Liang Desheng (; 1771–1847) was a Chinese

poet A poet is a person who studies and creates poetry. Poets may describe themselves as such or be described as such by others. A poet may simply be the creator (thought, thinker, songwriter, writer, or author) who creates (composes) poems (oral t ...

and writer active during the

Qing Dynasty The Qing dynasty ( ), officially the Great Qing, was a Manchu-led Dynasties of China, imperial dynasty of China and an early modern empire in East Asia. The last imperial dynasty in Chinese history, the Qing dynasty was preceded by the ...

. She was the wife of Xu Zongyan, a prominent intellectual from

Hangzhou Hangzhou, , Standard Mandarin pronunciation: ; formerly romanized as Hangchow is a sub-provincial city in East China and the capital of Zhejiang province. With a population of 13 million, the municipality comprises ten districts, two counti ...

. Since her sister died young, Liang Desheng acted as a surrogate mother for her niece Wang Duan, who would become an editor. Both of them were also friends with another female poet, Gu Taiqing. Liang Desheng wrote the final three volumes of the ''tan-ci'' ''Zai sheng Yuan''. The first seventeen volumes had been written by Chen Duansheng, but she had died before she could complete the work. There were more women who tried their hand at writing a conclusion to the book, but hers was considered superior. It is now regularly printed together with the first seventeen volumes. It was first published in 1821 and deals with the affairs of three families in the Yunnan province, during the early Qing Dynasty. She also published a collection of poetry, ''Guchunxian ji'' (Poems from Ancient-Springtime Studio) Translations of her poems are available in several collections. See the translation by Nancy Hodes and Tung Yuan-fang,''Women Writers of Traditional China: An Anthology of Poetry and Criticism,'' edited by Kang-i Sun Chang and Haun Saussy. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1999, pp.574-577.

References

Ying Zou, "Crossdressing and other Disguises in Zaishengyuan," ''Late Imperial China'' 33:3 (2012) 119–153. Li Guo, ''Women's Tanci Fiction in Late Imperial and Early Twentieth Century China,'' West Lafayette, Indiana: Purdue University Press, 2015, chapter 1 "Envisioning a Nascent Feminist Agency in ''Zaishengyuan''," pp. 33–59. {{DEFAULTSORT:Liang Desheng Qing dynasty poets Chinese women poets 19th-century Chinese women writers 1771 births 1847 deaths Writers from Hangzhou 18th-century Chinese women writers Poets from Zhejiang 18th-century Chinese poets 19th-century Chinese poets