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This chapter considers how male historians thought about how to write a woman’s life in her biography in eighteenth-century China from both a historiographic and gender perspective. Taking historian Zhang Xuecheng 章學誠 (1738–1801) as a case study, it illustrates his theories on and practice of writing women’s lives, demonstrating that Zhang’s concepts were more than just a retelling of female virtue or a critique of her exemplary deeds. Writing a woman’s biography provided authors and compilers with an opportunity to promote or downplay the female identity and individuality, a contention which is seen in writing formats, appellations of women, and processes of historical verification.

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Theory of Writing Biographies on Women in Eighteenth-Century China: Zhang Xuecheng (1738–1801), Historiography and Gender

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  • 发表日期：

    2025年

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  • Jo-Lan 若蘭 Yi 衣

摘要

This chapter considers how male historians thought about how to write a woman’s life in her biography in eighteenth-century China from both a historiographic and gender perspective. Taking historian Zhang Xuecheng 章學誠 (1738–1801) as a case study, it illustrates his theories on and practice of writing women’s lives, demonstrating that Zhang’s concepts were more than just a retelling of female virtue or a critique of her exemplary deeds. Writing a woman’s biography provided authors and compilers with an opportunity to promote or downplay the female identity and individuality, a contention which is seen in writing formats, appellations of women, and processes of historical verification.