Shen Shanbao (沈善宝, 1808–1862) courtesy name Xiangpei 湘佩 and style name Xihu sanren 西湖散人 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 is the author of the ''Mingyuan Shihua,'' which provided biographical material on 500 Qing women poets, including herself.
Biography
She was born in
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 ...
, which in the early nineteenth century was a center for women artists and writers. Shen's father committed suicide in 1819 and her mother died in 1832. She sold her paintings and poetry to support herself. In 1837, in a marriage arranged by her foster mother, she married Wu Lingyun 武凌云, a high official and holder of the jinshi degree (the highest civil service degree). She was Wu's second wife; upon her marriage she became stepmother to his children. After her marriage to Wu, she moved to
Beijing
Beijing, Chinese postal romanization, previously romanized as Peking, is the capital city of China. With more than 22 million residents, it is the world's List of national capitals by population, most populous national capital city as well as ...
.
In Beijing, Shen made contact with a circle of women writers, including
Liang Desheng, Xu Yunjiang, Xu Zongyan,
Gu Taiqing, Gong Zihang (the sister of Gong Zichen) and Li Peijin. She was also important as a teacher; she was known to have more than a hundred female disciples.
[Widmer, ''The Beauty and the Book,'' pp.157-58, citing Deng Hong Mei 邓红梅, ''Nüxing cishi'' 女性词史, Ji'nan: Shandong jiaoshi chubanshe, 2000, p.391.] She was also friends with the writer Ding Pei, who wrote a preface for her first poetry collection in 1836.
Some of her work has been translated into English.
See also
*
Qing poetry
Qing poetry refers to the poetry of or typical of the Qing dynasty (1644–1911). Classical Chinese poetry continued to be the major poetic form of the Qing dynasty, during which the debates, trends and widespread literacy of the Ming period began ...
Notes
References
Sources
"Fong Embroidery Paper", Columbia University, last accessed June 9, 2007*Wang Lijian王力堅, ''Qingdai caiyuan Shen Shanbao yanjiu'',清代才媛沈善寳研究 (A Study of the Qing Poet Shan Shanbao) Taipei: Liren shuju, 2009.
External links
* Texts of her poems and references to her (in Chinese) appear i
Ming Qing Women Writers Database
{{DEFAULTSORT:Shen, Shanbao
1808 births
1862 deaths
Chinese women poets
Qing dynasty poets
19th-century Chinese women writers
Poets from Zhejiang
19th-century Chinese poets
Writers from Hangzhou