has more to do with the author’s contemporary Hiratsuka Raichō than any episode from Yu Xuanji’s life.
This article is part 1 of my fashionably late pride month special for this year; stay tuned for part 2, A wlw (women-loving wu) in the Han court? Chen Jiao and Chu Fu between fact and fiction.
Yu Huilan: Yu Xuanji’s life
A portrait of Yu Xuanji from the eighteenth century (wikimedia commons).
The poetic career of Yu Xuanji (魚玄機) was short and tumultuous (Suzanne Cahill, Material Culture and the Dao: Textiles, Boats, and Zithers in the Poetry of Yu Xuanji (844-868), p. 102). She has been recognized as “perhaps the most sophisticated and daring female poet of the Tang” by modern researchers (Bret Hinsch, Women in Tang China, p. 102) and as an “idiosyncratic” writer (ibidem, p. 129).
Fittingly, her family name, which literally means “fish”, is uncommon and unusual. Her personal name means something along the lines of “mysterious luck” or perhaps “dark secret” (David Young, Jiann L. Lin (trans.), The Clouds Float North: The Complete Poems of Yu Xuanji, p. IX). It might not actually be her original name, though - it’s possible she was originally named Huilan (蕙蘭; “orchid”), which was one of the most common feminine names at the time. Xuanji might’ve been a name she assumed upon being ordained, presumably alongside her courtesy name Yaowei (幼薇), “deep and subtle” (Jinhua Jia, Gender, Power, and Talent: the Journey of Daoist Priestesses in Tang China, p. 166).
Xuanji most likely hailed from a commoner family (ibidem, p. 166-167). She is frequently described as a courtesan both in historical and contemporary sources. However, according to Jinhua Jia this claim is not attested before Song period, and has to be placed in the context of efforts to brand her as uniquely licentious and immoral (ibidem, p. 164).
She became the concubine of the scholar and official Li Yi (李億) at some point during the reign of emperor Yizong of Tang, ie. no earlier than in 860. She was apparently quite happy with this arrangement, and accompanied him as he moved between provincial offices in modern Hubei and Shanxi. It seems the relationship fell apart when Li Yi returned to the capital in 866. The reasons are unclear; it’s possible that one of them simply lost interest by then. However, it has also been suggested that Li Yi’s primary wife wasn’t fond of Yu Xuanji, and might have convinced him to abandon her (ibidem, p. 167-170).
Around the same time, Xuanji got ordained as a Daoist priestess (ibidem, p. 170). She resided in the Xianyi convent (咸宜觀), named in honor of princess Xianyi, who funded the construction of most of its buildings upon her ordination in 762. It was a traditional destination for female relatives of officials residing in Chang’an who decided to enter the clergy. Xuanji might have been allowed to enter it due to her earlier relationship with Li Yi (Ibidem, p. 14-15).
Wen Tingyun (wikimedia commons).
In the following years, Xuanji apparently engaged in (or at least tried to engage in) affairs with a number of poets and officials. In poems inspired by those events she frequently cast herself in the role of a seductive immortal, or compared herself to famous literary lovers. Perhaps most notably, she also exchanged letters with Wen Tingyun (温庭筠). Later literature at times alleged they were lovers, but no poems written by either of them actually indicate that. It’s possible they were initially introduced to each other by Yi, who was Tingyun’s friend. As pointed out by Jinhua Jia, Tingyun doesn’t really fit the image of Xuanji’s desired lover - men mentioned in her love poetry were generally young and handsome; in contrast, he was 40 years her senior and contemporaries regarded him as uniquely hideous. It’s therefore distinctly possible that the two were really just friends (ibidem, p. 169-170).
Xuanji’s religious career only lasted for around two years, as she was supposedly executed in 868 after killing her maid Lüqiao (綠翹) in a fit of jealously (ibidem, p. 171-172). It has been argued that this might be why her poetry managed to reach a bigger audience with time. The late Tang public was in all due likeness generally unaware of her activities in life. However, it’s very likely that the news of the execution of a homicidal clergywoman would make rounds far and wide, indirectly attracting attention to her earlier endeavors too (Women in…, p. 102-103).
