Literary Production, Social Bonding, and Women Writers in Yangzhou: Re-Contextualizing Dream of Pear Blossoms (1847)

Abstract

Dream of Pear Blossoms (1847), a play by the Qing Yangzhou woman writer He Peizhu (1819-?), has attracted scholarly attention due to the ambiguity in the gender identity of its female protagonist Du Lanxian. Previous studies situate such ambiguity primarily within a writing tradition among women playwrights, leading to the interpretation of the play as the author’s protest against gender limitations. This paper proposes a change of focus from the play’s textual interpretations to the socio-cultural trends shaping its production - specifically the He family’s strategies of obtaining cultural attention and affirming social bonds through literary production, situated in a vibrant “culture of salt wealth” in contemporary Yangzhou. Recontextualizing the play provides a close-up of the much-discussed cultural metamorphosis of the Hui-Yang mercantile lineages (those that originated from Huizhou and migrated to the great urban center Yangzhou), of which the He family figured as an example. More important, the literary works produced by this family open the door to the rich records of women writers’ social networks and family ties in Yangzhou and the roles these women assumed both in urban cultural events and in their families’ cultural metamorphosis. These records moreover have the potential of bringing to light how the women of the mercantile lineages affiliated with - or, transformed themselves into - the most eminent women writers in the Qing economic and cultural heartland.