Wang Zhaoyuan

Wang Zhaoyuan (王照圓 ;Shandong, 4 October 1763—1851) was a Chinese female Confucian scholar and writer. Unusually for a woman scholar she was distinguished by her philological scholarship, not poetry.^[1] Her main work consists of annotations to Liu Xiang's (79-8 BCE) Biographies of Exemplary Women (Lienü Zhuan) and the Lives of the Taoist Transcendents (Liexian Zhuan).^[2][3] She also shared Liu Xiang's interest in the interpretation of dreams.^[4]

Works

• Annotations to Liu Hsiang's Liexian Zhuan
• Annotations to Liu Hsiang's Lienü Zhuan
• Book of Dreams (梦书 Meng Shu)

References

1. John Hay Boundaries in China 1994 0948462388 p. 326 "Wang Zhaoyuan (1763-1851), a Shandong woman distinguished by her philological scholarship, not poetry, was a notable exception."
2. Harriet T. Zurndorfer, "Beyond Good Wifehood and Good Scholarship: Wang Zhaoyuan (1763-1851) and the Vanished 'Talented Women,"' in Different Worlds of Discourse: New Views of Gender and Genre in Late Qing and Early Republican China ed. Nanxiu Qian, Grace S. Fong, Richard Joseph Smith 2008 9004167765 p.41: "A Brief Narrative of Wang Zhaoyuan's Life History and Writings Wang was born on the twenty-sixth day of the ninth month in the twenty-eighth year of the Qianlong reign (4 October 1763), in the village of Hebei Fushan county, ..."
3. Anne Behnke Kinney Exemplary Women of Early China: The Lien zhuan of Liu Xiang 2014 "Wang Zhaoyuan understands the phrase “a woman comports herself with propriety and dignity” as meaning that a woman should move straight ahead and not lean or look from side to side. See Wang Zhaoyuan (1763–1851), Lienü zhuan ..."
4. Junjie Huang, Erik J. Zürcher Norms and the State in China Chapter - The Propagation of Female Ideals: p.101