There’s a problem, though - it has been argued that the amount of dramatic detail in accounts of Yu’s death is suspect. The whole story might originate in the Tang dynasty equivalent of modern tabloid press. Doubts have been raised about the authenticity of the entire episode as a result (The Clouds…, p, IX-X). Suzanne E. Cahill states that the story was “never satisfactorily proved”, for instance (Transcendence…, p. 234). Other proponents of dismissing it argue that it fits the pattern of narratives representing independent women as dangerous and immoral (Kang-i Sun Chang, Haun Saussy, Women Writers of Traditional China: An Anthology of Poetry and Criticism, p. 67). Granted, those doubts are themselves questioned at times. The possibility that the event did occur but Xuanji didn’t actually intend to kill Lüqiao has been raised, too (Gender, Power…, p. 172).
Yu Yaowei: Yu Xuanji’s works
A portrait of Yu Xuanji by the Qing dynasty painted Gai Qi (wikimedia commons).
As illustrated by the previous section, ultimately very little can be said about Yu Xuanji’s life with certainty. The exception is what’s conveyed in her own poems (The Clouds…, p, IX). Luckily, there’s no shortage of them.
It’s estimated that around a quarter of her body of work has survived (Material Culture…, p. 102). 49 of her poems have been collected in the Tang nülang Yu Xuanji ji (唐女郎魚玄機集), which in turn is preserved in multiple Song anthologies. The compilers of the Qing collection Quan Tangshi (全唐詩) supplemented it with a further fully preserved poem, discovered in the Wenyuan Yinghua (文苑英華) and four fragments from the Tangshi Jishi (唐詩紀事), bringing the total of Xuanji’s works known today to 54 (Gender, Power…, p. 258).
It’s assumed that the inclusion of Xuanji’s poems in various anthologies must’ve at least partially reflected a desire to gather all sorts of curiosities alongside “regular” poetry (ie. poetry written by men of specific social standing). Poems written by women (as well as foreigners and, surprisingly, clergymen) were generally treated as an oddity similar to those attributed to ghosts or foxes (The Clouds…, p. X).
It should be noted that despite her poems' frequent classification in anthologies, Xuanji was not entirely an outlier. There are multiple other female poets from the Tang period who happened to be Daoist clergywomen. A slightly earlier example is Li Ye (李冶). At the peak of her fame she was invited to visit the court of emperor Daizong - which she apparently didn’t enjoy; she reportedly found the palace life tedious. Her career was cut short after she was forced to write poetry disparaging the Tang dynasty during the short-lived rebellion of Zhu Ci (朱泚). After Zhu Ci’s defeat, she was executed for treason (Women in…, p. 103).
Still, Xuanji stands out thanks to her unique style. She had limited respect for traditional decorum; one of her poems purposely startles the reader with a shocking final line in which the lovesick lyrical self declares that “amidst the flowers, silently my guts are sliced”. The gory imagery would be quite shocking to the Tang audience, but then so would be the fact that the lyrical self does not just passively accept the absence of a lover, and instead opts to seethe in anger (Women in…, p. 102).
Another of her poems is focused on voicing frustration with being unable to take the imperial examination due to her gender. Interestingly, she focuses on the way she had to dress as the cause of this misfortune; it is merely the feminine style of clothing that results in her literary talent being overlooked (Material Culture…, p. 104-105). The frustrations voiced in this poem were quite novel, and arguably ahead of their time - no other instances of women writing they wish they could take the imperial examination are recorded before the Ming and Qing periods (Gender, Power…, p. 185).
Furthermore, in some of her poems Xuanji cast herself in a masculine role. For example, she expressed the wish to become a butterfly seeking flowers, usually a poetic metaphor for a man seeking relationships or visiting brothels. In this case, the target of her affection was a man - specifically Li Yi. The use of similar masculine language might reflect a desire to become a part of the world of male literati. It’s particularly significant that the metaphor occurs in a poem which also documents her interest in traveling, seeing marvelous landscapes and drinking wine - pastimes typical for the aforementioned group (ibidem, p. 173-174). This specific reuse of a traditional metaphor was already praised by Ming critics such as Huang Zongxi (黃宗羲) who recognized it as remarkably novel and erotic (ibidem, p. 175).
