Articulated ladies

the long version

"It is a commonplace of Chinese literary history that elite, male authors wrote in the voice of women to comment on their own lives, particularly in the context of their public lives and their relationship to the ruler. In a series of essays on elite, male-authored literary texts dating from roughly 200 B.C. until A.D. 1000, Paul Rouzer analyzes the representation of gender and desire in traditional China and explores the ways in which educated men wrote both about and as women. The essays focus on what these writings can tell us not only about gender relations but also about the ways in which these male authors attempted to define themselves and their place in the political and social world."--BOOK JACKET.