The Late-Ming Poet Ch'En Tzu-Lung: Crises of Love and Loyalism

Ch'en Tzu-lung (1608-1647) was a Ming loyalist and poet who joined the resistance against the Manchu invasion of the 1640's and died a martyr to the cause. Giving imaginative expression to his experience of national crisis, his poetic writing established him in China as an exemplar of moral courage and literary accomplishment. A consequence of his heroic status is that a crucial concern of his poetry, namely, romantic love, has been largely neglected by scholars. This Kang-i Sun Chang focuses on Ch'en's poetry and establishes a connection between his love poetry and his loyalist writings. Chang argues that an appreciation of his love poetry is vital to a full understanding of the more celebrated loyalist poems, and demonstrates the broader implications for poetic genre in this era. She also discusses Ch'en's lover, the captivating and accomplished woman poet Liu Shih, shedding light onto the life of 17th century Chinese women. The book includes numerous translations of poems by