A further point of interest is that five of Xuanji’s surviving poems are addressed to other women, either to fellow members of Daoist clergy or to courtesans (Gender, Power…, p. 162). White caution is necessary, it seems that with the exception of one or two examples from the reign of the Southern Liang dynasty, the poetry of Xuanji and her contemporaries - mostly fellow Daoist clergywomen - does appear to mark the first time women wrote poetry about and for other women (Women in…, p. 129). As a matter of fact, it has been recently suggested that while it was previously believed a distinct “women’s literary culture” only emerged in China in the seventeenth century, its roots might actually to be sought in Tang monasteries at least to a degree (Gender, Power…, p. 162-163).
Out of the poems addressed to other women, one stands out - Guang, Wei, and Pou are three sisters, orphaned when young and accomplished from the beginning. Now they have written these poems, so essential and pure that they are hard to match. How could even the linked verses from the Xie household add to them? There was a stranger coming from the capital city who showed them to me. Consequently, I put these rhymes in order (Material Culture…, p. 120-121):
At first glance, aside from its lengthy title the poem isn’t all that remarkable. It actually had minimal impact on Tang poetry at large (Women in…, p. 129). However, it attracted considerable attention in scholarship over the course of the past few decades, as it might be a unique example of a lesbian love poem. As far as I can tell, the first academic publication to propose this was Suzanne Cahill’s 1993 Transcendence & Divine Passion: the Queen Mother of the West in Medieval China (Transcendence…, p. 235). According to Cahill’s interpretation, Xuanji’s attraction to the three sisters is reflected in the use of phrases well attested as sexual euphemisms, such as references to rain and blowing the syrinx. Furthermore, Xi Wangmu might be invoked to act as a matchmaker between her and the sisters, just as she would be for straight couples (Material Culture…, p. 122).
Cahill’s proposal has been adopted by a number of other authors, including Bret Hinsch (Women in…, p. 129) and Li Guo (Writing Gender in Early Modern Chinese Women's Tanci Fiction, p. 77), though it has to be stressed it’s not accepted unanimously. For instance, Jinhua Jia states that she has doubts about whether the poem Cahill depended on can be interpreted as a display of Yu’s attraction to women (Gender, Power…, p. 263). However, she doesn’t explore the topic further.
It certainly doesn’t help with making a final verdict that we don’t really know how women attracted to other women would express their desires in Xuanji’s times, or in most other periods of Chinese history. No sources written by them are available (Liang Shi, Mirror Rubbing: A Critical Genealogy of Pre-Modern Chinese Female Same-Sex Eroticism, p. 753). All of the available accounts of relationships between women come from texts written by men (ibidem, p. 767).
Personally I found the arguments of Cahill and authors following her interpretation compelling. However, it needs to be stressed that the possibility that she was attracted to women doesn’t automatically mean it was a central concern in her poetry, nor should she be labeled as the first attested wlw in Chinese history, as is sometimes claimed online.
Empress Chen (with no crossdressing WLWizards in sight; wikimedia commons).
Li Guo argues that the earliest example of a reference to a relationship between women is an affair between empress Chen (陳) and the crossdressing “shaman” (女巫, nüwu) Chu Fu (楚服) from the Hanwu Gushi (漢武故事; “Precedents of Emperor Wu of Han”). The same period also yields a number of references to dushi (對食), literally “paired eating” (a possible allusion to oral sex), apparently to be understood as relationships between women (Li Guo, Writing Gender in Early Modern Chinese Women's Tanci Fiction, p. 77). I will explore this topic in more detail in a second pride month special, stay tuned.
Gyo Genki: Yu Xuanji’s afterlife
Interestingly, even before the academic debate about Yu Xuanji’s sexuality, there was a semi-biographical work about her which portrayed her as attracted to both men and women.
