Writers › Writer / Poet
Gu Taiqing
Manchu poet of the Xilin Gioro clan, secondary consort of Prince Yihui, whose ci lyrics fill the Fisherman's Songs of the Eastern Sea and who wrote a Red Chamber sequel
In a study at night, a desk holds a brush pot, a porcelain vase with a plum branch, a lit red lantern, a folded fan and an unrolled blank scroll, with no one seated there, while through a round window the moon rises over a lake with a sailboat.
Also known as Chun · Mei Xian · Tai Qing
- Roles
- Writer / Poet
Gu Taiqing was born in 1799 into the Manchu Xilin Gioro clan of the Bordered Blue Banner, with the personal name Chun and the courtesy name Meixian. Her grandfather Echang, a nephew of the statesman Ortai, had been forced to kill himself over the Hu Zhongzao poetry case, and the family declined. Around 1824 she married the beile Yihui, grandson of Prince Rong, as a secondary consort, entering his household under the borrowed surname Gu. The couple exchanged poems constantly, and she kept up a circle of women poets in the capital. After Yihui died in 1838 she and her children were made to leave the mansion. Her ci lyrics, Fisherman's Songs of the Eastern Sea (Donghai yuge), and her poems, Collection of the Pavilion of Heavenly Wandering (Tianyouge ji), survive, and as Yuncha Waishi she wrote the novel Shadows of the Red Chamber (Honglou mengying). A saying pairs her with Nalan Xingde as the leading Manchu lyricists among women and men.
Life and times
Dates 1799 CE–1877 CE