Intimate Memory by Huang Martin W

Author:Huang, Martin W.
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: State University of New York Press
Published: 2018-08-14T16:00:00+00:00

SELF-VINDICATION AND A NEW AESTHETIC OF CONCUBINAGE

Li Yu’s contemporary Mao Xiang, much more serious about his memories of his deceased concubine, was in many ways more innovative and more elaborate in writing about her. After his concubine, Dong Xiaowan, a former courtesan, died at the age of twenty-seven, Mao Xiang first wrote a long eulogy in verse titled “Wangji Dong Xiaowan aici” 亡姬董小宛哀辭 (In Mourning of My Deceased Concubine Dong Xiaowan) to commemorate her, in which he explicitly argued that he married Dong Xiaowan, the former courtesan, for her virtue rather than her sexual appeal, and he was definitely not a lecherous man, or in his own pleading words, “The reader of this eulogy should know that Mr. Dengtu is not a lecherous man” (shi zhi du chi zhe, dang zhi Dengtu zi fei haose zhe ye 世之讀此者，當知登徒子非好色者也.20 Made famous in “Dengtu zi haose fu” 登徒子好色賦 (Rhapsody on Mr. Dengtu’s Lecherousness), attributed to the writer Song Yu 宋玉 (ca. 229–ca. 222 BC), the figure of Mr. Dengtu had become almost synonymous with a lecher in classical literature. In this rhapsody, to defend himself against the accusation made by Mr. Dengtu that he was a lecherous man, who might seduce the palace ladies of the King of the Chu, Song Yu questioned Mr. Dengtu’s own moral character by saying that the latter had five children with his wife despite her utter ugliness.21 However, Mao Xiang seems to have argued against the grain by implying that despite the traditional association of Mr. Dengtu with lecherousness (a figure Li Yu had readily compared himself to in the previously discussed biography for his love for young and pretty women when he was offered his future concubine Fusheng),22 he was actually a man of moral integrity. The reader is invited to question Song Yu’s somewhat farfetched moral logic that Mr. Dengtu was a lecherous man because his sexual desire was so strong that he slept with his wife despite her ugliness (they had five children together). On the contrary, Mr. Dengtu was not lecherous precisely because he properly fulfilled his role as a husband despite his wife being so unattractive. By the same token, marrying a famous courtesan, such as Dong Xiaowan, an act that had caused people to compare him to Mr. Dengtu, by no means indicated that Mao Xiang was a lecherous man because he married her for her virtue rather than her sexual appeal, just as Mr. Dengtu still loved his wife even though she was quite ugly. Mao Xiang seems to suggest that he was misunderstood as “lecherous,” just as Mr. Dengtu had been for almost two thousand years; thus, there was a more urgent need for self-vindication in an even lengthier memoir, this time in the form of prose, which should afford him much more space to make his case.

Mao Xiang starts his long memoir with an important disclaimer: at the age of forty, this grieving husband would never imitate those dissipated youths to write an amorous tale to harm the reputation of his deceased concubine, who happened to be a former courtesan.

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