Pan Yue's 'Study of a Widow' and Its Predecessors

摘要

This article is a case study in the intertextuality of early medieval Chinese poetry, where the imitation of and allusion to earlier works is the focus of the author's craft and the catalyst of literature's emotional power. The study proceeds by analyzing the intertextual relation between a late third-century fu 賦 about a widow and its early third-century predecessors, showing how they are linked both by generic constraints and direct allusion and imitation, all of which together tend to create in these works a limiting formality and artificiality. Yet their very formality assists in the expression of emotion and the constitution of authorial subjectivity. Finally, two modern counterparts with their own allusive relationship shed further light on the literary representation of widowhood.