简介：Womenwritersasananalyticalcategoryhassincethelate1990sgainedconsiderabletractioninthestudiesofpre-modernChineseliterature,withtranslations,anthologies,andthematicexplorationssurfacinganeweveryfewyearsineithermonographsoreditedvolumes.Referencetofeministliterarycriticismasananalyticalframework,however,isstillafairlyrecentdevelopment—thatis,untilRonaldEgan’sdefinitiveworkunderreviewhereonthemostwell-knownfemalepoetoftheentireChinesetradition,LiQingzhao李清照(1084-ca.1155).Notonlyisthis11-chapter,422-pagetreatmentofasinglewomanafirstinEnglishscholarship,Egan’stheoreticalstancealsomarksadeparturefromearlierworksthatplacetheirsubjectmattersinamorenativecontext.ThatalonemakesTheBurdenofFemaleTalentamustreadforallstudentsofChineseliterature.Moreover,throughoutthewholebookEganneverallowstheoreticaldiscussiontoovershadowhisfocusedanalysesofLiQingzhaoandthecircumstancesandchallengesshefacedasawomanwriter,thusretainingthedistinctiveappealofthebooktothemoretraditionalreadershipofSinology.Thisisnottodiscount,however,Egan’sconversancewithfeministcriticism;infact,his“substantialdebt”(p.8)toitisveryrecognizable,sincetheunderlyingapproachesarefullysubsumableundermuchofthepreoccupationsandassumptionsoffeministliterarytheory—and,consequently,susceptibletocritiquesofthetheoryingeneral.