Outspoken Women:A Diachronic Cross-Textual Study on Stories of Silver-tongued Li Cuilian
In ancient Chinese society,female"loquacity"became a conventional taboo.Within this context of ritual-istic social norms,women were expected to uphold silence as a virtue,and excessive verbal expression was believed to bring disadvantage to marriage,thereby subjecting women to pressures from various sources in terms of self-expression.The Tang Dynasty Dunhuang story poem The Tale of Ya Qia(齖䶗书)first portrayed the image of a fierce and outspoken new bride,breaking the mold of traditional female silence.Evolving from The Tale of Ya Qia,the Song and Yuan Dy-nasty folk story-telling script Stories of Silver-tongued Li Cuilian depicted Li Cuilian,a clever and capable but outspoken bride who rebelled against social norms,leading to her divorce.This portrayal marked the inception of the bold and out-spoken female archetype,shaping the dominant characteristic of outspokenness in the discourse of female subjectivity.Subsequently,there have been many diachronic cross-textual works such as precious scrolls,ballads,vernacular novels,modern novels,dramas,and folk art forms,which have enriched the literary and cultural connotations of the Li Cuilian character through various transformations,adaptations,reversals,reorganizations,and innovations.
Stories of Silver-tongued Li CuilianThe Tale of Ya QiaStory-telling ScriptOutspokenCross-Text
NETL
NSTL
万方数据
