Wanton Women in Late-Imperial Chinese Literature

Mark Stevenson, Ph.D. (2000, University of Melbourne) is an Honorary Fellow at Victoria University, Melbourne, and currently teaches Anthropology at the Chinese University of Hong Kong. His publications on sexuality in Chinese history include Homoeroticism in Imperial China (Routledge, 2013). Wu Cuncun, Ph.D. (2002, University of Melbourne) is Associate Professor in Chinese Literature, University of Hong Kong. Her most recent book is Drama Beyond the Drama: The Private Apartment System and Beijing Theatre Culture, 1790-1911 (HKU Press, forthcoming, in Chinese).

Editors’ Preface and Acknowledgements VII
List of Contributors xi

Introduction
Chapter 1 Wanton Women in Late-Imperial Chinese Literature: Models, Genres, Subversions and Traditions 3
Mark Stevenson

Part 1 Wanton Women in History and Fiction
Chapter 2 The Polyandrous Empress: Imperial Women and their Male Favorites 29
Keith McMahon
Chapter 3 The Male Homoerotic Wanton Woman in Late Ming Fiction 54
Mark Stevenson

Part 2 Wanton Women in Drama
Chapter 4 Musical Seductresses, Chauvinistic Men, and Their Erotic Kunqu Discourse 81
Joseph Lam
Chapter 5 Late Ming Urban Life and Wanton Women in Huang Fangyin’s Short Plays 105
Wu Cuncun

Part 3 Women’s Songs and Ballads
Chapter 6 Wanton, but not Bad: Women in Feng Menglong’s Mountain Songs 129
Yasushi Ôki
Chapter 7 Turning the Authorial Table: Women Writing Wanton (Wo)Men, Shame, and Jealousy in Two Qing Tanci 157
Maram Epstein
Chapter 8 Gossip, Scandal, and the Wanton Woman in Chinese Song-cycles 184
Anne McLaren

Index