There’s a fair number of modern works dealing with her life - for instance, in 1984, Eddie Fong’s movie An Amorous Woman of the Tang Dynasty (唐朝豪放女; Tangchao haofangnü) was released by the Brothers Shaw studio. Four episodes of the 1988 TV series Those Famous Women in Chinese History (歷代奇女子, Lidai qinüzi) are focused on her, too (Gender, Power…, p. 258). However, the first one to explore her orientation is surprisingly both earlier and from outside China.
Mori Ōgai in 1916 (wikimedia commons).
In 1915, the Japanese writer and playwright Mori Ōgai (森鷗外) published the short story Gyo Genki (the Japanese reading of Yu Xuanji’s name; Atsuko Sakaki, Obsessions with the Sino-Japanese Polarity in Japanese Literature, p. 106). Prior to that, Yu Xuanji wasn’t really a well known figure in Japan, in contrast with many other Tang poets (ibidem, p. 210).
Mori ostensibly depended on multiple historical sources dealing with Yu Xuanji’s life - they are even listed as a bibliography of sorts at the end of his story. Allusions are made to many events from her life mentioned in the earlier sections of this article - her poetic career, her frustration at inability to partake in civil service exam, and so on (ibidem, p. 129-131).
However, Mori also took many liberties. Li Yi’s role is considerably reduced, and the relationship between him and Yu Xuanji is explicitly not consummated. As a matter of fact, her unwillingness to do so is presented as the reason why she was sent to live in a Daoist temple instead (ibidem, p. 131-132). The friendship between Yu Xuanji and Wen Tingyun is also presented with some liberties - for instance, in the story the two met when Yu was still a teenager (ibidem, p. 128).
Most importantly from the perspective of the article, Mori describes an affair between Yu Xuanji and another woman. The episode actually has nothing to do with the poem discussed earlier, though. Instead of three sisters, a fellow Daoist practitioner is involved. It’s generally agreed that this is pure literary fiction (ibidem, p. 132). Mori loosely based it on the poem Presented To the Girl Next Door, which doesn’t actually imply any affairs with women (ibidem, p. 217):
For what it’s worth, it’s quite plausible that it was addressed to another woman who lived in the Xianyi convent, at least. It might’ve been intended as advice in heartbreak. Yu Xuanji seems to be suggesting that due to her relatively independent status as a Daoist priestess, her associate could simply seek a new lover. She invokes the names of men who would be recognizable to a contemporary reader as archetypal charming lovers - the famously handsome third century BCE poet Song Yu (宋玉) and Wang Chang (王昶), a recurring character in love songs - to essentially tell the recipient that sky’s the limit for her (Gender, Power…, p. 180-181).
Hiratsuka Raichō (wikimedia commons).
Ultimately this section of the story owes its existence to something completely unrelated to Yu Xuanji, though. Gyo Genki was written with a specific purpose in mind - it’s not-so-covert praise for Mori’s friend, the feminist writer Hiratsuka Raichō (平塚 らいちょう), founder of the literary magazine Seitō (青鞜; “bluestocking”). The invented lesbian affair is likely meant to reflect the romance between Hiratsuka and her associate Otake Kokichi (尾竹紅吉). Mori was well familiar with the latter, as she frequently delivered Hiratsuka’s requests for articles for her journal to him (Obsessions…, p. 132).
Similarly, the portrayal of Wen Tingyun in the story is meant to reflect Mori’s own friendship with Hiratsuka (ibidem, p. 128). According to her later essay Ōgai Sensei (published in 1962), in contrast with many of his contemporaries, Mori was not opposed to Hiratsuka’s progressive views. Evidently he didn’t see her relationships as an obstacle in recognizing her talent, either. Presumably he opted to portray her as Yu Xuanji first and foremost due to similarities he saw between their shared status as outsiders from the literary mainstream of their respective periods (ibidem, p. 132-134).
The fact that decades after Mori published his story it turned out that one of Xuanji’s poems might document an interest in women is thus purely a coincidence. He just got unusually lucky with picking a historical personage to use for a story primarily meant as covert commentary on contemporary events. While often held to be an exclusively modern phenomenon in online discourse, the use of historical settings and figures to tell stories about contemporary issues would be hardly uncommon in his times - and in many other time periods and parts of the world. In this case, it retroactively became a bit more accurate than the author probably intended.
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