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Yu Xuanji

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Name
  
Yu Xuanji

Role
  
Poet


Died
  
869 AD

Books
  
The clouds float north

Yu Xuanji Badass Ladies of Chinese History Yu Xuanji The World of

魚玄機 By 兔裹煎蛋卷 Yu Xuanji (原曲:濱崎步-Jewel)


Yu Xuanji (simplified Chinese: 鱼玄机; traditional Chinese: 魚玄機; pinyin: Yú Xuánjī; Wade–Giles: Yü Hsüan-chi, approximate dates 844–868/869), courtesy names Youwei (Chinese: 幼微; pinyin: Yòuwēi) and Huilan (simplified Chinese: 蕙兰; traditional Chinese: 蕙蘭; pinyin: Huìlán), was a Chinese poet and courtesan of the late Tang dynasty, from Chang'an. She was one of the most famous women poets of Tang, along with Xue Tao, her fellow courtesan.

Contents

Yu Xuanji Yu Xuanji Poetry Obscured in Silken Dress All China

Her family name, Yu, is relatively rare. Her given name, Xuanji, means something like "Profound Theory" or "Mysterious Principle," and is a technical term in Daoism and Buddhism. "Yòuwēi" means something like "Young and Tiny;" and, Huìlán refers to a species of fragrant orchid. She is distinctive for the quality of her poems, including many written in what seems to be a remarkably frank and direct autobiographical style; that is, using her own voice rather than speaking through a persona.

Yu Xuanji Two Love Letters by the Tang poetess Yu Xuanji YouTube

Two love letters by the tang poetess yu xuanji


Biography

Yu Xuanji httpsuploadwikimediaorgwikipediacommonsthu

Little trustworthy information is known about the relatively short life of Yu Xuanji. She was born or grew up in Tang capital Chang'an, which was the terminus of the Silk Road and one of the most sophisticated cities of its time. Yu was married as a concubine, or lesser wife, to an official named Li Yi (simplified Chinese: 李亿; traditional Chinese: 李億; pinyin: Lǐ Yì) at 16, and after separating three years later she became a courtesan and a Daoist nun. She was a fellow of Wen Tingyun, to whom she addressed a number of poems. She died early, at the age of 26 to 28. Apart from names and dates in her poems, the tabloid-style Little Tablet from the Three Rivers, (三水小牘), gives the only purported facts about her life, although these are salacious in detail: that she had an affair with Wen Tingyun, lived a scandalously promiscuous life, and was executed for allegedly beating her maid to death. This account is considered semi-legendary, and may be a reflection of the traditional distrust of women who were strong-willed and sexually independent.

Poetry

Yu Xuanji was a late Tang dynasty poet. In her lifetime, her poems were published as a collection called Fragments of a Northern Dreamland, which has been lost. The forty-nine surviving poems were collected in the Song Dynasty mainly for their freak value in an anthology that also included poems from ghosts and foreigners.

English translations

Published in 1998, her work was translated by the team of David Young and Jiann I. Lin. In the 2000s, her work was translated by Stephen Owen and Justin Hill.

References

Yu Xuanji Wikipedia


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