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What Is The Role Of Civic Engagement In Qing Dynasty

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An Argument in Favor of the Acceptance of the Public/Civic Engagement of Female Poets in the Qing Dynasty

This historical study will argue in favor of the acceptance of the public/civic engagement of the women artist in the Qing Dynasty. During the Qing Dynasty, the devolving role of the courtesans (as poet) provide a new means in which women from the upper classes could promote their poetry and art in the public sphere. Traditionally, the patriarchal role of the male courtesan dominated the field of professional;/public poetry for the royal court. However, royal courtesans declined as the primary source of poetry in favor of female poets partaking in artistic endeavors, such as poetic writings, in a break with historical tradition. In a …show more content…

The decline of the courtesan artist was replaced by the civic agency of women poets during the Qing Dynasty. This was the importance of “qing” as a major source of women’s agency in the engagement of arts outside of the courtesan system:
As courtesan poets were marginalized, respectable gentry women increasingly blossomed and finally replaced courtesans, becoming the dominant figures in the female literary culture of the High Qing (Xu 223-224).
This historical trend defines the declining role of the courtesan as the primary producers of poetry and forms of art at this stage of Chinese history. This courtly development took opened the way for women to become a replacement for this aspect of writing in the poetic arts. In a patriarchal culture, the female poets did not dominate the production of poetry in China, yet they were able to gain access to public./civic engagements that exposed their work to the broader cultural production of art in the Qing Dynasty. The evidence of the decline of courtesans illustrates the cultural change from a predominantly all-male presence of poets in the royal court to a more interactive relationship with female poets from the upper …show more content…

In this manner, Zhangyuan gained access to the patriarchal networking societies of Qing culture, which allowed her the opportunity to publish and establish a poetic legacy. Wang’s commentary on this aspect of female poetry during the Wing is a vital component to the access that women were given during this point of Chinese history: “The classical notion that one’s written word (yan) constitutes one of three means—alongside action and virtue—to achieve posthumous “immortality” was in no way lost on educated women” (Wang, slide number 22 of file). In this manner, certain women were given access to the scholarly networks in the royal court, which allowed them to publish poetry as a countermand to the traditional all-male culture of the arts in the Qing Dynasty. In this manner, this historical study has effectively argued in favor of the acceptance of public/civic engagement of women poets during the Qing

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